Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:51:40.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enhancement Technologies and the Person: Christian Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Andrew Lustig
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Current discussions of so-called “enhancement” technologies immediately involve matters of definition, because the distinctions between enhancement and therapy invite ambiguity. Therapy is generally defined as the prevention or cure of disease, or as the restoration or approximation of return to normal physiological function. Enhancement is defined as the alteration of individual (or group) characteristics, traits, and abilities (both health- and non-health-related) beyond a measurable baseline of normal function. Both notions rely on shared understandings of disease and illness, which depend in turn on the ways that we conceptualize and operationalize judgments of normalcy. Both notions have therefore generated significant controversy among philosophers of medicine, with the result that blanket distinctions between therapy and enhancement appear unlikely to convince everyone.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , Spring 2008 , pp. 41 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The literature on genetic and other forms of enhancement is vast, and I will not attempt to survey it here. However, a few resources are especially helpful. For a useful comparative introduction to the ethical and religious issues raised by genetic modifications, including enhancement technologies, see Chapman, A. Frankel, M., eds., Designing Our Descendants: The Promises and Perils of Genetic Modifications (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003): At 105–251. For a broad philosophical discussion that focuses specifically on issues of enhancement, see Parens, E., ed., Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2000). For a useful review of larger questions of culture and anthropology raised by the prospect of enhancement, see Kass, L., Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003).Google Scholar
Admittedly, one finds in the Calvinist tradition a discussion of natural law (and the so-called “third use” or positive use of the law), whereas Lutherans typically interpret the law primarily in constraining terms, with a starkly drawn contrast between the pragmatic reasoning after the Fall and the requirements of a transformed humanity. Neither form of Protestant thought, however, develops the account of Christian anthropology at work in Roman Catholic moral theology. In the latter, grace “completes” or “perfects” natural virtues; natural capacities retain a significant integrity despite the Fall.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T., The “Summa Theologica” of Thomas Aquinas, vol. 8, 2nd ed. (London: Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd., 1927): Question 91, articles 2 and 3, 10–14.Google Scholar
Curran, C., Catholic Social Teaching 1891-Present (Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002): At 54–67.Google Scholar
John Paul II, “Dangers of Genetic Manipulation,” 1–5, at 3, available at <http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2GENMP.HTM> (last visited November 26, 2007).+(last+visited+November+26,+2007).>Google Scholar
Id., at 3.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id., at 4.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Rahner, K., “The Experiment with Man,” Theological Investigations (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972): At 9, quoted in Fitzgerald, K., “The Need for a Dynamic and Integrative Vision of the Human for the Ethics of Genetics,” in Cahill, L., ed., Genetics, Theology, and Ethics (New York: Herder and Herder, 2004): 79–96, at 90.Google Scholar
Id. (Fitzgerald), at 92.Google Scholar
Hanson, M., “Indulging Anxiety: Human Enhancement from a Protestant Perspective,” Christian Bioethics 5, no. 2 (1999): 121–138, at 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Id., at 127.Google Scholar
Niebuhr, R., The Nature and Destiny of Man, Volume II, Human Destiny (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1964): At 150, quoted in Hanson, , supra note 13, at 127.Google Scholar
See Hanson, , supra note 13, at 132.Google Scholar
Id., at 133.Google Scholar
Id., at 134.Google Scholar
Id., at 135.Google Scholar
Id., at 136.Google Scholar
Verhey, A., “‘Playing God’ and Invoking a Perspective,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 20, no. 4 (1995): 347–364, at 361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, T., Playing God: Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1997).Google Scholar
Peters, T., “‘Playing God’ and Germline Intervention,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 20, no. 4 (1995): 365–386, at 379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harakas, S., s.v. “Eastern Orthodoxy,” in Reich, W., ed., Encyclopedia of Bioethics, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (New York: MacMillan, 1995): at 85.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Harakas, S., s.v. “Eastern Orthodox Christianity,” in Reich, W., ed., Encyclopedia of Bioethics, vol. 1 (New York: Free Press, 1978): 643–644.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Harakas, S., “Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethics,” in Childress, J. MacQuarrie, J., eds., The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986): at 168.Google Scholar
Id., at 169.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Harakas, S., Wholeness of Faith and Life: Orthodox Christian Ethics (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1999): at 90.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
See Peters, , supra note 22.Google Scholar
See Harakas, , supra note 31, at 93.Google Scholar
McKenny, G., “Theology, Ethics, and the Enhancement of Human Traits,” Theology Today 59, no. 1 (2002): 90–103, at 91–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Id, at 92.Google Scholar
Id., at 93.Google Scholar
Id., at 93.Google Scholar
Id., at 100.Google Scholar
Id., at 102.Google Scholar