The concept and practices of human enhancement

what is at stake?

Simone Bateman

pp. 19-37

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

Abstract

Human enhancement has generated a considerable amount of debate, with little concern as to what precisely is meant by this term and to what concrete practices it refers. Some authors, mostly philosophers, have offered formal definitions of the term; many others have often simply provided working definitions or based their reflections on an implicit understanding of the term (Menuz et al., 2013). We do not intend here to propose yet another definition, but to identify and characterize the contexts in which new uses of the term enhancement have emerged and to provide, on this basis, some points of reference as to what is at stake.