Enhanced, improved, perfected?

Abstract

In trying to enhance, improve or perfect ourselves through technological intervention, we can risk the very idea of a practical identity and selfpossession. In thinking of the enhancement, improvement or perfection of the body through technological interventions, we ought to acknowledge limits in our outlook at least as seriously as we enjoy the considerable advances offered by technology in general. In postulating the chance of enhancement, improvement and perfection it is important to think about the distinction between what we can and what we ought to do. In terms of scientific advance, this is not necessarily reflected clearly - it is often the case that scientific advance per se is taken to be "progress." Progress in scientific research isn't an easy notion in itself. Human progress, in being highly open to nuance and value, draws upon evaluation across a range of validity spheres. In tying a too-uncomplicated notion of scientific progress to the issue of human progress, there is a risk that we evaluate too narrowly our chances and our options.