There are an increasing number of ways to enhance human abilities, characteristics, and performance. In recent years, the ethical debate on enhancement has focused mainly on the ethical evaluation of new enhancement technologies. Yet, the search for an adequate and shared understanding of enhancement has always remained an important part of the debate. It was initially undertaken with the intention of defining the ethical boundaries of enhancement, often by attempting to distinguish enhancements from medical treatments. One of the more recent approaches comes from Julian Savulescu, Anders Sandberg, and Guy Kahane. With their welfarist account, they define enhancement in terms of its contribution to individual well-being: as any state of a person that increases the chances of living a good life in the given set of circumstances. The account aims to contribute both to a shared and clear understanding of enhancement and to answering the question of whether we should enhance in certain ways or not. I will argue that it cannot live up to either claim, in particular because of its inherent normativity and its failure to adequately define well-being. Nevertheless, it can make a valuable contribution to an ethics of enhancement. As I will show, the welfarist account refocuses the debate on a central value in health care: well-being, which can be a relevant aspect in assessing the permissibility of biomedical interventions - especially against the background of new bioethical challenges. To fulfil this function, however, a more differentiated understanding of well-being is needed.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-024-10246-3 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Well-being and enhancement: reassessing the welfarist account.
Med Health Care Philos
January 2025
Institute of Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine, LMU Munich, Germany.
There are an increasing number of ways to enhance human abilities, characteristics, and performance. In recent years, the ethical debate on enhancement has focused mainly on the ethical evaluation of new enhancement technologies. Yet, the search for an adequate and shared understanding of enhancement has always remained an important part of the debate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF"Killing in the Name of 3R?" The Ethics of Death in Animal Research.
J Agric Environ Ethics
December 2024
Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Changing relationships with nonhuman animals have led to important modifications in animal welfare legislations, including the protection of animal life. However, animal research regulations are largely based on welfarist assumptions, neglecting the idea that death can constitute a harm to animals. In this article, four different cases of killing animals in research contexts are identified and discussed against the background of philosophical, societal, and scientific-practical discourses: 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlgorithms and heuristics of health technology assessments: A retrospective analysis of factors associated with HTA outcomes for new drugs across seven OECD countries.
Soc Sci Med
August 2023
Department of Health Policy and LSE Health - Medical Technology Research Group, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Context: Positive health technology assessment (HTA) outcomes can have important implications for equity, efficiency and timely patient access to novel therapies. Several outcomes and dimensions of benefit beyond utility feed into HTA processes.
Objective: We analyse a proprietary dataset of HTA outcomes in 7 countries, to (a) test whether HTA decision-making is grounded in welfarist or extra-welfarist approaches; and (b) empirically determine the factors associated with positive HTA outcomes, the time to achieve these and establish the magnitude of inter-country differences in assessment processes.
Enhancing Gender.
J Bioeth Inq
June 2022
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, 16-17 Saint Ebbe's St, Oxford, OX1 1PT, UK.
Transgender healthcare faces a dilemma. On the one hand, access to certain medical interventions, including hormone treatments or surgeries, where desired, may be beneficial or even vital for some gender dysphoric trans people. But on the other hand, access to medical interventions typically requires a diagnosis, which, in turn, seems to imply the existence of a pathological state-something that many transgender people reject as a false and stigmatizing characterization of their experience or identity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMoving through capacity space: mapping disability and enhancement.
J Med Ethics
November 2021
Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA.
Article Synopsis
- The paper critiques existing literature on disability and enhancement, arguing that it oversimplifies these concepts by not considering a broader range of cases and the complexities of transitioning between them.
- In section one, the authors present seven diverse examples of disability and enhancement, illustrating why they matter and how they are often overlooked in discussions.
- They conclude that current definitions fail to encompass all scenarios, noting that while strict welfarist perspectives on disability might cover more ground, they still lack a nuanced understanding of individual capacities and transitions.
Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!