New publication by Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen and Guy Kahane, comes out of the European ENHANCE project. I have a chapter here titled 'Physical Enhancement: The State of the Art'. here's an excerpt:
What unifies these examples of physical enhancements is their utility for activities beyond sport. One can imagine numerous forms of labor that would benefit from greater endurance, strength, or ability. Elite sports have always been a test space for enhancements and their rule-governed nature offers a useful structure through which to address how questions of justice would be played out within an enhancement-led society. Yet, is also apparent that enhancement is not just a functional quality, as many such modifications are utilized to improve appearance as much as performance.
The key challenge for enhancement advocates is to bridge the ethical gap between therapy and enhancement, to reach a point where new medical products can be developed and characterized for use by healthy subjects. While it is apparent that the medicalization of various conditions may be leading to this situation, an explicit shift in how medicine progresses will be necessary before a strong enhancement culture can emerge. Many forms of enhancement rely on the use of therapeutic technologies, which bring about transformations in the concept – such as the use of stem cells to promote tissue repair (Templeton, 2006). As these technologies begin to arise, an increasing number of questions will emerge about whether sports can stem the tide of enhancements alone, or whether broad social structures will intervene
What unifies these examples of physical enhancements is their utility for activities beyond sport. One can imagine numerous forms of labor that would benefit from greater endurance, strength, or ability. Elite sports have always been a test space for enhancements and their rule-governed nature offers a useful structure through which to address how questions of justice would be played out within an enhancement-led society. Yet, is also apparent that enhancement is not just a functional quality, as many such modifications are utilized to improve appearance as much as performance.
The key challenge for enhancement advocates is to bridge the ethical gap between therapy and enhancement, to reach a point where new medical products can be developed and characterized for use by healthy subjects. While it is apparent that the medicalization of various conditions may be leading to this situation, an explicit shift in how medicine progresses will be necessary before a strong enhancement culture can emerge. Many forms of enhancement rely on the use of therapeutic technologies, which bring about transformations in the concept – such as the use of stem cells to promote tissue repair (Templeton, 2006). As these technologies begin to arise, an increasing number of questions will emerge about whether sports can stem the tide of enhancements alone, or whether broad social structures will intervene. (p.272)
Miah, A. (2011) Physical Enhancement: The State of the Art, in Savulescu, J., Meulen, R.T., & Kahane, G. Enhancing Human Capacities. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, pp.266-273.
