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The Human Enhancement Debate and Disability by M. Eilers,K. Grüber,C. Rehmann-Sutter Pdf
Improving human characteristics goes beyond compensating for an impairment. This book explores the rich and complex relationship between enhancement and impairment, showing that the study of disability offers new ways of thinking about the social and ethical implications of improving the human condition.
In a critical intervention into the bioethics debate over human enhancement, philosopher Melinda Hall tackles the claim that the expansion and development of human capacities is a moral obligation. Hall draws on French philosopher Michel Foucault to reveal and challenge the ways disability is central to the conversation. The Bioethics of Enhancement includes a close reading and analysis of the last century of enhancement thinking and contemporary transhumanist thinkers, the strongest promoters of the obligation to pursue enhancement technology. With specific attention to the work of bioethicists Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, the book challenges the rhetoric and strategies of enhancement thinking. These include the desire to transcend the body and decide who should live in future generations through emerging technologies such as genetic selection. Hall provides new analyses rethinking both the philosophy of enhancement and disability, arguing that enhancement should be a matter of social and political interventions, not genetic and biological interventions. Hall concludes that human vulnerability and difference should be cherished rather than extinguished. This book will be of interest to academics working in bioethics and disability studies, along with those working in Continental philosophy (especially on Foucault).
What do we owe our future children? How do advances in biomedical science bear on these obligations? How do capitalist incentives distort their execution? Advances in biotechnologies for human enhancement and designer babies appear to offer us new hope to control the fragility of human living. Some philosophers have argued that we have a moral imperative to use them, especially to eliminate disabilities. Elyse Purcell offers an opposing view, one guided by existential insights and Marxist reflections. Engineering Perfection: Solidarity, Disability, and Well-being explores the effect global capitalism may have on the selection of traits for our future children and how the commercialization of these technologies may lead to the elimination of bodily diversity. Although philosophers have addressed the possible widening between the haves and have-nots, this book considers the role oppression and exploitation may play in enhancing bodies for profit. As a challenge to the global economy of debility, Purcell proposes the Solidarity view, which embraces human vulnerability and embodied difference. By reflecting on facets of the human condition, the Solidarity view challenges us to reject our conception of the good life as human perfection, and instead reconceive of the good as one’s self-realization through the interdependent mutual recognition and co-belonging with others.
The Ethics of Human Enhancement by Steve Clarke,Julian Savulescu,C. A. J. Coady,Alberto Giubilini,Sagar Sanyal Pdf
An international team of ethicists refresh the debate about human enhancement by examining whether resistance to the use of technology to enhance our mental and physical capabilities can be supported by articulated philosophical reasoning, or explained away, e.g. in terms of psychological influences on moral reasoning.
Human Enhancement by Julian Savulescu,Nick Bostrom Pdf
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.
Author : D. Christopher Ralston,Justin Ho Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media Page : 268 pages File Size : 48,5 Mb Release : 2009-09-19 Category : Social Science ISBN : 9789048124770
Philosophical Reflections on Disability by D. Christopher Ralston,Justin Ho Pdf
This project draws together the diverse strands of the debate regarding disability in a way never before combined in a single volume. After providing a representative sampling of competing philosophical approaches to the conceptualization of disability as such, the volume goes on to address such themes as the complex interplay between disability and quality of life, questions of social justice as it relates to disability, and the personal dimensions of the disability experience. By explicitly locating the discussion of various applied ethical questions within the broader theoretical context of how disability is best conceptualized, the volume seeks to bridge the gap between abstract philosophical musings about the nature of disease, illness and disability found in much of the philosophy of medicine literature, on the one hand, and the comparatively concrete but less philosophical discourse frequently encountered in much of the disability studies literature. It also critically examines various claims advanced by disability advocates, as well as those of their critics. In bringing together leading scholars in the fields of moral theory, bioethics, and disability studies, this volume makes a unique contribution to the scholarly literature, while also offering a valuable resource to instructors and students interested in a text that critically examines and assesses various approaches to some of the most vexing problems in contemporary social and political philosophy.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability by Adam Cureton,David Wasserman Pdf
Disability raises profound and fundamental issues: questions about human embodiment and well-being; dignity, respect, justice and equality; personal and social identity. It raises pressing questions for educational, health, reproductive, and technology policy, and confronts the scope and direction of the human and civil rights movements. Yet it is only recently that disability has become the subject of the sustained and rigorous philosophical inquiry that it deserves. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability is the first comprehensive volume on the subject. The volume's contents range from debates over the definition of disability to the challenges posed by disability for justice and dignity; from the relevance of disability for respect, other interpersonal attitudes, and intimate relationships to its significance for health policy, biotechnology, and human enhancement; from the ways that disability scholarship can enrich moral and political philosophy, to the importance of physical and intellectual disabilities for the philosophy of mind and action. The contributions reflect the variety of areas of expertise, intellectual orientations, and personal backgrounds of their authors. Some are founding philosophers of disability; others are promising new scholars; still others are leading philosophers from other areas writing on disability for the first time. Many have disabilities themselves. This volume boldly explores neglected issues, offers fresh perspectives on familiar ones, and ultimately expands philosophy's boundaries. More than merely presenting an overview of existing work, this Handbook will chart the growth and direction of a vital and burgeoning field for years to come.
