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The Opposite of Human Enhancement: Nanotechnology and the Blind Chicken Problem

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Nanotechnology, the Brain, and the Future

Part of the book series: Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society ((YNTS,volume 3))

Abstract

Nanotechnologies that have been linked to the possibility of enhancing cognitive capabilities of human beings might also be deployed to reduce or eliminate such capabilities in non-human vertebrate animals. A surprisingly large literature on the ethics of such disenhancement has been developed in response to the suggestion that it would be an ethically defensible response to animal suffering both in medical experimentation and in industrial livestock production. However, review of this literature illustrates the difficulty of formulating a coherent ethical debate. Well structured arguments for disenhancement can be made on the basis of mainstream views on the basis of ethical obligations to animals, but these arguments have not been persuasive against the moral intuition that disenhancements are unethical. At the same time, attempts to ground these intuitions in a coherent philosophical doctrine have been plagued by logical fallacies and question begging assertions. As such, the debate over animal disenhancement forecasts an enduring conundrum with respect to the core question of transforming the nature of sentient beings, and this conundrum is logically independent of claims that relate either to the distinctive of human beings or to issues deriving from the emphasis on enhancement.

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht/Nanoethics, 2, 2008, p. 305–316, The Opposite of Human Enhancement: Nanotechnology and the Blind Chicken Problem, Paul B. Thompson, Received: 29 October 2008/Accepted: 6 November 2008/Published online: 22 November 2008, with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 South Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Paul B. Thompson

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  1. Paul B. Thompson
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Correspondence to Paul B. Thompson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , The Center for Nanotechnology in Society, Arizona State University, PO Box 875603, TEMPE, 85287-5603, USA

    Sean A. Hays

  2. , The Center for Nanotechnology in Society, Arizona State University, PO BOX 875603, Tempe, 85287-5603, Arizona, USA

    Jason Scott Robert

  3. , The Center for Nanotechnology in Society, Arizona State University, PO Box 875603, Tempe, 85287-5603, Arizona, USA

    Clark A. Miller

  4. , The Center for Nanotechnology in Society, Arizona State University, PO BOX 875603, Tempe, 85287-5603, Arizona, USA

    Ira Bennett

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Thompson, P.B. (2013). The Opposite of Human Enhancement: Nanotechnology and the Blind Chicken Problem. In: Hays, S., Robert, J., Miller, C., Bennett, I. (eds) Nanotechnology, the Brain, and the Future. Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1787-9_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1787-9_15

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