GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Who needs ‘moral bioenhancement’ most?

domingo, 8 de septiembre de 2019

BioEdge: Who needs ‘moral bioenhancement’ most?

BioEdge: Who needs ‘moral bioenhancement’ most?

Bioedge

Who needs ‘moral bioenhancement’ most?

by Michael Cook | 7 Sep 2019 |

^{Photo by Rob Curran on Unsplash}

“Many supporters of ’moral bioenhancement’ (MBE), the use of biomedical interventions for moral improvement, have been criticised for having unrealistic proposals.” So begins a student essay by Gregory Mark Conan, of George Fox University (Oregon) in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Whether or not he successfully argues that MBE is realistic, his proposals are certainly thought-provoking.

Moral bioenhancement has been spruiked by some bioethicists for several years now. Despairing of humanity’s tendency to well and truly screw things up, some have suggested that solutions like doctoring the water supply with harmony-inducing drugs might be the only way to save the world from Ragnarök.

Conan’s ambitions are more modest. He suggests that interventions like transcranial direct current stimulation over the medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and supplementation with lithium and omega-3 could help some types of people. Murderers and rapists would be amongst the first candidates. “For example,” he writes, “a violent offender could choose therapeutic lithium treatment in exchange for a reduced sentence.”

More novel is his suggestion that moral bioenhancement should be mandatory for police and politicians.

As public servants, both are already held to a higher moral standard than the general population. They are all expected to set aside personal gain and act primarily for the benefit of their communities, even at great personal sacrifice. Their occupations usually require high prosociality and self-control for making difficult moral decisions with significant ramifications for others’ welfare. The fact that they often fail to meet these high standards only makes it more critical for them to undergo MBE …
Considering how many evils come from the orders of some political leader(s), perhaps the best possible use of MBE would be to enhance political leaders. Power corrupts, as most people know, by reducing morally good traits. So perhaps MBE of those traits could be required for some political leaders to protect against power’s corrupting influence, helping to solve that fundamental problem of politics …

Nominations are hereby open in the comment box below for politicians who would benefit from moral bioenhancement….

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge

Below is an article about a 73-year-old Indian woman who has just given birth to twin boys. This is a story which used to fly onto the front page, but is now a bit ho-hum. To stir media interest, we need to break through the next barrier. “Centenarian gives birth to twins, say Indian doctors” – now that would be newsworthy, I think. At least the first centenarian would.

The ho-hum factor may account for the fact that few questions were raised about obvious ethical issues involved in septuagenarians giving birth.

First of all, it is obviously reinforcing a sexist stereotype – that a woman is useless unless she has children. Furthermore, despite reassuring words from the doctors, it is a serious risk to the mother’s health.

Second, the children of a 73-year-old mother will soon be orphans. In fact, their father had a stroke on the day after they were born. No one seems to be thinking about their welfare and their future. They are just status symbols for their parents and the doctors.

Why did the doctors cooperate? For the money? For the fame? It strikes me as completely unethical.