Enhancing Who? Enhancing What? Ethics, Bioethics, and Transhumanism
Creator
Koch, Tom
Bibliographic Citation
The Journal of medicine and philosophy 2010 Dec; 35(6): 685-99
Abstract
Transhumanists advance a "posthuman" condition in which technological and genetic enhancements will transform humankind. They are joined in this goal by bioethicists arguing for genetic selection as a means of "enhancing evolution," improving if not also the species then at least the potential lives of future individuals. The argument of both, this paper argues, is a new riff on the old eugenics tune. As ever, it is done in the name of science and its presumed knowledge base. As ever, the result is destructive rather than instructive, bad faith promoted as high ideal. The paper concludes with the argument that species advancement is possible but in a manner thoroughly distinct from that advanced by either of these groups.
Date
2010-12Collections
Metadata
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