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"New technologies and medicines make it increasingly possible to enhance human functioning in new ways: to become smarter, more emotionally attuned, and perhaps even morally better. But just because we can use the latest science to improve ourselves, should we? This book has two main aims. First, it outlines and criticises the six main contemporary arguments for scepticism about the role of human enhancements in promoting well-being. These arguments concern, respectively, (i) the value of achievements; (ii) freedom; (iii) hyperagency; (iv) human nature; (v) authenticity and (vi) inequality. It will be shown-for the first time in a book-length treatment-why the overarching bioconservative case against enhancement doesn't hold water. The second central aim of the book is positive; as we'll see, each of the bioconservative critiques considered and rejected will be shown to nonetheless motivate a distinctive kind of theoretical desideratum that a viable positive enhancement proposal should satisfy. The remainder of the book then defends a two-part enhancement proposal that will be shown to clearly satisfy the theoretical desiderata that emerged from reflecting on the earlier critique of bioconservativism. The first part of the positive proposal motivates and outlines the general role of an enhancement counsellor in facilitating voluntary enhancement; I then offer an applied case study of this role in the special case of enhancement for the purpose of facilitating romantic and parental relationships. Human Enhancement and Well-Being: A Case for Optimism will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in applied ethics, bioethics, philosophy of technology, philosophy of well-being, and social epistemology"--

AbstractBioconservative bioethicists (e.g., Kass, 2002, Human Dignity and Bioethics, 297–331, 2008; Sandel, 2007; Fukuyama, 2003) offer various kinds of philosophical arguments against cognitive enhancement—i.e., the use of medicine and technology to make ourselves "better than well" as opposed to merely treating pathologies. Two notable such bioconservative arguments appeal to ideas about (1) the value of achievement, and (2) authenticity. It is shown here that even if these arguments from achievement and authenticity cut ice against specifically pharmacologically driven cognitive enhancement, they do not extend over to an increasingly viable form of technological cognitive enhancement – namely, cognitive enhancement via augmented reality. An important result is that AR-driven cognitive enhancement aimed at boosting performance in certain cognitive tasks might offer an interesting kind of "sweet spot" for proponents of cognitive enhancement, allowing us to pursue many of the goals of enhancement advocates without running into some of the most prominent objections from bioconservative philosophers.

AbstractIt is argued that understanding is the norm of political discourse, and it is shown why political assertions can be epistemically problematic within a liberal democracy even when asserted knowledgeably.

AbstractIn Chapter 3 ofTrue Enough, Elgin (2017) outlines her view of objectual understanding, focusing largely on its non-factive nature and the extent to which a certain kind of know-how is required for the "grasping" component of understanding. I will explore four central issues that feature in this chapter, concentrating on (1) the role of know-how, (2) the concept of endorsement, (3) Elgin's critique of the factivity constraint on understanding, and (4) how we might use aspects of Elgin's framework to inform related debates on the norm of assertion.

AbstractThe goal of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that the understanding one has of a proposition or a propositional content of a representational vehicle is a species of what contemporary epistemologists characterise as objectual understanding. Second, we demonstrate that even though this type of understanding differs from linguistic understanding, in many instances of successful communication, these two types of understanding jointly contribute to understanding a communicated thought.