Untitled Quiz

Bioethics

• Medical ethics is closely related to bioethics (biomedical ethics), but not identical
• Medical ethics primarily focuses on issues arising from the practice of medicine.
• Bioethics is a very broad subject concerned with moral issues raised by developments in the biological sciences.
• Bioethics does not require the acceptance of certain traditional values fundamental to medical ethics.

Applied Ethics

• It is a branch of applied ethics that studies philosophical, social, and legal issues arising in medicine and the life sciences.
• It is chiefly concerned with human life and well-being.
• It also treats ethical questions relating to the nonhuman biological environment.

Bio-Political Battlefronts

• Key Questions include: Who is a citizen with a right to life?
• Issues include: abortion, stem cells, great ape rights, brain death, chimera.
• Issues include: Control of Reproduction: contraception, abortion, fertility treatments, genetic testing, germline gene therapies, cloning.
• Issues include: Fixing Disabilities to “Human Enhancement”
• Issues include: Extending Life: treatment for aging-related diseases and anti-aging drugs and therapies.
• Issues include: Control of the Brain: Ritalin and Prozac, psychoactive drugs, brain chips.

Emerging Technologies

• Technologies that will radically change human life include psychopharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science.
• The accelerating convergence of these technologies.

Bioconservatives/BioLuddites

• Religious Right, notably C.S. Lewis ("The Abolition of Man")
• Deep Ecologists, Romantics and Luddites.
• Notable figures include Aldous Huxley ("Brave New World").
• Left-wing/Feminist critics of Biotechnology, e.g., Jeremy Rifkin ("Algeny"), Gena Corea("The Mother").
• Pro-Disability Extremists,

Transhumanism

• An intellectual and cultural movement affirming the possibility and desirability of transcending human limitations through applied reason.
• Using technology to eliminate aging and enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
• Examples of issues: age, cell reproduction, memory loss, and the brain's workings.

Trans-Humanism

• Includes emphasis on 18th-century rationalism and skepticism.
• Highlights the dignity and worth of humanity.
• Emphasizes liberty, equality, and democracy.
• Stresses human capacity for self-realization through reason, independent of supernatural assistance.
• Transhumanists view the potential for humans to reshape themselves through technology.

Transhumanism and Posthumanism

• Transhumans are currently in a transitional stage, using technology like eyeglasses, insulin, vaccines, and prosthetics.
• Posthumanism represents a future state of being, more fundamentally different from the human condition.
• The differences between them are characterized by whether or not one is bound to natural human biology.

Transhumanist Communities

• Notable groups and researchers include the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, and Ramez Naam.
• Life Extenders, organizations like the Immortality Institute and Longevity Meme
• Cryonicists, e.g. Alcor.
• Nanotechnologists, organizations like the Foresight Institute.

Transhumanism: What it is not

• Not racial eugenics. Transhumanists oppose pseudoscience, racism, and authoritarianism.
• Not a religious movement or cult.
• Not necessarily libertarianism or objectivism. Transhumanists hold diverse political views.

Democratic Transhumanism

• A philosophy that considers both equality, solidarity, and also liberty in relation to radical democracy
• Technologies requiring oversight, regulation, and universal access.
• Emphasizes public policy that addresses negative consequences of innovation like job displacement (structural employment).

Central Biopolitical Disputes

• Contrasting viewpoints between Transhumanists and BioLuddites.
• Transhumanists: Personhood, humanism, reason and individual liberty are paramount.
• BioLuddites: Human-racism, deep ecology, sacred taboos and the natural factor are priorities.

Personhood

• A concept of persons as "conscious beings, aware of themselves, with intents and purposes over time."
• Persons include great apes, humans, artificial intelligence, and even posthumans.
• Legal personhood is linked to a right to life.

H+ = Radical Human Rights

• Liberal democracy places personhood above racial, gender, or species classifications.
• Citizens' rights to self-ownership, self-determination, and control over their bodies and brains are fundamental.
• Liberal democratic governments should encourage the fulfillment of individual human potential.

Freedom from Tech + Democracy

• Technology frees humanity from the tyranny of nature.
• Democracy, liberty, and equality liberate humanity from the tyranny of social norms.

Technological Self-Determination

• The right to use technology to control one's own body and mind.
• The right to access more life and ability, including healthcare.
• The value of cognitive liberty and transgender rights.
• Justifying body modification, cosmetic enhancement, and reproductive rights.
• Empowering individuals with disabilities to obtain assistive technologies.

Limits on Human Reason?

• Deep suspicion regarding the use of reason and the meddling with nature.
• The concept that human intervention often leads to disaster, and nature is excessively complex for humans to fully comprehend.
• Precautionary principle, focusing on a careful approach when the consequences of our choices are uncertain.
• Relevant examples: aspirin and antibiotics.

