Bostrom and Savulescu Issue “Human Enhancement” Collection

Feb 5, 2009

We are pleased to announce the release of “Human Enhancement”, edited by IEET Chair Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, with contributions from many important leaders in bioethics, including Arthur Caplan and Peter Singer.

Edited by Julian Savulescu and Nick Bostrom

  ISBN: 978-0-19-929972-0

  Publisher: Oxford University Press (22 January 2009)

To what extent should we use technology to try to make better human beings? Because of the remarkable advances in biomedical science, we must now find an answer to this question.

Human enhancement aims to increase human capacities above normal levels. Many forms of human enhancement are already in use. Many students and academics take cognition enhancing drugs to get a competitive edge. Some top athletes boost their performance with legal and illegal substances. Many an office worker begins each day with a dose of caffeine. This is only the beginning. As science and technology advance further, it will become increasingly possible to enhance basic human capacities to increase or modulate cognition, mood, personality, and physical performance, and to control the biological processes underlying normal aging. Some have suggested that such advances would take us beyond the bounds of human nature.

These trends, and these dramatic prospects, raise profound ethical questions. They have generated intense public debate and have become a central topic of discussion within practical ethics. Should we side with bioconservatives, and forgo the use of any biomedical interventions aimed at enhancing human capacities? Should we side with transhumanists and embrace the new opportunities? Or should we perhaps plot some middle course?

Human Enhancement presents the latest moves in this crucial debate: original contributions from many of the world’s leading ethicists and moral thinkers, representing a wide range of perspectives, advocates and sceptics, enthusiasts and moderates. These are the arguments that will determine how humanity develops in the near future.


Contents
           
              Introduction: Human Enhancement Ethics: The State of the Debate - Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu
             
              Part I - Human Enhancement in General

           
1. Can anyone really be talking about ethically modifying human nature?                                     
Norman Daniels
                         
2. "Alter-ing" Human Nature? Misplaced Essentialism in Science Policy            
Eric Jeungst
                         
3. Should We Improve Human Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian Perspective                          
Ryuichi Ida
                         
4. The Case Against Perfection: What’s wrong with designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering                          
Michael Sandel
                         
5. What Is And Is Not Wrong With Enhancement?                         
Frances Kamm
                         
6. Enhancements Are A Moral Obligation                          
John Harris
                         
7. Playing God                          
C.A.J. Coady
                         
8. Toward a More Fruitful Debate about Enhancement                          
Erik Parens
                         
9. Good, Better, or Best?                         
Arthur L. Caplan
                         
10. The Human Prejudice and the Moral Status of Enhanced Beings: What Do We Owe the Gods?                         
Julian Savulescu                        
          Part II Specific Enhancements
           
11. Is Selection of Children Wrong?                       
Dan W. Brock
                       
12. Parental Choice and Human Improvement                        
Peter Singer
                       
13. Reasons Against the Selection of Life: From Japan’s Experience of Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis                        
Susumu Shimazono
                       
14. Medical Enhancement and the Ethos of Elite Sport - Torbjörn Tännsjö
                       
15. Life Enhancement Technologies And the Significance of Social Category Membership                        
Christine Overall
                       
16. Paternalism in the Age of Cognitive Enhancement: Do Civil Liberties Presuppose Roughly Equal Mental Ability?                       
Daniel Wikler
                       
17. Enhancing Our Truth Orientation                        
Robin Hanson                                        
          Part III- Enhancement as a Practical Challenge
           
18. The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement                        
Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg

           
 
         
Introduction available here.
             
              The book is available for purchase at:
            Amazon.com
            Amazon.co.uk
            Oxford University Press