The Bioethics of Enhancement: Transhumanism, Disability, and Biopolitics

by Melinda Hall

In a critical intervention into the bioethics debate over human enhancement, philosopher Melinda Hall tackles the claim that the expansion and development of human capacities is a moral obligation. Hall draws on French philosopher Michel Foucault to reveal and challenge the ways disability is central to the conversation. The Bioethics of Enhancement includes a close reading and analysis of the last century of enhancement thinking and contemporary transhumanist thinkers, the strongest promoters of the obligation to pursue enhancement technology. With specific attention to the work of bioethicists Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, the book challenges the rhetoric and strategies of enhancement thinking. These include the desire to transcend the body and decide who should live in future generations through emerging technologies such as genetic selection. Hall provides new analyses rethinking both the philosophy of enhancement and disability, arguing that enhancement should be a matter of social and political interventions, not genetic and biological interventions. Hall concludes that human vulnerability and difference should be cherished rather than extinguished.

This book will be of interest to academics working in bioethics and disability studies, along with those working in Continental philosophy (especially on Foucault).

Genres: Disability, Philosophy, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published December 7, 2016

Reviews

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO awesome. Very complete look at the underlying assumptions of transhumanism about embodiment/life/mortality/risk in general and especially as they relate to people with physical and cognitive disabilities. Really thoroughly explains how the disability critique of the current climate around prenatal screening is not in conflict with women’s full reproductive choice. I want to read all her work now and also look into the other feminist disability theorists she brings up... I really hadn’t read much disability theory that doesn’t continually undercut itself with postmodern bs and was skeptical that this would deliver but she totally did and this is from 2017!! Really cool. Also would probably be a great place to start with disability theory in general, she lays out all the context you need for her points in a way that isn’t annoying if you already know and is very helpful if you don’t

[brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

💜 dr. hall

[Ginger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Transhumanism is eugenics.