Botox 4 the brain

Coming out in December: Medical Ethics for Dummies

“A practical, insightful guide to the moral and ethical standards of healthcare.

Succeeding in the healthcare field means more than just making a diagnosis and writing a prescription. Healthcare professionals are responsible for convincing patients and their family members of the best course of action and treatments to follow, while knowing how to make the right moral and ethical choices, and so much more. Unlike daunting and expensive texts, Medical Ethics For Dummies offers an accessible and affordable course supplement for anyone studying medical or biomedical ethics.
•    Follows typical medical and biomedical ethics courses
•    Covers real ethical dilemmas doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers may face
•    Includes moral issues surrounding stem cell research, genetic engineering, euthanasia, and more
Packed with helpful information, Medical Ethics For Dummies arms aspiring medical professionals with the philosophical and practical foundation for advancing in a field where critical ethical and moral decisions need to be rapidly and convincingly made.”

The Goodness of Fragility: On the Prospect of Genetic Technologies Aimed at the Enhancement of Human Capacities

Contemporary issues in Bioethics

In “The Goodness of Fragility: On the Prospect of Genetic Technologies Aimed at the Enhancement of Human Capacities,” Erik Parens encourages us to think about enhancement. He exhorts us to be prudent as we contemplate the use of genetic technologies for the improvement of our own abilities. [1]  He asks, “Will we, in some of our attempts to enhance humans, inadvertently impoverish them by reducing what I will call their fragility” (549). He attempts to “reflect upon what life would be like if we could significantly reduce the change and chance to which we – creatures whose forms are largely determined by the genetic hand dealt us by nature – have hitherto been subject” (549).

Before answering his question, he raises three important points. First, when he says that we are fragile creatures, he means that we are creature subject to change and chance. Next, he admits that even if we could reduce change and chance by enhancing ourselves, we would not get rid of all fragility. Last, he does not claim that genetic enhancement should never be used to improve humankind.

“Given the apparently enduring desire of humans to enhance their capacities, and given the likelihood that new genetic technologies will at some point enable us to enhance our capacities in significant and perhaps unprecedented ways, now is the time for society to begin thinking about how far it ought to go in this regard” (Parens, 549)

He then warns us about three desires we have as we contemplate using enhancing technologies: we desire to reduce change, we desire to reduce chance, we desire for paradise. Parens raises objections to these three desires. First, before we reduce chance, we need to consider what it might cost us. We might lose the beautiful experiences that change gives us. A plant, as Parens illustrates, is beautiful because it changes as we anticipate the blossoming and then remember its passing. Additionally, we might lose the relationships of care between people that are possible only if change exist. If, for example, everyone stays young, we will lose the relationships between the generations. Finally, we might lose diversity across life span. We might all look the same and act the same.

Second, Parens shows how chance is part of our world and its plays a crucial role. This echoes his earlier points as humans might all become similar if we reduce the chance to which humans are subject in the natural lottery.

Third, he explains that our view concerning enhancement is embedded in our conception of the relationship between humans and the natural world. He notes how those in favor of enhancement have a similar conception of the relationship between the world and humans as that of Francis Bacon. For Bacon, the mission of science was to repair the damage made by the Fall of Man and to restore humans to their original state of glory. However, as Parens states, they are alternative views, in which this relationship differs. For Bacon, nature is ours to master, but for others nature is not ours. Thus, a different perspective on the relationship between nature and humanity would lead to different ideas about how to use enhancing technologies.

He concludes that,

“It would be cruel, if not stupid, to suggest that we ought never to use genetic technology to heal the sick. It probably would be foolish to suggest that technology ought never to be used for the enhancement of human beings. So too would it be foolish to forget that without the desire to control and master the world there would be no desire to control and master ourselves. My suggestion has not been that we should figure out a way to extirpate our desire to control and alter ourselves and the world; rather, it has been simply that we should think more deeply about how attempts at control and alteration that truly enhance life are different from that impoverish it. It may be that thinking more deeply about that difference will entail rethinking some basic beliefs about our proper relationship to ourselves and the rest of nature” (Parens, 552).

For alternative views concerning the stance between humankind and nature see “Scientists and Theologians are Playing God.”

