Body enhancement : body images, vulnerability and moral responsibility

Abstract

The objective of this explorative study is to show that it is highly relevant to integrate cultural and personal body images into the ethical debate on human enhancement. The current debate has little attention for the motivations to make use of technology to alter the human body, such as cultural images of the human body. As a consequence, the debate risks to alienate from its central moral issue. Human enhancement is often understood as the technological interventions in the human body to improve human form and functioning without the medical indication to do so. An exploration of the different topics that receive attention in the ethical debate shows that there is no consensus about the core moral issues concerning enhancement. Within the debate, two interpretations of enhancement seem to be intertwined. One merely sees enhancement as the result of specific technologies. The other interpretation sees enhancement merely as a pursuit of (body) improvement. Especially when we understand enhancement as a pursuit of body improvement people’s motivations to alter themselves, their body images should be taken into consideration. One could even argue that enhancement, as the pursuit of improvement, is a cultural body image. Based on phenomenological, social scientist and feminist studies I display what I understand body images to be. Body images are cultural phenomena containing all attitudes and values concerning human bodies. These phenomena include the interrelationships between personal body images and cultural body images. Feminist and disability studies show us that body images are not merely contingent, but come into existence through cultural production. That statement introduces some interesting issues related to ethical deliberations. Two central issues are reflected upon. First, the complex relationship between body images and human action raises the question whether we can change or modify existing body images. The use of enhancement technologies itself implies that one can actively change ones body image. Is it also possible to alter pervasive cultural ideals of „normalcy?? On which levels are we able to act and on which are we not? Second, the notion of vulnerability is reflected upon. Do body images lead to vulnerability? Is vulnerability a moral issue? And finally, when do the vulnerabilities caused by the cultural production of body images evoke moral issues? A list of questions is presented that can be applied in concrete situations to inquire when body images lead to vulnerabilities that are morally problematic. This study detects the questions that need to be raised in order to understand to what extent the investigated connection between body images and enhancement raises issues of moral responsibility. The problem is that the cultural production of body images is a complex process. It is not possible to appoint one single responsible actor. How could we reflect upon moral responsibility in such a complex situation? Which issues of moral responsibility in relation to body images should be dealt with within the context of enhancement? A society that wishes to act responsibly in relation to enhancement technologies needs to reflect upon those questions.