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MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT
Is it realistic?
It should be compulsory but secret, argues an American bioethicist
The latest edition of the Cambridge Quarterly takes stock of the enhancement debate.
Croatian bioethicists say it should be compulsory
As details continue to emerge of Jimmy Savile’s horrific crimes, a bioethicist is questioning the complicity of healthcare workers in allowing for the abuses.
A new article in Bioethics criticises the moral bioenhancement debate as misguided and framed on gratuitous assumptions. The authors – Inmaculada de Melo-Martin (Cornell) and Arleen Sales (St John’s University) – argue that the impact of pharmacological interventions on moral behavior is unclear and further that bioenhancement is incapable of solving what seem to be massive structural problems (climate change, global poverty, and so forth).
Several recent articles in leading journals have considered the ability of moral bioehancement to produce ‘environmentally conscious’ citizens and thus (indirectly) reduce carbon emissions. In a recent post on Practical Ethics, the blog’s administrator asserts that too few people would accept the offer of bioehancement and hence it would have a negligible effect on climate change.
Bioenhancement has been receiving increased attention since the 2013 publication of Julian Savulescu and Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement by Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson. An April special issue of the American Journal of Bioethics explores the benefits and dangers of Persson and Savulescu’s project.
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