The Ethics of Human Enhancement ─ Understanding the Debate

We humans can enhance some of our mental and physical abilities above the normal upper limits for our species with the use of particular drug therapies and medical procedures. We will be able to enhance many more of our abilities in more ways in the near future. Some commentators have welcomed the prospect of wide use of human enhancement technologies, while others have viewed it with alarm, and have made clear that they find human enhancement morally objectionable. The Ethics of Human Enhancement examines whether the reactions can be supported by articulated philosophical reasoning, or perhaps explained in terms of psychological influences on moral reasoning. An international team of ethicists refresh the debate with new ideas and arguments, making connections with scientific research and with related issues in moral philosophy.

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.