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17 Med., Health Care & Phil. 1 (2014)

handle is hein.journals/medhcph17 and id is 1 raw text is: Med Health Care and Philos (2014) 17:1-2 DOI 10.1007/s11019-013-9530-0 I I)j )R I \ I The enhancement debate Bert Gordijn - Henk ten Have Published online: 11 December 2013 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Although a plethora of theoretically imaginable enhance- ments have already been subjected to ethical analysis, the discussion about enhancement is still on the move. When the discussion on mood enhancement slowed down- amongst others due to disappointing results of Prozac-the debate on moral enhancement gained momentum: the latest type of enhancement to stir up ethicists' spirits. Some authors see moral enhancement as a sine qua non for the long-term survival of humanity (Persson and Savulescu, 2012, p. 121, 133). Others regard it as a perilous techno- logical fix that might lead to far-reaching forms of self- alienation (Briggle and Wenlong, forthcoming). As with many other normative debates, the moral dis- agreement about enhancement seems to be partly based on more fundamental conflicting descriptive points of view. Some of the pros and cons of enhancement, for example, can be traced back to different anthropological premises. Enhancement enthusiasts tend to see human beings pri- marily as flawed biological products of a long evolutionary process of natural selection, whereas thinkers who regard persons as principally spiritual beings or as created by God intuitively lean towards being more critical of enhance- ment. Another chunk of the disagreement is based on dif- ferent expectations of technology. Techno-optimists are aware that technology creates difficulties. However, they have a strong believe that adding more technology to the equation will solve these very hitches. Others have a more sober, skeptic or even suspicious look towards B. Gordijn (®) Dublin, Ireland e-mail: bert.gordijn@dcu.ie H. ten Have Pittsburgh, PA, USA technological approaches of important problems. Yet another part of the disagreement seems to be linked with divergent expected psychological and societal effects of different types of enhancements. Whereas it has been argued that widespread use of enhancement can lead to increased inequalities, it has also been pointed out that it will boost innovation and promote good consequences overall. In Moderate eugenics and human enhancement Sel- gelid (this issue) argues that it is necessary to deepen the enhancement debate through further exploration of some of the descriptive disagreements underlying the enhancement debate. Selgelid argues that it is pivotal to balance liberty, equality, and utility when discussing the pros and cons of individual enhancement technologies. The introduction of certain enhancements might, for example, create such dreadful equality and utility costs that these effects might justify a ban and thus liberty infringements. Other enhancements might have more beneficial effects, making it difficult to justify curbing our freedom to use them. However, it is not easy to predict the social impact of particular enhancements in terms of equality and utility. In order to address these questions more fruitfully, further empirical research is needed. Philosophers have an impor- tant role to play in framing the empirical questions relevant to the ethical debate. Psychologists, sociologists, anthro- pologists, political scientists, and economists amongst others should then, in turn, further investigate these ques- tions from their particular disciplinary perspectives. Selgelid makes a further helpful suggestion about the discussion on the therapy/enhancement distinction. Instead of unsuccessfully trying to identify a precise demarcation between therapy and enhancement, or dismissing the dis- tinction altogether, he argues that it makes more sense to imagine both sitting at the opposite ends of a continuous I_ Springer

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