La Mejora Moderada como alternativa a la propuestas bioconservadora y posthumanista de mejora humana

Laburpena

In short, the first objective of this Thesis has been to know how the conception of human enhancement in its therapeutic and especially perfectionist dimension has been transformed over time and in line with biotechnological advances, until ending in the general contemporary acceptance of the first and the rejection of the second. To achieve this goal, the origins of human interest for their own enhancement have been analyzed -through several works and scientific articles-, from the first improvement proposals corresponding to the ancient Greek world, to the beginnings of contemporary debate in the last third of the twentieth century. In this regard, it has been concluded that the notion of perfectionist or non-therapeutic improvement -which had a big medical, scientific, and philosophical importance in ideologies and strategies for human enhancement- suffered a serious setback as a result of the action of the most radical eugenicist ideology during the first half of the 20th century, whose main result is the contemporary rejection of the use of biomedical technologies for objectives that are not manifestly therapeutic. The second objective of this Thesis has been to establish whether the contemporary phenomenon generally known as "liberal eugenics" or "new eugenics" can be identified with the so-called "old eugenics", that is, the eugenic-racial movement that prevailed in much of the 20th century. To achieve this objective, the arguments offered by both sectors of the debate have been analyzed, that is, the line of thought that defends that both phenomena are the same (return of the old eugenicist ideology), and the current that defends the opposite (that they are completely different phenomena). In this regard, there have been found fundamental differences between both movements that are related not only to the tools used -which does not indicate a remarkable ideological difference- but to decisive factors such as the imposition or not of one's own ideas (coercion-freedom of choice). Due to these factors, it is concluded that both are constituted as distinct movements, so they cannot be identified. The third and main objective of this Thesis has been to make a proposal of human enhancement alternative to those made by the bio-conservative and posthumanist currents of thinking. To achieve this, the first step was to analyze both the fundamental pillars and the main proposals of both movements, through the reading of works and research articles, the visualization of interviews with thinkers close to both currents of thought, and assistance to international congresses around the problem of human enhancement. After this step, we came to the conclusion that a fundamental terminological-conceptual error was being made in the debate between bioconservatives and posthumanists about human improvement, that is, the identification between non-therapeutic enhancement and radical enhancement. In this regard, it is proposed a perspective of moderate improvement that accepts not only therapeutic improvement but also perfectionist improvement in those cases in which the degree of intervention is not radical. Precisely, the idea of gradualness indicates the need to establish a limit that differentiates a moderate (acceptable) enhancement from a radical enhancement (not acceptable). The second step was to analyze the theories of those thinkers who recognized or established differences of degree in the improvement interventions. In this regard, works and articles that showed a gradual classification of the forms of enhancement -such as the book Truly human enhancement written by Agar- were analyzed. At the same time, we participated in an international congress whose theme delved into "the boundaries of humanity". After this step, and regarding the limits that separate both degrees of enhancement, two proposals were made: 1) to accept the maximum level reached by a human being for each quality -for example the 122 years reached by Jeanne Calment- as the limit impassable, or 2) to establish a particular limit through a process of consensus and interdisciplinary deliberation, analogous to the process by which there have been established acceptable limits for parameters such as cholesterol in the field of medicine. Finally, it is concluded that the ethical reticence raised by the most conservative thinkers towards a type of non-therapeutic biotechnological human enhancement disappear if the improvement intervention does not have a radical nature.