Remaking Homo: ethical issues on future human enhancement

Abstract

Since prehistory, the genus Homo has used technologies in order to enhance fitness. With the growth of bio-technologies, western medicine is improving the structure and function of the human body beyond its natural state. Bio-technological improvements in the next 50 yr promise further increases in human life span and performance. Notwithstanding the ethical argument encouraging transhumanist technologies, present human societies have yet to come to grips with the possibility of such a future world. This article will discuss future nootropic enhancers and human-animal gene splicing as possible enhancement technologies in relation to their ethical and social implications.