A scale and a paradigmatic framework for human enhancement

Pascal Nouvel

pp. 103-118

in: Simone Bateman, Sylvie Allouche, Jerome Goffette, Michela Marzano (eds), Inquiring into human enhancement, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015

Abstract

I would like to propose a scale for enhancement techniques, and in so doing, additionally show that a set of techniques, already in use or likely to be used soon, can serve as a paradigmatic framework for such a scale. As a point of departure, I will briefly comment on a generally accepted definition of "human enhancement": enhancement refers to any attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human body through natural or artificial means. This is a comprehensive definition that would include both an apparatus designed to improve the vision of persons suffering from nearsightedness and the engineering of the gene coding for myostatin in a human embryo so as to give birth to an engineered champion.¹ Two points in the definition may require further attention: the concept of limitation and the distinction between natural and artificial.