Reproductive Cloning

• Potential harm to future generations (gene-damaged children).
• Risks to egg donors.
• Distaste arising from the hypothetical scenarios it raises.
• Concerns regarding odd family ties and the creation of “clone armies” leading to homogeneous societies.

The Goal of Transhumanism

• Aim for a global society that empowers individuals to make informed decisions about technology.
• Long-term goals include achieving longer lifespans, more happiness, and greater intelligence and control over one's life.
• Ensuring technology is accessible and safe for all.
• Building a transhumanist democracy in which humans and posthumans can coexist.

Building Better Athletes

• This involves enhancing athletic performance through genetics (Human Genome Project), strength training, muscle growth and cardio improvement, plyometric and other training sciences.
• It integrates biometrics and technique (e.g., Fosbury flop, drafting) and nutrition.

Socializing Athletic Bodies

• Athletes are psychologically trained through beliefs, visualization, and forms of "psycho-doping."
• Athletes are socially trained through their acceptance of authorities like coaches.

Injury Relief Industries

• Team physicians and trainers provide medical care.
• The underground economy trades in drugs for treatment of injuries, a common practice.
• Numerous companies produce relief products such as topical agents (e.g., "Super Blue Stuff," "Nature's Sport Pain Relief").
• Alternative therapy options like homeopathy, acupuncture, and reflexology are prevalent.

Sport Technology Axis

• The subject or object of sport is analyzed (i.e., time, scores, and representations over the moving person).
• The idea of improving sporting bodies through different types of technology along with the commercial use of sports technologies for performance.

Athletes as Cyborgs

• Discusses the concept of a cyborg (the intersection between human and machine).
• Queries whether athlete-machines are more real than athletes.
• Sport includes different forms of enhancement through doping, biotechnology, and genetic engineering.

Regulation Failures

• The analysis of the effectiveness of league policies or organizations in establishing norms for sport
• Evaluation of the World Anti-Doping Association's (WADA) effectiveness.
• The deterrents put in place concerning drug use in sports.

Why do Bio-ethicists Ignore Sport?

• Sport is a trivial issue.
• Voluntary consent is often not fully understood or applied.
• Sport serves as a convenient and widely accessible testbed for new technologies.
• The idea of the sport being a popular or cost-effective method for examining new innovations is seen as being unrealistic.

Gene Doping as Enhancement

• Positive intervention: improves natural functions
• Negative intervention: cures pathologies.
• Enhancement: Physical, mental, and emotional changes.
• Somatic and germline modifications may take place.

Doping in Sports

• The methods of enhancement, including drugs to boost alertness, blood vessels and heart functions, weight control and strength-building.
• Types of drugs used by athletes.
• Specific sports benefiting from certain types of performance enhancement.

Pumping Up with Genes

• Gene therapy that simulates injury signals to trigger repair activity by stem cells.
• Gene therapy can enhance muscle fibers and their types.
• Focuses on improving athletes in specific sports.
• Examples of possible enhancement include increased oxygen carrying red blood cells that may lead to increased endurance.

Gene Doping

• Repoxigen is a new gene doping method that artificially enhances athletic performance.
• The method involves viral delivery of a modified gene that encodes erythropoietin (EPO).
• The method changes muscle cells to have higher EPO levels, leading to enhanced oxygen carrying capacity in the athlete.

The Central Bio-Ethical Questions

• Autonomy: Ethical considerations involving the forced acceptance of doping vs individual choice
• Beneficence: Ethical assessment of doping as a practice
• Non-maleficence: Long term safety and risks of doping
• Ethical dilemmas revolving around altering the human condition legitimately.

Pro Ban vs Versus Ban

• Pro ban: concerns about sport integrity, unknown health risks, and violations of consent.
• Versus ban: Concerns about genetic lottery, the dominance of "normalcy," athletes' right to enhance their bodies, and viewing the use of these technologies as a medical intervention in athletics.

This is Stupid

• Evaluating the justification the concept of doping or banning of performance enhancement techniques (e.g., legality of rules, sports-medicine relationships, community and ethical consensus).
• Determining the appropriateness of rules that impede athletic success.
• Defining the nature of sport (medicine, enhancement) in the face of evolving definitions of health.

A Bio-Medical Ethical Response

• The virtues of sport focus on performance.
• The consequences of doping are unknown.
• De-ontological considerations determine that interfering with human biology is morally wrong.

Exam Info

• Format of upcoming exam, its shift from big to sport specific ethic questions.
• Short answer style is 3-4 sentences, defining terms and giving examples.
• Normative versus applied ethics, including the difference between virtue ethics and consequentialism.