Week 7 Post 2-Enhancement

 Enhancement is an addition to humans that is generally seen as a betterment in a certain area, rather than a handicap. There are many ethical arguments for and against enhancement and they generally are varied because they fall into different taxonomies of enhancement. The first main taxonomy is biological v. nonbiological enhancements, and the line is often thin between the two, but federal regulators often describe biological enhancements as ones that actually change the biology of a person, such as cosmetic surgery and nonbiological enhancements as ones that do not change a person's biology, such as getting an ACT tutor. Currently, federal regulation systems really only focus on biological enhancements because they are seen as more invasive to a person and therefore more dangerous. However there are many nonbiological enhancements such as Google glasses that have far broader and invasive effects on society. A sub-distinction within this taxonomy is between genetic v. nongenetic enhancements. Genetic enhancements are ones that actually change the DNA of a person, with something like CRISPR, and non-genetics are enhancements that change a person's biology but not their genetics, like Ritalin or beta blockers. Genetic enhancements are often seen with special concern because they enhance something that is seen as more essentially people, their DNA, and because they are often passed down to offspring. Another set of distinctions of enhancement is between a person choosing to do the enhancement themselves or having someone else make that choice for them, the latter of which primarily pertains to children. Within the category of enhancements effecting children, there is enhancement that happens pre-conception, which would be when a person picks specific traits in a sperm donor, or when particular embryos are chosen for in vitro fertilization (IVF). There is also enhancement that would happen after birth, such as having a child take medicine so they grow stronger or taller, and this type of enhancement is more concerned than pre-birth enhancement for a variety of reasons. One reason there is less ethical trouble with enhancements pre-birth is because the non-identity problem states that if the child would not have come into existence, and in cases of pre-birth enhancement the specific embryo would not be born, then the potential harm done to them is nullified, because it is better to exist than not exist. So long as the child is deemed to have a life worth living enhancements are preferable to not being born at all, and therefore not as unethical as post-birth ones. An ethical problem with post-birth children enhancements is concern over how parents view their children, as more customizable and marketable than they would be if their attribute were left to chance, and how that can corrupt the parental ideal of love. One ethical argument against both types of child enhancement is that enhancement can be limiting to a child's "open future" which is a right to them, especially if the enhancement limits other future opportunities for them, apart from the enhancement. Another distinction for enhancements are if these changes are actually enhancements or just treatments. This distinction makes an ethical difference for many people, because many believe society has a moral obligation to get everyone at the "species typical level" of function but not beyond it, where everyone is on the same playing field that humanity is currently operating on, so no one is disadvantaged. More people are in favor of treatment than enhancement because of this reasoning, but some argue that this line of thinking falls victim to the baseline problem, where an arbitrary baseline is set based on where humanity is at currently, and does not allow room for progress. A subdivision is set here, again between enhancing to what humans have already achieved to what they by nature have not, like making someone live as long as a human has lived before naturally but not further than that. An example of this would be letting a person grow, with enhancements to the tallest height a person has been but not above that. More distinctions in the taxonomy of enhancement is whether the enhancement is reversible or irreversible and if the enhancement has an absolute good v.  a propositional good. Reversible forms of enhancement are often seen as more acceptable than irreversible, because the decision is less concrete, so the consequences are less severe, however there is a spectrum between reversible and irreversible enhancements. Some enhancements, absolute good ones, produce a net good for every person, such as vaccines, and the more people who have them the better, but other enhancements, propositional ones, only have value if some people have them and others do not, such as speed or height. Enhancements can also pose great risk to people as a side effect of their benefits, and often the individual must weigh the benefits and costs to themselves, but there are different ways of government regulation, such as taxes, prohibition, waiting periods, and moral efforts to all convince people to stop from getting a particular enhancement. Enhancements, currently and hypothetically, often will have very unequal distributions, because they are costly and not accessible to everyone, however enhancements may also level the playing field if they are an absolute good distributed to everyone, like a government subsidized one. 

    Learning about the various types of enhancement and the different moral objections to them is important to bioethics because they are on the forefront of the bioethics community. The types of enhancements available are advancing and it is important to know the different arguments for and against to consider to make an empirical decision about where you stand bioethically. Enhancements also reveal an important part of bioethics which is putting people first and trying to make the decision that will be a net benefit for the most people. Learning about the bioethics also shows the importance of considering counters to an argument because it can reveal problems in a line of thinking that can be bettered with an addendum. Learning about different ethical arguments is important to discussing the ethical implications of CRISPR, because CRISPR is an enhancement and falls into many of the ethical arguments presented