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Related Experiment Video

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A Naturalistic Setup for Presenting Real People and Live Actions in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Studies

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Defending human enhancement technologies: unveiling normativity.

Inmaculada de Melo-Martín¹

¹Division of Medical Ethics, Department of Public Health, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065, USA. imd2001@med.cornell.edu

Journal of Medical Ethics

|July 29, 2010

Summary

Ethical arguments for human enhancement technologies are insufficient if they only consider risks and benefits. A robust defense requires evaluating the technology's ends and means, not just its outcomes.

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Area of Science:

Biotechnology
Bioethics
Human Enhancement

Background:

Recent biotechnological advancements raise ethical questions about human enhancement.
Current moral arguments often focus narrowly on the risks and benefits of these technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

To argue that risk-benefit analyses alone are insufficient for a robust ethical defense of human enhancement technologies.
To identify the flawed assumptions underlying risk-benefit-centric ethical evaluations.

Main Methods:

Philosophical analysis of ethical argumentation.
Critique of reductionist approaches to bioethics.
Examination of the relationship between risk assessment, value judgments, and ethical evaluation.

Main Results:

Ethical evaluations limited to risk-benefit assessments are insufficient.
Risk assessments inherently involve value judgments, challenging their neutrality.
A narrow focus on risk management reduces ethics to a technical problem, ignoring broader moral considerations.

Conclusions:

A comprehensive ethical defense of human enhancement requires more than a simple risk-benefit calculation.
Evaluating the ends and means of enhancement technologies is crucial for a robust ethical framework.
Moving beyond a risk management model is essential for adequate ethical appraisal.