[1]Erik Parens, “The Goodness of Fragility: On the Prospect of Genetic Technologies Aimed at the Enhancement of Human Capacities,” Contemporary Issues in Bioethics, Tom L. Beauchamp and LeRoy Walters, ed.,  6th edition (Wadsworth, 2003), 548-553.

Upcoming conference: Reason, Theology, and the Genome

Upcoming Conference

McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics & Public Lifea research institute at the University of Oxford presents: A conference on the ethics of human enhancement

What is the place of theology in the growing debate over genetic engineering and human enhancement? Are theological reasons of interest only to believers? Or, as Michael Sandel and Jürgen Habermas have both suggested, might they be important for society generally, for secular and religious alike? Reason, Theology and the Genome brings together a distinguished international panel of speakers, representing many different disciplines and points of view, to consider the relevance of theology to one of the most important questions of our time.

• Who: Michael Sandel (Harvard, author of The Case Against Perfection), Paul Griffiths (Sidney & Exeter), Anja Karnein (Frankfurt), Robert Song (Durham), Nigel Biggar (Oxford), and others. (View Full Speaker Bios)
• When: 9 October 2010, 9:00-5:30
• Where: Christ Church, University of Oxford
• What: Conference Programme
• Cost: £35 (current students £20); includes lunch
• Print Registration Form
• View or Print the Conference Poster
• Ask a Question

Should Human Beings Have Sex?

Abstract

Author: Robert Sparrow

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 10, Issue 7, July 2010

Brain-Computer Interfaces

In this short 15 minutes lecture, which is part of a series about the “Future of Human Health,” Krishna Shenoy of Standford University presents some of his research. He has been busy building neural prostheses (brain chips) that could be put into someone’s brain, in order to write information into the brain or take information out of the brain or nervous system. This is good news for people with neurological diseases. Indeed, information could be taken out of the brain of people who are unable to to communicate on their own. Moreover, it could potentially “enable paralyzed patients to control prosthetic arms and computer cursors.”

As we can rejoice about the potential therapeutic benefits of these new technologies, one cannot help but wonder what type of harmful side effects or unintended consequences such technology could be used for or produce.

Human Cloning, likely to happen before 2050

Scientific American

According to “12 Events that will change Everything,” an article in the latest issue of Scientific American, the cloning of humans will likely happen before 2050. How likely? This article contemplates “12 possibilities and rate their likelihood of happening by 2050” (36) and use the following scale: Very unlikely, Unlikely, 50-50, Likely, and Almost certain. We shall then prepare ourselves to meet our Mini-Me(s).

The author, Charles Q. Choi, suggests that since the cloning of Dolly, the further step is inevitably the cloning of humans. However, Choi recognizes, like most scientists would, that the procedure is not only more complex with humans, but also raise some ethical concerns. Should we, for example, clone someone without her consent?

Nonetheless, human cloning would have some advantages and new possibilities. A clone might have a better life as she could learn from her old ‘self.’ If someone learns at only 25 that she is talented in music, she could tell her 5 year old clone to take music lessons. Moreover, extinct species like the Neanderthal could be revived.

Finally, Choi recognizes that the ‘yuck’ factor can play a major role in human cloning.  We might find the idea of cloning ourselves disturbing now, the same way we did with IVF.  But in a few years, we might not even think much about it.

Aristotle & Human Enhancement

Nicomachean Ethics

For Aristotle, good conduct produces a morally good person. For him, “we become just by performing just acts” (32). Thus, in a sense ‘doing’ precedes ‘being’. But how can we even know what a ‘good’ act look like, if we are not good? In The Nicomachean Ethics, which looks more like a self-help book rather than a book on moral philosophy, Aristotle suggests a way to enable us to make good decision.

At the end of book II, “Moral Goodness,” he suggests some practical advice. First, keep away from extremes; choose the lesser evil if necessary. Second, notice your own errors and drag yourself in the opposite direction. Third, beware of pleasures and pleasant things.

