de Melo-Martin Inmaculada, Salles Arleen
Bioethics. 2015 May;29(4):223-32. doi: 10.1111/bioe.12100. Epub 2014 Jun 9.
Recently, some have proposed moral bioenhancement as a solution to the serious moral evils that humans face. Seemingly disillusioned with traditional methods of moral education, proponents of bioenhancement believe that we should pursue and apply biotechnological means to morally enhance human beings. Such proposal has generated a lively debate about the permissibility of moral bioenhancement. We argue here that such debate is specious. The claim that moral bioenhancement is a solution - whether permissible or not - to the serious moral problems that affect human beings is based on several problematic framing assumptions. We evaluate here three of such assumptions: the first rests on a contested understanding of morality, the second consist in a mistaken conception of human moral problems, and the third relates to problematic presuppositions grounding the interpretation of existent scientific evidence presented to defend moral bioenhancement. Once these framing assumptions are identified and critically evaluated, it becomes clear that the moral bioenhancement debate is misguided.
最近，一些人提出道德生物增强作为解决人类所面临的严重道德恶行的一种方法。生物增强的支持者似乎对传统道德教育方法不抱希望，他们认为我们应该追求并应用生物技术手段来在道德上提升人类。这一提议引发了一场关于道德生物增强是否可行的激烈辩论。我们在此认为，这场辩论是似是而非的。认为道德生物增强是解决影响人类的严重道德问题的方法——无论是否可行——这一观点基于几个有问题的框架假设。我们在此评估其中三个这样的假设：第一个基于对道德的有争议的理解，第二个在于对人类道德问题的错误概念，第三个涉及为捍卫道德生物增强而对现有科学证据进行解释时所依据的有问题的预设。一旦识别并批判性地评估了这些框架假设，就会清楚地发现道德生物增强辩论是被误导的。
