Abstract
In his paper “The Opposite of Human Enhancement: Nanotechnology and the Blind Chicken problem” (Nanoethics 2:305–316, 2008) Paul Thompson argues that the possibility of “disenhancing” animals in order to improve animal welfare poses a philosophical conundrum. Although many people intuitively think such disenhancement would be morally impermissible, it’s difficult to find good arguments to support such intuitions. In this brief response to Thompson, I accept that there’s a conundrum here. But I argue that if we seriously consider whether creating beings can harm or benefit them, and introduce the non-identity problem to discussions of animal disehancement, the conundrum is even deeper than Thompson suggests.
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Notes
See Palmer (unpublished) 2010 “What’s Wrong with my Bulldog: Animal Ethics and the Non-Identity Problem” for further discussion of these strategies.
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Palmer, C. Animal Disenhancement and the Non-Identity Problem: A Response to Thompson. Nanoethics 5, 43–48 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0115-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0115-1