Enhancing Humans and Sustainability: The Reunion of Bioethics and Environmental Ethics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3384/de-ethica.2001-8819.141335Keywords:
Human Enhancement, Sustainability, Emerging Technology, Bioethics, Environmental Ethics, TranshumanismAbstract
Emerging technologies are hyped as ‘transformative’ by their proponents, who prophesize that these new technologies will significantly and beneficially change our world. Concerns have been raised about the potential environmental impacts of these technologies. Emerging technologies and their implications on humans, society, and the environment challenge our understanding of our responsibilities to the environment and future generations. Utilizing Van Potter’s sense of bioethics that meant the normative study of humanity’s place in the biosphere, I attempt to reintegrate bioethics and environmental ethics, to address questions about human well-being in the future, its dependence on complex environmental systems, and the impact of emerging technologies particularly enhancement technologies upon it. Ultimately, I argue that the future envisioned by proponents of human enhancement technologies is not consistent with our responsibilities to future generations which including leaving certain amounts of natural capital, including human ones.References
Allhoff, Fritz. ‘Risk, Precaution, and Emerging Technologies’, Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technologies 3:2 (2009), pp. 1-27 (online).
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake New York: Anchor Book, 2004.
Bess, Michael. ‘Icarus 2.0: A Historian’s Perspective on Human Biological Enhancement’, Technology and Culture 49:1 (2008), pp. 114-126. doi: 10.1353/tech.2008.0040
Bostrom, Nick. ‘In Defense of Posthuman Dignity’, Bioethics 19:3 (2005), pp. 202-214. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2005.00437.x
Buchanan, Allen E., Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler. From Chance to Choice: Genes and Social Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511806940
Buchanan, Allen. ‘Human Nature and Enhancement’, Bioethics 23:3 (2009), pp. 141-150. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00633.x
Brundtland Commission of the United Nations. Available at http://www.undocuments. net/wced-ocf.htm (accessed 2013-03-01).
Daly, Herman and John Cobb. For the Common Good. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
Dwyer, James. ‘How to Connect Bioethics and Environmental Ethics: Health, Sustainability, and Justice’, Bioethics 23:9 (2009), pp. 497–502. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2009.01759.x
Feinberg, Joel. ‘The Child’s Right to an open Future’ [1980], in Joel Feinberg, Freedom and Fulfillment: Philosophical Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 76-97.
Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Picador, 2002.
Goodin, Robert. Protecting the Vulnerable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Habermas, Jürgen. The Future of Human Nature. Maldon, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003.
Hughes, Robert. Citizen Cyborg. Boulder: Westview Press, 2004.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Perennial, Reprint edition, 1998.
Jonas, Hans. ‘Biological Engineering—A Preview’, in Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974), pp. 141-167.
Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Penguin: New York, 2006.
Leopold, Aldo. ‘Land-use and Democracy’, Audubon Magazine 44 (1942), pp. 249-265.
Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949.
Leopold, Aldo. ‘The Conservation Ethic’ [1933], in The River of the Mother of God, edited by Susan Flader and Baird Callicott. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991, pp. 181-193.
McKibbon, Bill. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. New York: Times Books, 2002.
Meine, Curt. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010.
More, Max. ‘On Becoming PostHuman’ (2010). Available at http://eserver.org/courses/spring98/76101R/readings/becoming.html (accessed 2014-12-01).
National Science and Technology Council. ‘Nanotechnology: Shaping the World Atom by Atom’. Washington DC, 1999.
Nash, Roderick. The Rights of Nature. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
Newton, Julianne Lutz and Eric Freyfogle, ‘Sustainability: a Dissent’ Conservation Biology, 19: (2005), pp.23-32. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00538.x
Newton, Julianne Lutz. Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey. Washington: Island Press, 2006.
Nietzsche, Frederick. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. London: Penguin Classics, [1883-1891] 1961.
Norton, Bryan. Sustainability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226595221.001.0001
Parfit, Derrick, Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. doi: 10.1093/019824908X.001.0001
Potter, Van. Bioethics: Bridge to the Future. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Potter, Van. Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy. Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1988.
Roco, Mihail C. and William S. Bainbridge. Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science. Washington DC: National Science Foundation, 2002.
Sagoff, Mark. The Economy of the Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Sandel, Michael. The Case against Perfection. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Selin, Cynthia. ‘Diagnosing Futures: Producing Scenarios to Support Anticipatory Governance of Technology’ Paper presented at the annual meeting of the 4S Annual Meeting - Abstract and Session Submissions, Crystal City, VA. Abstract available at http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p380481_index.html (accessed 2014-12-01).
Walker, Margaret. Moral Understanding. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.
Whitehouse, Peter. ‘The Rebirth of Bioethics: Extending the Original Formulations of Van Rensselaer Potter’, American Journal of Bioethics 3:4 (2003), pp. 26-31. doi: 10.1162/152651603322614751
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2014 Joan McGregor
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
