How to Build a Better Human An Ethical Blueprint

The last decade has witnessed the birth of potentially the most spectacular tools for human enhancement in the history of medicine. Yet to date, we are not using them to best advantage. Little systematic progress in human enhancement has occurred, and what success has been achieved has bee sporadic and financed privately. With each success alarmists moan that we are corrupting our natures, beset by narcissism, and falling into Eugenics. In How to Build a Better Human, prominent bioethicist Gregory E. Pence argues that humans, if they are careful and ethical, can use genetics, biotechnology, and medicine in safe ethical ways for human enhancement. He looks at the innovations and challenges that have occurred since the birth of bioethics almost 50 years ago and considers the ethical implications of the technological advances that are just around the corner. Pence believes that we need to transcend the two common frame stories of bioethics, bioconservative alarmism and uncritical enthusiasm. He argues that it's time bioethics become part of the solution, not the problem, in making better humans.