Concerning the advice on keeping away from extremes, Aristotle expands. For him, the key is to choose the right ‘mean’ between two extremes. For instance, if one is unsure how to act between fear and confidence, she will follow Aristotle’s advice by choosing between two extremes: rashness or cowardice. Rashness is an excess of confidence, while cowardice is a deficiency of confidence.

Here is a graph:

Human Enhancement

While reading Aristotle, the argument presented by Erik Parens in the debate about human enhancement comes to mind. In the second part of his essay, “Towards a more fruitful Debate about Enahncement,” Parens looks at the two different frameworks used by critics and proponents of enhancement. Parens distinguishes between two philosophical/ethical frameworks that “people seem to come to the academic debate about enhancement technologies.” The first framework desires “to mend and transform ourselves and the world.” Because of this desire to create and change creation, Parens names this framework: Creativity. The second framework takes a different approach. It reminds us that we are not creators and that life is a gift. This view, which he calls Gratitude, tends to let nature be. He writes, “According to Genesis, and it seems to me much of Judaism, our responsibility is not merely to be grateful and remember that we are not the creators of the whole. It is also our responsibility to use our creativity to mend and transform ourselves and the world. As far as I can tell, Genesis and Judaism do not exhort us to choose between gratitude and creativity. Rather . . . it is our job to figure out how to maintain that fertile tension, making sure that neither stance gets more than its share” (189).

This search for a “fertile tension” sounds indeed Aristotelian as Parens seeks for the right mean between two extremes.

Here is another graph:

Parens and Aristotle may be on to something important here.

Splice: The creation of new hybrids using human genes

Splice

“Geoffrey Bourne, former director of the Emory University primate center, once stated that ‘it would be very important scientifically to try to produce an ape-human cross.’ Other researchers have suggested using women as ‘hosts’ for the embryos of chimpanzees or gorillas” (See Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future, Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, 207. )

On a related topic, Julian Savulescu writes in Human Enhancement:

It has been possible since about 1980s to transfer genes taken from one species into another. ANDi is a rhesus who has had a jellyfish gene incorporated into his DNA. This results in a unique fluorescent green glow. Alba is a genetically engineered rabbit created by French scientists for artist Eduardo Kac. She also has a fluorescent glow. These transgenic animals show that a gene from one species can be successfully transferred and activated in a completely different genome in a different species. There is no reason why genes from other species could not be transferred to human beings, creating transgenic humans. [2]

Savulescu continues:

“Transgenesis could be used to introduce genes coding for superior physical abilities from other animals. For example, humans could have the hearing of dogs, the visual acuity of hawks, the night vision of owls, or even be able to navigate by sonar employed bats.” [3]

These questions are portrayed in the soon to be released movie: Splice.

[2] Savulescu, Julian and Nick Bostrom, ed. Human Enhancement (Oxford University Press, 2009),212.

[3] Ibid, 213.

Artificial feet

If artificial feet make you run faster, last longer, and are generally speaking a better version of your ‘natural’ ones, would it be wise to exchange the lesser version of your feet for a more enhanced and improved man-made version?

2009 Boston Marathon runner with spring steel artificial feet. Photo by Stewart Dawson available online: http://mustangdaily.net/professor-talks-on-science-fiction-becoming-reality/

Beyond Humanity? The Ethics of Biomedical Enhancement

Biotechnologies already on the horizon will enable us to be smarter, have better memories, be stronger and quicker, have more stamina, live longer, be more resistant to diseases, and enjoy richer emotional lives. To some of us, these prospects are heartening; to others, they are dreadful. In Beyond Humanity a leading philosopher offers a powerful and controversial exploration of urgent ethical issues concerning human enhancement. These raise enduring questions about what it is to be human, about individuality, about our relationship to nature, and about what sort of society we should strive to have. Allen Buchanan urges that the debate about enhancement needs to be informed by a proper understanding of evolutionary biology, which has discredited the simplistic conceptions of human nature used by many opponents of enhancement. He argues that there are powerful reasons for us to embark on the enhancement enterprise, and no objections to enhancement that are sufficient to outweigh them.

The creation of chimeras using human genes

“Geoffrey Bourne, former director of the Emory University primate center, once stated that ‘it would be very important scientifically to try to produce an ape-human cross.’ Other researchers have suggested using women as ‘hosts’ for the embryos of chimpanzees or gorillas” (See Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future, Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, 207. )

Did Plato foresee the ethical challenges of enhancement?

