Enhancing Human Traits

"Coherently organized, Enhancing Human Traits provides a useful set of perspectives for framing ethical, social, and policy questions in what will continue to be a controversial area of medicine."

Explores ethical and social implications of various biotechnologies that make it possible to enhance an individual's mental and physical attributes. Focusing on the moral issues pertaining to cosmetic surgery and cosmetic psychopharmacolog, this title examines notions of identity, authenticity, normality, and complicity.In this volume, scholars from philosophy, sociology, history, theology, women's studies, and law explore the looming ethical and social implications of new biotechnologies that are rapidly making it possible to enhance an individual's mental and physical attributes in ways previously only imagined. To clarify the issues, the contributors grapple with the central concept of "enhancement" and probe the uses and abuses of the term. Focusing in particular on the moral issues pertaining to cosmetic surgery and cosmetic psychopharmacology (a category which includes Prozac), they also examine notions of identity, authenticity, normality, and complicity. Other essays in this collection address the social ramifications of the new technologies, including the problems of access and fairness.