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Zusatztext This is a book of remarkable clarity and balance; it illuminates important issues in bioethics with a substantial degree of care and respect for opposing perspectives in difficult, ongoing debates about the body, identity, disability and technology. Erik Parens' determined vision of a middle-ground in these debates challenges the 'knockers' and the 'boosters' to abandon their respective megaphones and discover more of what they might have in common. This is an essential book especially for those starting out in bioethics; would that there were more books that gave students a balanced perspective on 'hot' issues from the start. Informationen zum Autor Erik Parens is a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute in Garrison, NY. He is also an adjunct professor in the program in Science, Technology, and Society at Vassar College, and a Fellow of the Center for Neuroscience and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Klappentext When bioethicists debate the ethics of using technologies like surgery and pharmacology to shape our selves, they are debating what it means for human beings to flourish. They are debating what makes animals like us truly happy, and whether the technologies at issue will bring us closer to or farther from such happiness. The positions that participants adopt in debates regarding such ancient and fundamental questions are often polarized, and cannot help but be deeply personal. It is no wonder that these debates are sometimes acrimonious. How can critics of and enthusiasts about technological self- transformation move forward in the midst of polarizing arguments? Based on his experience as a scholar at The Hastings Center, the oldest free-standing bioethics research institute in the world, Erik Parens proposes a habit of thinking, which he calls Binocular thinking lets us benefit from the insights that are visible from the stance of the enthusiast, who emphasizes that using technology to creatively transform our selves will make us happier, and to benefit from the insights that are visible from the stance of the critic, who emphasizes that learning to let ourselves be will make us happier. Because these debates ultimately entail critics and enthusiasts giving justifications for their own ways of being in the world, they entail the exchange of more than just impartial reasons. In the throes of our passion to make our case, we exaggerate our insights and all-too-often fall into the conceptual traps that our languages constantly set for us: Are human beings by nature creators or creatures? Are technologies morally neutral or value- laden? Is disability a medical or a social phenomenon? Indeed, are we free or determined? Parens explains how participating in these debates helped him articulate a habit of thinking, which is better at benefiting from the insights embedded in both poles of those binaries than was the habit of thinking he broug Zusammenfassung The bioethical debates between critics and enthusiasts about using technologies to shape our selves are sometimes acrimonious. Candidly drawing on his participation in these debates, Erik Parens offers a habit of thinking about the questions at their center, which benefits from, rather than denies, the insights on both sides. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction Chapter 1: Seeing from Somewhere in Particular Chapter 2: Embracing Binocularity Chapter 3: Creativity and Gratitude Chapter 4: Technology as Value-Free and as Value-Laden Chapter 5: Nobody's against True Enhancement Chapter 6: Comprehending Persons as Subjects and as Objects Chapter 7: Respecting Persons as Subjects and as Objects Closing Thoughts ...
