How thinking about disability could improve the enhancement debate
Abstract for the 34 th Dutch-Flemish Day of Philosophy
Caroline Harnacke, PhD researcher
Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University c.e.harnacke@uu.nl
Recently, a heated debate has developed regarding the ethical acceptability of enhancement technologies that do not aim at diagnosis, treatment or prevention of diseases but at enhancing human traits. Almost at the same time disability has appeared as a topic in academic philosophy. I think that a more fundamental collaboration of these two debates than what is happening so far would be fruitful. Here, I will reconstruct the contribution of the disability ethics debate for the enhancement debate. This will be elaborated by means of three subjects of the enhancement debate, that are species-typical functioning, technology and well-being. In evaluating enhancement, there are strong normative assumptions made of the value of species-typical functioning, the role of technologies for our identity and how functionings contribute to our well-being. Those assumptions are typically implicitly and uncritically introduced. I will show that they look question-begging when taking disability ethics into account, that is discussions about conceptualizing disability and selfinterpretations of people with disabilities.
Specifically, the notion of species-typical functioning is often used to mark a threshold above which an intervention actually constitutes an enhancement and not anymore a therapeutic interference. It is argued that species-typical functioning is an objective concept based on statistics and biology. However, this position cannot be held up if one takes the concept of disability into account. Looking at the human species with all its impairments or variations teaches us that there is continuous variation with respect to any trait. Thus, it is impossible to find an objective cut-off point for species-typicality, but instead if one looks for such a cut-off point, it is value-based and must be deliberately chosen.
Concerning technology, in the enhancement debate there are currently great concerns around the use of invasive technologies like augmented eyeglasses, deep brain stimulation or transplanted technologies and to what extent they could be a thread for our identity.
However, disabled people have been using technology in collaborative, intimate ways in their lives to move, to communicate, to interact with the world for a long time. Thus, the current technology discussions in the enhancement debate do not deal with new challenges.
The experience of people with disabilities could be employed to gain a deeper understanding of what it means for human beings to live in close connection with invasive technologies.
For well-being, it is in the enhancement discussion quite often willingly assumed that enhancement contributes positively to a person’s well-being. More intelligence, more muscles or in general a higher performance should make one allegedly better off. Yet out of a disability perspective, this looks questionable. Disabled people themselves judge a lot

more positively about their well-being than others tend to assume. Empirical research shows that limitations of body or mind are not an obstacle for well-being. Thus, disability ethics shows that too simple understandings of well-being are often presupposed in the enhancement debate.
In general, these assumptions about the human being in the enhancement debate are thus at least controversial. Therefore, a reconstruction and critical analysis of these assumptions is needed before we can properly discuss enhancement. This would considerably improve the enhancement debate.
Short biography
Caroline Harnacke is PhD researcher at the Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University.
She is working on a project that investigates the relation between philosophical anthropology and normative ethics in the debates around enhancement and disability under supervision of Prof. Marcus Düwell and Dr. Joel Anderson. Caroline Harnacke studied
Philosophy and Economics (B.A.) at the University of Bayreuth (Germany) and Stellenbosch
(South Africa) and holds a Master Degree in Applied Ethics (cum laude) from the University of Linköping (Sweden), University of Utrecht and University of Stellenbosch.