Browne Tamara Kayali, Clarke Steve
School of Medicine, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia.
J Moral Educ. 2019 Apr 1;49(2):241-256. doi: 10.1080/03057240.2019.1576125. eCollection 2020.
The prospect of enhancing ourselves through the use of new biotechnologies is for the most part, hypothetical. Nevertheless, the question of whether we should undertake such enhancement is worthy of discussion as it may become possible in the future. In this article, we consider one form of argument that conservative opponents of biotechnological means of enhancement (bioconservatives) deploy in opposition to the use of enhancement technologies-the backfiring objection. This is the objection that the use of such technologies is liable to go wrong and lead to outcomes that are inferior to the outcomes intended. We will argue that the objection is not nearly as significant as bioconservatives suppose it to be. Bioconservatives sometimes supplement the backfiring objection by arguing that change will be irreversible, that the new (or the unconventional) is especially liable to backfire and that humans possess severe and permanent limitations which cannot be overcome. We consider these ways of supplementing the backfiring objection and argue that each of them, when properly understood, is of limited value to the bioconservative. We also consider how traditional approaches to moral education can be supplemented by bioenhancement.
通过使用新生物技术来提升自我，在很大程度上只是一种设想。然而，我们是否应该进行这种提升的问题值得探讨，因为未来这有可能成为现实。在本文中，我们将思考一种反对生物技术提升手段的保守派（生物保守派）所采用的反对使用提升技术的论证形式——事与愿违的反对意见。这种反对意见认为，使用此类技术可能会出错，并导致比预期结果更差的后果。我们将论证，这种反对意见远没有生物保守派认为的那么重要。生物保守派有时会通过论证变革将不可逆转、新事物（或非传统事物）特别容易事与愿违以及人类存在无法克服的严重且永久性的局限性来补充事与愿违的反对意见。我们思考了这些补充事与愿违反对意见的方式，并论证说，当正确理解时，它们中的每一种对生物保守派的价值都有限。我们还思考了传统道德教育方法如何能通过生物增强得到补充。
