Ryan Wittingslow
ABSTRACT
In this paper, I attempt to question the very idea of "enhancement" itself. Given the tool-using nature of human beings, does the idea of enhancement have any critical traction, when it could be argued that all tool use is an attempt to enhance experience? This has grave ramifications for the public ethics that surrounds any discussion about the application of transhuman technologies. If, as I argue, there is nothing special about "enhancement" - indeed, if it is that very thing that makes us human - then the vocabulary of the discourse itself may be occluding a genuine and honest appraisal of these issues.
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Index Terms
- What does it mean to be enhanced?
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