In To Relieve the Human Condition, Gerald McKenny starts his book with the following sentences:

In Book III of the Republic, while discussing the training for the guardians of his ideal city, Plato addresses the role of medicine in their formation. His underlying question is how the pursuit of health can be so managed that medicine serves rather than hinders or dominates our moral projects. This question in turn breaks down into several more specific questions: How much attention or vigilance should we devote to our bodies in the effort to optimize their capacities? How much control should we allow physicians to exercise over our bodies? What ends, individual and collective, should determine what counts as a sufficiently healthy body? What limits should we observe in our efforts to improve our bodily performance and remove causes of suffering (Plato, 403c-407a)? [1]

Those same questions need to be asked again in the debate concerning human enhancement. Should we, for example, use genes from other animals in order to improve our performances? Consider the following excerpt from Julian Savulescu in Human Enhancement:

It has been possible since about 1980s to transfer genes taken from one species into another. ANDi is a rhesus who has had a jellyfish gene incorporated into his DNA. This results in a unique fluorescent green glow. Alba is a genetically engineered rabbit created by French scientists for artist Eduardo Kac. She also has a fluorescent glow. These transgenic animals show that a gene from one species can be successfully transferred and activated in a completely different genome in a different species. There is no reason why genes from other species could not be transferred to human beings, creating transgenic humans. [2] (For more little green animals see http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/05/the-sciencecentral-glowing-animals-gallery.html )

Savulescu continues, “Transgenesis could be used to introduce genes coding for superior physical abilities from other animals. For example, humans could have the hearing of dogs, the visual acuity of hawks, the night vision of owls, or even be able to navigate by sonar employed bats.” [3] It seems, therefore, that Plato’s question needs to be asked once again: “What limits should we observe in our efforts to improve our bodily performance and remove causes of suffering?” We may also consider that if we are able to do something, it does not mean that we should do it.

[1] Gerald P. McKenny, To Relieve the Human Condition, Bioethics, Technology, and the Body (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997).

[2] Savulescu, Julian and Nick Bostrom, ed. Human Enhancement (Oxford University Press, 2009),212.

[3] Ibid, 213.

“Toward a More Fruitful Debate About Enhancement,” Review

Toward A More Fruitful Debate

In this essay, Erik Parens wants to “illuminate the structure of the debate” in neuroethics, particularly in the issues

related with “the enhancement of human traits and capacities” (181). He rightly thinks that if “we get better at noticing the structure of the debate about enhancement, we might engage in a more fruitful debate” (180). He points out three important issues.

First, he shows how critics and proponents of enhancement technology both seek to be authentic human beings. He states, “[M]any in fact are striving to live up to the moral ideal of authenticity. Whether or not they achieve it, they aspire to find self-fulfillment and to become who they really are” (182). Unfortunately, critics and proponent differ in their understanding of authenticity. He writes, “[T]he knockers and boosters –or critics and proponents–of ‘enhancement technologies’ share the moral ideal of authenticity, but they understand authenticity differently: they have different views about what it consists in, and thus about how to achieve it” (183). For the critics, enhancement can be a threat to who we really are. They would worry that “mood-alternating drugs will separate us from the actions and experiences that normally accompany those moods . . . we will be separated from who we really are and from how the world really is” (184). On the other hand, for the proponents, enhancement can help us be more authentic. They sees enhancement not as “a threat to authenticity, but rather as tools that can facilitate our authentic efforts at self-discovery and self-creation” (186).This disagreement about authenticity comes from a disagreement raised by two different frameworks used to look at the world, which Parens analyses in the second part of his essay.

