Genetic enhancement, post-persons and moral status: a reply to Buchanan

Journal of Medical Ethics 38 (3):135-139 (2012)
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Abstract

Responding to several leading ideas from a paper by Allen Buchanan, the present essay explores the implications of genetic enhancement for moral status. Contrary to doubts expressed by Buchanan, I argue that genetic enhancement could lead to the existence of beings so superior to contemporary human beings that we might aptly describe them as post-persons. If such post-persons emerged, how should we understand their moral status in relation to ours? The answer depends in part on which of two general models of moral status—one based on respect and one based on interests—is more adequate. Buchanan tentatively argues that a respect-based model is preferable. I challenge Buchanan's view, along these lines: If we embrace a respect-based model of moral status featuring a threshold that divides persons, who are thought to have full and equal moral status, from sentient nonpersons, thought to have less moral status, then we should acknowledge a second threshold and a level of moral status higher than ours. A better option, I tentatively suggest, is to drop the idea of levels of moral status, accept that all sentient beings have moral status, and allow that some differences in interests and capacities justify some significant differences in how we should treat beings of different kinds

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David DeGrazia
George Washington University

Citations of this work

The Morality of Moral Neuroenhancement.Thomas Douglas - forthcoming - In Clausen Jens & Levy Neil (eds.), Handbook of Neuroethics. Springer.
Is Moral Status Good for You?Thomas Douglas - forthcoming - In Stephen Clarke, Hazem Zohny & Julian Savulescu (eds.), Rethinking Moral Status. Oxford, UK:
The Harms of Enhancement and the Conclusive Reasons View.Thomas Douglas - 2015 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24 (1):23-36.
Self-serving bias and the structure of moral status.Thomas Douglas - 2012 - Journal of Medical Ethics 38 (3):141-142.

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References found in this work

The Case for Animal Rights.Tom Regan - 2004 - Univ of California Press.
The case for animal rights.Tom Regan - 2009 - In Steven M. Cahn (ed.), Noûs. Oxford University Press. pp. 425-434.
The Case for Animal Rights.Tom Regan - 1985 - Human Studies 8 (4):389-392.
Moral status and human enhancement.Allen Buchanan - 2009 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 37 (4):346-381.

View all 7 references / Add more references