Bioscience and the Good Life

by Iain Brassington

Overview

The field of biotechnology has provided us with radical revisions and reappraisals of the nature and possibilities of our biological existence. Yet beyond its immediate utility, does a life that is healthier, longer, or freer from disease make us 'better' or more moral people?

Bioscience and the Good Life explores the complex relationship between modern biosciences and human flourishing, their sympathies and schisms, and the instances of their reconciliation. Here cognitive enhancement, longevity, and the spectacle of excellence in sports, are examined within the context of what constitutes a life well lived.

Framing biotechnological innovation in the discourse of duty and ethics, Brassington advances an insightful and involved response to the existing debates between bioscientific optimists and pessimists, one which mediates their differences, and expands the traditional scope of their arguments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849663380
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/30/2014
Series:	Science Ethics and Society
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Iain Brassington is Lecturer in Bioethics at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy and the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, UK.

Table of Contents

1 The Good of Bioscience
Understanding the good life
Happiness and flourishing
The importance of projects
Function and the good life
The reasonable expectation standard
Rebooting the therapy/enhancement distinction
Closing the distinction?
The structure of this book
2 Bad Arguments against Better Lives
Repugnance as a moral tool
Nature and human nature
Habermas ' future
The argument from dignity
A slight reprieve?
The mythologization of the given
Is enhancement permissible?
3 Must We Make Better People?
John Harris ' argument for a duty to enhance
Harris ' argument
Why would enhancement be a duty?
Beneficence and duties to enhance
What is enhancement?
What is ' acceptable ' ?
A duty to enhance?
4 Sex, Death and Cabbages: A Defence of Mortality
Defending against death
Avoiding deaths and saving lives
What ' s wrong with mortality(?)
Why not be immortal?
Self-inflicted boredom?
Filling a life, and the LOT revisited
Mortality and the good life
The boon of mortality
5 Designs for Life
Enhancement in sport
The character of the sport
Becoming a blade-runner
On me, not in me
Other objections
Body modification and the good life
6 Thinking Better about Better Thinking
Enhancing memory
Out of our heads
Criminal detection: A duty to remember?
Memory and absentmindedness
Enhancing processing
The argument from alienation
The social benefits of cognitive enhancement
The benefits of distraction
Alienation revisited
The case for cognitive enhancement: Not wholly proven
7 Good Is as Good Does? The Case of
' Moral Enhancement '
The possibility of ' moral enhancement '
Strategies for moral enhancement
The argument from freedom
Freedom and options
Nicomachean moral enhancement
Rebuilding the argument from freedom
The argument from reasonable disagreement
Enhancing moral reasoning
Is moral enhancement desirable anyway?
8 Bioscience and the Duty to Research, Part 1:
Ways to Make Life Better
Is there a duty of beneficence?
Beneficence, benefit and obligation
What would be beneficial research?
The argument from incommensurability
The argument from anthropology
Ecology and economy
Is there a duty to research?
9 Bioscience and the Duty to Research, Part 2:
Non-Beneficent Arguments
Formulating the duty to research
The prevention and causation argument
The argument from rescue
The argument from filial piety
The free rider argument
Fairness and the future
Reason and obligation
A puzzle about duties
9-and-a-bit Bioscience and the Good Life
Bibliography
Index