Second, he looks at the two different frameworks used by critics and proponents. This section echoes one of his earlier essays. In “Creativity, gratitude, and the enhancement debate” and in this essay, Parens distinguishes between two philosophical/ethical frameworks that “people seem to come to the academic debate about enhancement technologies.” The first framework desires “to mend and transform ourselves and the world.” Because of this desire to create and change creation, Parens names this framework: Creativity. The second framework takes a different approach. It reminds us that we are not creators and that life is a gift. This view, which he calls Gratitude, tends to let nature be. He writes, “According to Genesis, and it seems to me much of Judaism, our responsibility is not merely to be grateful and remember that we are not the creators of the whole. It is also our responsibility to use our creativity to mend and transform ourselves and the world. As far as I can tell, Genesis and Judaism do not exhort us to choose between gratitude and creativity. Rather . . . it is our job to figure out how to maintain that fertile tension, making sure that neither stance gets more than its share” (189).

Third, Parens discusses two cases to illustrate how critics and proponents can learn from each other. He discusses a problem for an honest proponent and then for an honest critic. First, he demonstrates that in some cases a pill (or enhancement) might not foster authenticity, but hinders it. He points out the example of the creation of a pill who could engender the “perception of intimacy” in order to encourage a woman to experience the desire for sexual intercourse. He rightly thinks that “honest proponents will acknowledge that the idea of a pill that would, in the absence of genuine intimacy, create the perception of intimacy is perplexing” (193). Indeed, the person taking this pill would not live truly or authentically. Second, he demonstrates how, in some cases, enhancement might help someone to become who she/he truly is. He gives the examples of transgenders, to whom surgeries enable them to change their anatomies in order to become more authentic. He writes, “Different from the ‘pill of intimacy,’ which undermines the purpose of achieving genuine intimacy and relationship, [transgender]’s surgeries seem to promote that purpose” (195).

Parens is really helpful in distinguishing both frameworks used in the enhancement debate in neuroethics. Instead of focusing on major differences they might have, he tries to make them work together. He argues that the biblical story and Judaism contains both frameworks. He acknowledges that “it is our job to figure out how to maintain that fertile tension” between Creativity and Gratitude (189). Unfortunately, he does not reflect on how we could have those two frameworks working together. It would be helpful to understand the cultural mandate in order to understand in what ways humans are allowed or able to alter nature. Furthermore, the Fall has not only affected human creativity but has also forced us to be innovative in order to fight sickness and diseases. One will need to take this in consideration in order to make those two frameworks work together.

Parens is also right in pointing out that both critics and proponents seek to become authentic human beings. The idea of authenticity raises some problems which religious people and theologians have struggle with for a long time. As Sandel writes in The Case Against Perfection, “To grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront question largely lost from view in the modern world–question about the moral status of nature, and about the proper stance of human beings towards the world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorist tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make the unavoidable” (Sandel, 9). I suppose religious people also desire to become authentic human beings, but differ about what is authenticity and how one should achieve it. One may wonder if someone should be encouraged to take an enhancer in order to become fully human.

Human Enhancement: What should be permitted?

Human Enhancement: What should be permitted?

Human Enhancement: What should be permitted?

20-21 October 2009, Geneva, Switzerland

Biomedical science is increasingly yielding technologies that can be used to enhance the capacities of healthy people, as well as to treat disease. This two-day workshop will aim to advance the debate on the ethics of human enhancement by considering

(1) What enhancements are likely to become possible?

(2) What enhancements will be ethically permissible?

(3) What enhancements should be legally permitted?

(4) What criteria should be used to answer 2 and 3?

See more here: http://www.brocher.ch/pages/sympvenir_details.asp?id=15

Michael Sandel, 2009 Reith Lectures

Michael Sandel

In the 2009 Reith Lectures, Professor Michael Sandel argues, in “Genetics and Morality,” that as a society we should not seek genetic enhancement (outside of therapeutic enhancement), because to do so is to lose the appreciation of the giftedness of life, humility, solidarity, and responsibility. Even though the lecture focuses on genetic enhancement, much of what has been shared can be applied to others form of enhancement (biotechnological enhancement, neurological enhancement). What might help to answer a question concerning the difference between the use of botox, gel, and braces is that we need to make a difference not only between therapy and enhancement, but also between the use of an external object (umbrella, medicament . . .)to help a person and engineering a new person with various means.

Furthermore, Sandel acknowledges that much of this discussion is theological in character. He states:

“In order to grabble with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world, questions about the proper stance of human beings towards the given world. Since this questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them, but our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable” (See the recording at 6 minutes 20).