Liberal Eugenics In Defence of Human Enhancement [Paperback]

In this provocative book, philosopher Nicholas Agar defends the idea that parents should be allowed to enhance their children’s characteristics.

• Gets away from fears of a Huxleyan ‘Brave New World’ or a return to the fascist eugenics of the past
• Written from a philosophically and scientifically informed point of view
• Considers real contemporary cases of parents choosing what kind of child to have
• Uses ‘moral images’ as a way to get readers with no background in philosophy to think about moral dilemmas
• Provides an authoritative account of the science involved, making the book suitable for readers with no knowledge of genetics
• Creates a moral framework for assessing all new technologies

Preface and Acknowledgments..

1. Genius Sperm, Eugenics, and Enhancement Technologies..

2. A Pragmatic Optimism about Enhancement Technologies..

3. Making Moral Images of Biotechnology..

4. The moral image of therapy..

5. The moral Image of Nature..

6. The Moral Image of Nurture.

7. Our Postliberal Future?.

8. Enhanced Humans When?.

Notes.

Further Reading.

References.

Index.

“The options for human enhancement that genetic science may eventually make possible tend to resist evaluation by traditional approaches to ethics, since the central issue is nothing less than what human nature itself shall be. Liberal Eugenics offers refreshingly sensible guidance to the possibilities of cloning, genetic therapy, and genetic enhancement by reference to our ‘moral images’ of more familiar but relevantly similar practices.l3#