Unfreedom or Mere Inability? The Case of Biomedical Enhancement
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Mere inability, which refers to what persons are naturally unable to do, is traditionally thought to be distinct from unfreedom, which is a social type of constraint. The advent of biomedical enhancement, however, challenges the idea that there is a clear division between mere inability and unfreedom. This is because bioenhancement makes it possible for some people's mere inabilities to become matters of unfreedom. In this paper, I discuss several ways that this might occur: first, bioenhancement can exacerbate social pressures to enhance one's abilities; second, people may face discrimination for not enhancing; third, the new abilities made possible due to bioenhancement may be accompanied by new inabilities for the enhanced and unenhanced; and finally, shifting values around abilities and inabilities due to bioenhancement may reinforce a pre-existing ableism about human abilities. As such, we must give careful consideration to these potential unfreedom-generating outcomes when it comes to our moral evaluations of bioenhancement.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Journal of Medicine and Philosophy |
Volume | 49 |
Issue number | 2 |
Pages (from-to) | 195–206 |
Number of pages | 12 |
ISSN | 0360-5310 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Bibliographical note
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
ID: 384838010