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We face an emerging range of technologies that can be applied to our human natures with the goal of enhancing us. There are nootropic smart drugs and gene editing that influence the development of the brain. The near future promises cybernetic technologies that can be grafted onto our brains and bodies. The challenge for readers of Dialogues on Human Enhancement is to decide how to respond to these and other coming enhancement technologies. As you read these dialogues you will meet passionate advocates for a variety of responses to enhancement tech, ranging from blanket rejection to ecstatic endorsement. You'll encounter Olen, for whom there is no such thing as too much enhancement. You'll meet Winston, a bioconservative who fiercely but also imaginatively opposes any human enhancement. And there is the moderate Eugenie, who strives to distinguish between enhancement technologies that should and should not be accepted. As these characters philosophically engage with each other they will benefit from the supervisory presence of Sophie, the philosopher. Dialogues on Human Enhancement does not arrive at a single conclusion. Olen's transhumanism, Eugenie's moderation, and Winston's bioconservatism are presented as viable and necessary views as we enter a future made uncertain by human enhancement tech. And the book also welcomes the voices of students, even - and especially - if they challenge the opinions of our age's experts. As students join the conversations in this book, they will formulate their own views about how humanity could or should be in our Age of Human Enhancement.

1. Radical optimism and the technology bias -- Does technological progress increase subjective well-being? -- Radically optimistic forecasts -- How should we prioritize technological progress? -- 2. Is there a law of technological progress? -- Moore's Law, Kryder's Law, and exponential technological improvement -- Exponential technological improvement as a conditional law -- Kurzweil's evolutionary explanation of exponential technological progress -- Difference between reflexive and passive improvement -- 3. Does technological progress make us happier? -- Traditional paradox of progress -- Hedonic adaptation -- 4. The new paradox of progress -- Gibbon versus Ridley on historical happiness -- Attitudinal time travel -- Hedonic normalization -- 5. We need technological progress experiments -- Technological progress traps -- Jared Diamond on the natural experiments of traditional societies -- A nuclear power progress experiment -- Progress experiment on genetically modified crops -- 6. Why technological progress won't end poverty -- Poverty and well-being -- Ordinary and emergency circumstances of poverty -- Radically optimistic solutions to poverty -- Were there poor people in the Pleistocene? -- How poverty affects life satisfaction -- Misunderstanding the happiness of the Sun King -- Economic and technological trickledown -- 7. Choosing a tempo of technological progress -- Different tempos of progress -- Marginal contributions to well-being -- Mobile phones and cancer therapies -- Importance of subjectively positive technological progress -- Afterword : don't turn well-being technologies into Procrustean beds.

The transformative potential of genetic and cybernetic technologies to enhance human capabilities is most often either rejected on moral and prudential grounds or hailed as the future salvation of humanity. In this book, Nicholas Agar offers a more nuanced view, making a case for moderate human enhancement -- improvements to attributes and abilities that do not significantly exceed what is currently possible for human beings. He argues against radical human enhancement, or improvements that greatly exceed current human capabilities. Agar explores notions of transformative change and motives for human enhancement; distinguishes between the instrumental and intrinsic value of enhancements; argues that too much enhancement undermines human identity; considers the possibility of cognitively enhanced scientists; and argues against radical life extension. Making the case for moderate enhancement, Agar argues that many objections to enhancement are better understood as directed at the degree of enhancement rather than enhancement itself. Moderate human enhancement meets the requirement of truly human enhancement. By radically enhancing human cognitive capabilities, by contrast, we may inadvertently create beings ("post-persons") with moral status higher than that of persons. If we create beings more entitled to benefits and protections against harms than persons, Agar writes, this will be bad news for the unenhanced. Moderate human enhancement offers a more appealing vision of the future and of our relationship to technology.

In this provocative book, philosopher Nicholas Agar defends the idea that parents should be allowed to enhance their children's characteristics.Gets away from fears of a Huxleyan 'Brave New World' or a return to the fascist eugenics of the pastWritten from a philosophically and scientifically informed point of viewConsiders real contemporary cases of parents choosing what kind of child to haveUses 'moral images' as a way to get readers with no background in philosophy to think about moral dilemmasProvides an authoritative account of the science involved, making the book suitable for readers wi

Mark Walker's fascinating paper calls for a Genetic Virtue Program (GVP)—an interdisciplinary effort to enhance human ethics. He urges that we achieve this by "promoting genes that influence the acquisition of the virtues." Although the GVP is a worthy focus of philosophical debate, I have to confess to some doubts about its viability. We patently don't live in the best of all possible worlds, but I'm skeptical about the notion that the way to improve the world is to make deliberate and specific ethical or moral enhancements.

Examines benefits of genetic engineering and its effect on potential life plans of future individuals, and liberal perspectives on state neutrality and individual choice. Quality of life, social arrangements, improving capacities, and the eugenic difference principle.

In recent years, bioethical discourse around the topic of 'genetic enhancement' has become increasingly politicized. We fear there is too much focus on the semantic question of whether we should call particular practices and emerging bio-technologies such as CRISPR 'eugenics', rather than the more important question of how we should view them from the perspective of ethics and policy. Here, we address the question of whether 'eugenics' can be defended and how proponents and critics of enhancement should engage with each other.