The Ethics of Human Enhancement Understanding the Debate

Steve Clarke, Charles Sturt University,Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford,Tony Coady, University of Melbourne,Alberto Giubilini, Charles Sturt University,Sagar Sanyal, University of Melbourne

Steve Clarke is Associate Professor in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University and a Senior Research Associate in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. He is the author of over sixty papers in refereed journals and edited collections, as well as two books, including The Justification of Religious Violence, Malden MA, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. He is also a co-editor of three books. The most recent of these is Clarke, S., Powell, R. and Savulescu. J. (eds.) 2013. Religion, Intolerance and Conflict: a Scientific and Conceptual Investigation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.


Julian Savulescu is Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. He directs the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics in the Faculty of Philosophy. He is co-author of I. Persson and J. Savulescu, Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012; and he edits the Journal of Medical Ethics. His areas of expertise include the ethics of genetics; research ethics; new forms of reproduction, medical ethics, sports ethics and the analytic philosophical basis of practical ethics. Julian is a founder member of the Hinxton Group.

Tony Coady is one of Australia's best-known philosophers. He has an outstanding international reputation for his writings on epistemology and on political violence and political ethics. His book Testimony: a Philosophical Study (OUP, 1992) has been particularly influential and more recently he published Morality and Political Violence (CUP, 2008). In 2005, he gave the Uehiro Lectures on Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, which were subsequently published in 2008 by Oxford University Press under the title, Messy Morality: the Challenge of Politics.


Alberto Giubilini is Research Associate on the Australian Research Council Discovery Project "Moral Conservatism, Human Enhancement and the 'Affective Revolution' in Moral Psychology". He specialises in medical ethics and bioethics. His research interests include human enhancement, medical end-of-life decisions, reproductive ethics, bioethical conflicts, and moral psychology.

Sagar Sanyal is Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include the ethics of enhancement, the ethics of war, and global justice. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Philosophy and the International Journal of Applied Philosophy.

Introductory Chapter
1. Challenging Human Enhancement, Alberto Giubilini and Sagar Sanyal
Section One: Understanding the Debate
2. Reason, Emotion, and Morality: Some Cautions for the Enhancement Project, C. A. J. Coady
3. Repugnance as Performance Error: the Role of Disgust in Bioethical Intuitions, Joshua May
4. Reasons, Reflection and Repugnance, Doug McConnell and Jeanette Kennett
5. A Natural Alliance against a Common Foe? Opponents of Enhancement and the Social Model of Disability, Linda Barclay
6. Playing God: What is the Problem?, John Weckert
7. Conservative and Critical Morality in Debate about Reproductive Technologies, John McMillan
8. Enhancing Human Enhancement, Chris Gyngell and Michael J. Selgelid
9. Human Enhancement for Whom?, Robert Sparrow
Section Two: Advancing the Debate
10. Enhancing Conservatism, Rebecca Roache and Julian Savulescu
11. MacIntyre s Paradox, Bernadette Tobin
12. Partiality for Humanity and Enhancement, Jonathan Pugh, Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu
13. Enhancement, Mind-uploading, and Personal Identity, Nicholas Agar
14. Levelling the Playing Field: on the Alleged Unfairness of the Genetic Lottery, Michael Hauskeller
15. Buchanan and the Conservative Argument against Human Enhancement from Biological and Social Harmony, Steve Clarke
16. Moral enhancement, enhancement, and sentiment, Gregory E. Kaebnick
17. The Evolution of Moral Enhancement, Russell Powell and Allen Buchanan