Bioscience and the Good Life

The field of biotechnology has provided us withradical revisions and reappraisals of the nature and possibilities of ourbiological existence. Yet beyond its immediate utility, does a life healthier,longer, or freer from disease make us 'better' or more moral people?Bioscience and the Good Lifeexplores the complex relationship betweenmodern biosciences and eudemonia, theirsympathies and schisms, and the instances of their reconciliation. Herecognitive enhancement, longevity, and the spectacle of excellence in sports,are examined within the context of what constitutes a life well lived. Framing biotechnological innovation in the discourse of duty and ethics,Brassington advances an insightful and involved response to the existingdebates between bioscientific optimists and pessimists, one which mediatestheir differences, and expands the traditional scope of their arguments.

Iain Brassington is Lecturer in Bioethics at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy and the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, UK.

: <b>1 The Good of Bioscience : </b>Understanding the good life : Happiness and flourishing : The importance of projects : Function and the good life : The reasonable expectation standard : Rebooting the therapy/enhancement distinction : Closing the distinction? : The structure of this book : <b>2 Bad Arguments against Better Lives</b> : Repugnance as a moral tool : Nature and human nature : Habermas ' future : The argument from dignity : A slight reprieve? : The mythologization of the given : Is enhancement permissible? : <b>3</b> <b>Must We Make Better People?</b> : John Harris ' argument for a duty to enhance : Harris ' argument : Why would enhancement be a duty? : Beneficence and duties to enhance : What is enhancement? : What is ' acceptable ' ? : A duty to enhance? : <b>4 Sex, Death and Cabbages: A Defence of Mortality </b> : Defending against death : Avoiding deaths and saving lives : What ' s wrong with mortality(?) : Why not be immortal? : Self-inflicted boredom? : Filling a life, and the LOT revisited : Mortality and the good life : The boon of mortality : <b>5 Designs for Life </b> : Enhancement in sport : The character of the sport : Becoming a blade-runner : On me, not in me : Other objections : Body modification and the good life : <b>6 Thinking Better about Better Thinking </b> : Enhancing memory : Out of our heads : Criminal detection: A duty to remember? : Memory and absentmindedness : Enhancing processing : The argument from alienation : The social benefits of cognitive enhancement : The benefits of distraction : Alienation revisited : The case for cognitive enhancement: Not wholly proven : <b>7 Good Is as Good Does? The Case of : ' Moral Enhancement ' </b> : The possibility of ' moral enhancement ' : Strategies for moral enhancement : The argument from freedom : Freedom and options : Nicomachean moral enhancement : Rebuilding the argument from freedom : The argument from reasonable disagreement : Enhancing moral reasoning : Is moral enhancement desirable anyway? : <b>8 Bioscience and the Duty to Research, Part 1: : Ways to Make Life Better </b> : Is there a duty of beneficence? : Beneficence, benefit and obligation : What would be beneficial research? : The argument from incommensurability : The argument from anthropology : Ecology and economy : Is there a duty to research? : <b>9 Bioscience and the Duty to Research, Part 2: : Non-Beneficent Arguments </b> : Formulating the duty to research : The prevention and causation argument : The argument from rescue : The argument from filial piety : The free rider argument : Fairness and the future : Reason and obligation : A puzzle about duties : <b>9-and-a-bit Bioscience and the Good Life </b> : Bibliography : Index