The Disability Bioethics Reader by Joel Michael Reynolds,Christine Wieseler Pdf
The Disability Bioethics Reader is the first introduction to the field of bioethics presented through the lens of critical disability studies and the philosophy of disability. Introductory and advanced textbooks in bioethics focus almost entirely on issues that disproportionately affect disabled people and that centrally deal with becoming or being disabled. However, such textbooks typically omit critical philosophical reflection on disability. Directly addressing this omission, this volume includes 36 chapters, most appearing here for the first time, that cover key areas pertaining to disability bioethics, such as: state-of-the-field analyses of modern medicine, bioethics, and disability theory health, disease, and the philosophy of medicine issues at the edge- and end-of-life, including physician-aid-in-dying, brain death, and minimally conscious states enhancement and biomedical technology invisible disabilities, chronic pain, and chronic illness implicit bias and epistemic injustice in health care disability, quality of life, and well-being race, disability, and healthcare justice connections between disability theory and aging, trans, and fat studies prenatal testing, abortion, and reproductive justice. The Disability Bioethics Reader, unlike traditional bioethics textbooks, also engages with decades of empirical and theoretical scholarship in disability studies—scholarship that spans the social sciences and humanities—and gives serious consideration to the history of disability activism.
Disability by Robert M. Baird,Stuart E. Rosenbaum,S. Kay Toombs Pdf
What is it like to experience disability? What are the prevailing cultural attitudes toward those who experience disability? How do social norms and public policies affect those experiencing disability? This book provides a vivid and concrete introduction to the wealth of social, political and ethical debates that surround the experience of disability. Beginning with an exploration of the perspective of persons with disabilities, the essays demonstrate the extent to which the disability experience is affected by social and cultural values, attitudes, and policies. In addition to these first-person reflections, there are essays relating to such issues as: -The disability rights movement -Disability studies -Social policy relating to disability Physician-assisted suicide, genetic testing, selective abortion, the moral status of handicapped newborns, and living and dying with dignity Written in an engaging style with a focus on the concrete, this collection of essays includes contributions by John Hockenberry, Oiver Sacks, Peter Singer, and others. It is a marvelous resource for enabling the reader to comprehend the experience of disability and to explore contemporary issues involving the disability community.
Three decades after his death, Michel Foucault remains one of the towering intellectual figures of the last half-century. His works on sexuality, madness, the prison, and medicine are enduring classics. From 1971 until his death in 1984, Foucault gave public lectures at the famous Collge de France. These seminal events, attended by thousands, created the benchmarks for contemporary social enquiry. The lectures comprising Abnormal begin by examining the role of psychiatry in modern criminal justice, and its method of categorising individuals who "resemble their crime before they commit it." Building on the themes of societal self-defence developed in earlier works, Foucault shows how defining "normality" became a prerogative of power in the nineteenth century, shaping the institutions-from the prisons to the family-meant to deal with "monstrosity," whether sexual, physical, or spiritual. The Collge de France lectures add immeasurably to our appreciation and understanding of Foucault's thought.
