Bioscience and the Good Life

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.

• 1 The Good of Bioscience Understanding the good life Happiness and flourishing The importance of projects Function and the good life The reasonable expectation standardRebooting the therapy/enhancement distinctionClosing the distinction?The structure of this book 2 Bad Arguments against Better LivesRepugnance as a moral tool Nature and human natureHabermas ’ future The argument from dignity A slight reprieve? The mythologization of the givenIs 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 enhanceWhat 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 freedomThe 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 futureReason and obligation A puzzle about duties 9-and-a-bit Bioscience and the Good Life Bibliography Index