The harms of status enhancement could be compensated or outweighed: a response to Agar
Nicholas Agar argues, (1) that enhancement technologies could be used to create post-persons—beings of higher moral status than ordinary persons—and (2) that it would be wrong to create such beings.1 I am sympathetic to the first claim. However, I wish to take issue with the second. Agar's seco...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
BMJ Publ.
2013
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| In: |
Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2013, Volume: 39, Issue: 2, Pages: 75-76 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Nicholas Agar argues, (1) that enhancement technologies could be used to create post-persons—beings of higher moral status than ordinary persons—and (2) that it would be wrong to create such beings.1 I am sympathetic to the first claim. However, I wish to take issue with the second. Agar's second claim is grounded on the prediction that the creation of post-persons would, with at least moderate probability, harm those who remain mere persons. The harm that Agar has in mind here is a kind of meta-harm: the harm of being made more susceptible to being permissibly harmed—more liable to harm. Agar suggests that, if post-persons existed, mere persons could frequently be permissibly sacrificed in order to provide benefits to the post-persons. For instance, perhaps they could be permissibly used in lethal medical experiments designed to develop medical treatments for post-persons. By contrast, he suggests that mere persons typically cannot be permissibly sacrificed to provide benefits to other mere persons. He thus claims that mere persons would be more liable to sacrifice if post-persons existed than they are in the absence of post-persons. The creation of post-persons would make them worse off in at least this one respect. Agar then argues that, since this meta-harm imposed on mere persons would not be compensated, it would be wrong to create post-persons. It is here that I believe his argument begins to go awry. According to the concept of compensation that Agar deploys (pp. 19 and 20), a harm imposed on X is compensated just in … |
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| ISSN: | 1473-4257 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2012-100835 |