Conclusions

Abstract

This chapter wraps up the discussion started in the first chapter of the book, on Questions such as “What does it mean to be human?”, “When is a nonhuman a person?” and “When is a human not a person?”, and reminds the reader that these questions have important moral implications for how we should treat higher animals, how we should care for humans with severe physical or cognitive impairments, and what forms of human enhancement are morally acceptable. The reader is reminded that two main schools of thought dominate this discourse: the transhumanists, who encourage human enhancement technologies and the bio-conservatives, who argue against artificial human enhancement. It is concluded that at its core, transhumanism is simply a vision of those who seek to ensure better lives for themselves and their children using new and existing biotechnologies and that the bio-conservative arguments against transhumanism are, for the most part, philosophically flawed.