The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies by Blake Howe,Stephanie Jensen-Moulton,Neil William Lerner,Joseph Nathan Straus Pdf
Disability is a broad, heterogeneous, and porous identity, and that diversity is reflected in the variety of bodily conditions under discussion here, including autism and intellectual disability, deafness, blindness, and mobility impairment often coupled with bodily deformity. Cultural Disability Studies has, from its inception, been oriented toward physical and sensory disabilities, and has generally been less effective in dealing with cognitive and intellectual impairments and with the sorts of emotions and behaviors that in our era are often medicalized as "mental illness." In that context, it is notable that so many of these essays are centrally concerned with madness, that broad and ever-shifting cultural category. There is also in impressive diversity of subject matter including YouTube videos, Ghanaian drumming, Cirque du Soleil, piano competitions, castrati, medieval smoking songs, and popular musicals. Amid this diversity of time, place, style, medium, and topic, the chapters share two core commitments.0First, they are united in their theoretical and methodological connection to Disability Studies, especially its central idea that disability is a social and cultural construction. Disability both shapes and is shaped by culture, including musical culture. Second, these essays individually and collectively make the case that disability is not something at the periphery of culture and music, but something central to our art and to our humanity.
Human Enhancement Technologies and Our Merger with Machines by Woodrow Barfield,Sayoko Blodgett-Ford Pdf
A cross-disciplinary approach is offered to consider the challenge of emerging technologies designed to enhance human bodies and minds. Perspectives from philosophy, ethics, law, and policy are applied to a wide variety of enhancements, including integration of technology within human bodies, as well as genetic, biological, and pharmacological modifications. Humans may be permanently or temporarily enhanced with artificial parts by manipulating (or reprogramming) human DNA and through other enhancement techniques (and combinations thereof). We are on the cusp of significantly modifying (and perhaps improving) the human ecosystem. This evolution necessitates a continuing effort to re-evaluate current laws and, if appropriate, to modify such laws or develop new laws that address enhancement technology. A legal, ethical, and policy response to current and future human enhancements should strive to protect the rights of all involved and to recognize the responsibilities of humans to other conscious and living beings, regardless of what they look like or what abilities they have (or lack). A potential ethical approach is outlined in which rights and responsibilities should be respected even if enhanced humans are perceived by non-enhanced (or less-enhanced) humans as “no longer human” at all.
Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. The renowned moral philosopher and best-selling author Jonathan Glover shows us how we might try to answer this question, and other provoking and disturbing questions to which it leads. Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can? Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilities and disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinking about the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who have these conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. How do we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being? In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness to have a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but a difference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, Jonathan Glover examines the emotive idea of 'eugenics', and the ethics of attempting to enhance people, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents be free, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, for instance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distant prospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will such interventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole? Should we try to make general improvements to the genetic make-up of human beings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must not interfere? This beautifully clear book is written for anyone who cares about the rights and wrongs of parents' choices for their children, anyone who is concerned about our human future. Glover handles these uncomfortable questions in a controversial but always humane and sympathetic manner.
Human Enhancements for Space Missions by Konrad Szocik Pdf
This book presents a collection of chapters, which address various contexts and challenges of the idea of human enhancement for the purposes of human space missions. The authors discuss pros and cons of mostly biological enhancement of human astronauts operating in hostile space environments, but also ethical and theological aspects are addressed. In contrast to the idea and program of human enhancement on Earth, human enhancement in space is considered a serious and necessary option. This book aims at scholars in the following fields: ethics and philosophy, space policy, public policy, as well as biologists and psychologists.
In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes an ethical case for biotechnology that is both forthright and rigorous. Human enhancement, Harris argues, is a good thing--good morally, good for individuals, good as social policy, and good for a genetic heritage that needs serious improvement. Enhancing Evolution defends biotechnological interventions that could allow us to live longer, healthier, and even happier lives by, for example, providing us with immunity from cancer and HIV/AIDS. Further, Harris champions the possibility of influencing the very course of evolution to give us increased mental and physical powers--from reasoning, concentration, and memory to strength, stamina, and reaction speed. Indeed, he says, it's not only morally defensible to enhance ourselves; in some cases, it's morally obligatory. In a new preface, Harris offers a glimpse at the new science and technology to come, equipping readers with the knowledge to assess the ethics and policy dimensions of future forms of human enhancement.