Paperback(With a New preface by the author)
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Overview
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.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691148168 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/17/2010 |
| Series: | Science Essentials Series |
| Edition description: | With a New preface by the author |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition ix
Foreword by Steve Rayner xix
Acknowledgments xxv
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Has Humankind a Future? 8
Chapter 2: Enhancement Is a Moral Duty 19
Chapter 3: What Enhancements Are and Why They Matter 36
Chapter 4: Immortality 59
Chapter 5: Reproductive Choice and the Democratic Presumption 72
Chapter 6: Disability and Super-Ability 86
Chapter 7: Perfection and the Blue Guitar 109
Chapter 8: Good and Bad Uses of Technology 123
Chapter 9: Designer Children 143
Chapter 10: The Irredeemable Paradox of the Embryo 160
Chapter 11: The Obligation to Pursue and Participate in Research 184
Notes 207
Bibliography 227
Index 239
What People are Saying About This
Enhancing Evolution is a pleasure to read and an important contribution to bioethics. Against writers such as Leon Kass, Michael Sandel, and Jürgen Habermas, John Harris argues for using genetic and other technologies to improve and extend human life, and even to design and clone humans. Whether or not one shares his optimism that humans are wise, prudent, or moral enough to use technology to benefit humankind, his cogent and elegantly expressed arguments must be taken seriously.
— Bonnie Steinbock, University of Albany
John Harris has an enormous reputation in bioethics for his adroit, acerbic, dead-on argumentation, his ingenuity at undermining familiar but flaccid argument, his immense imaginative capacities, and his skewering wit. These are rare qualities in an often goody-goody field like bioethics, and his intellectual skills earn him real respect. His philosophical work is an exploration, as he puts it, of our shared responsibility to make the world a better place. Enhancing Evolution is an ample demonstration of this work at its best.
— Margaret P. Battin, University of Utah
John Harris's writings are always provocative as well as superbly reasoned. In this latest book, he succeeds in demolishing the arguments of those who claim that enhancements are a threat to humankind.
— Ruth Macklin, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Over his illustrious career, John Harris has explored the most challenging bioethical questions with insight, engaging wit, and eloquence. In Enhancing Evolution, Harris does it again. He argues that it is not just an option but an obligation for people to use available biomedical technologies to enhance their own—and their children's—physical and mental abilities. Harris rightly deserves his reputation for fearlessly following his ethical arguments wherever they lead.
— Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D.
Full of witty arguments, Enhancing Evolution is a powerful response to concerns about human enhancement and genetic selection. It is also a deep, enlightening, and delightful (often hilarious) philosophical read. Scholars studying these topics, as well as the status of embryos and research on human subjects, would be wise to give Harris's arguments serious consideration.
— Nir Eyal, Harvard Medical School
"John Harris has an enormous reputation in bioethics for his adroit, acerbic, dead-on argumentation, his ingenuity at undermining familiar but flaccid argument, his immense imaginative capacities, and his skewering wit. These are rare qualities in an often goody-goody field like bioethics, and his intellectual skills earn him real respect. His philosophical work is an exploration, as he puts it, of our shared responsibility to make the world a better place. Enhancing Evolution is an ample demonstration of this work at its best."—Margaret P. Battin, University of Utah"John Harris can be depended on to sharply challenge conventional thinking in bioethics, especially when that thinking takes a conservative cast. He does not disappoint here. Harris shows how deep-seated a part of human history enhancement is and how weak most objections to it are; indeed, he makes a persuasive case that it is not only generally morally permissible, but often morally required."—Dan W. Brock, director of the Division of Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School"John Harris's writings are always provocative as well as superbly reasoned. In this latest book, he succeeds in demolishing the arguments of those who claim that enhancements are a threat to humankind."—Ruth Macklin, Albert Einstein College of Medicine"Enhancing Evolution is a pleasure to read and an important contribution to bioethics. Against writers such as Leon Kass, Michael Sandel, and Jürgen Habermas, John Harris argues for using genetic and other technologies to improve and extend human life, and even to design and clone humans. Whether or not one shares his optimism that humans are wise, prudent, or moral enough to use technology to benefit humankind, his cogent and elegantly expressed arguments must be taken seriously."—Bonnie Steinbock, University of Albany"Over his illustrious career, John Harris has explored the most challenging bioethical questions with insight, engaging wit, and eloquence. In Enhancing Evolution, Harris does it again. He argues that it is not just an option but an obligation for people to use available biomedical technologies to enhance their own—and their children's—physical and mental abilities. Harris rightly deserves his reputation for fearlessly following his ethical arguments wherever they lead."—Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D."Full of witty arguments, Enhancing Evolution is a powerful response to concerns about human enhancement and genetic selection. It is also a deep, enlightening, and delightful (often hilarious) philosophical read. Scholars studying these topics, as well as the status of embryos and research on human subjects, would be wise to give Harris's arguments serious consideration."—Nir Eyal, Harvard Medical School"Enhancing Evolution is the most comprehensive, robust defense of human enhancement in the literature to date. Harris blends more than fifteen years of work on human enhancement into a single volume and mixes in new arguments that definitively make the pro case for enhancement. The bioconservatives are in retreat. Harris has now set the agenda for the future of humankind. This will be the locus classicus for the enhancement debate."—Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford
John Harris can be depended on to sharply challenge conventional thinking in bioethics, especially when that thinking takes a conservative cast. He does not disappoint here. Harris shows how deep-seated a part of human history enhancement is and how weak most objections to it are; indeed, he makes a persuasive case that it is not only generally morally permissible, but often morally required.
— Dan W. Brock, director of the Division of Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School
Enhancing Evolution is the most comprehensive, robust defense of human enhancement in the literature to date. Harris blends more than fifteen years of work on human enhancement into a single volume and mixes in new arguments that definitively make the pro case for enhancement. The bioconservatives are in retreat. Harris has now set the agenda for the future of humankind. This will be the locus classicus for the enhancement debate.
— Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford