ABSTRACT
Debates about human bioenhancement have fortunately moved beyond the early phases of discussion in the 1990s and 2000s – when scholars tended to take trenchantly black-and-white positions, either enthusiastically embracing the idea of bioenhancement or else vehemently rejecting all such modifications as inherently dehumanizing or degrading. This chapter continues in this anti-Manichean vein, exploring the practical complexities and ethical gray areas of two categories of hypothetical bioenhanced humans: cyborgs and designer babies. In both cases, this paper argues, the seemingly straightforward aspects of bioenhancement give way to unexpected nuances and intricate trade-offs when one considers them not just as isolated interventions but rather as being inevitably embedded within a concrete context of interpersonal relationships and communal meanings. When one looks at specific examples of bioenhancement – as they might plausibly play out in the richly complex world of human emotions – neither the pros nor the cons of these modifications turn out to be as clear-cut as they might initially have seemed.
