"We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.'' Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man
Fred Gifford (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh). Dr. Gifford is Professor of Philosophy and Faculty Associate in the Center for Ethics, Humanities and the Life Sciences at Michigan State University. He regularly teaches courses in philosophy of science and technology, bioethics and research ethics. He has published several articles on research ethics, especially the ethics of randomized clinical trials. He has been a member of MSU’s IRB for many years, and he has been a member of several data and safety monitoring boards at NIH.
Ethical Issues in Enhancement Research
Assuming we will have and endorse various enhancements (in part on grounds that individuals should be able to make such choices), it will be important to have reliable evidence of their safety and efficacy. A well-known set of principles and controversies exist concerning the ethics of human experimentation concerning the safety and efficacy of therapies: placebos, fair subject selection, worries about exploitation, barriers to consent such as the “therapeutic misconception”, etc. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which these insights apply as well to the context of testing the safety and efficacy of enhancement regimens.
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