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Enhancement Technologies and the Person: Christian Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Andrew Lustig
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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

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References

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