Healthy people and biochemical enhancement: A new paradigmatic approach to the enhancement of human beings?

Abstract

Abstract The authors analyse a new paradigmatic approach to the enhancement of human beings proposed in transhumanist visions. Transhumanist authors promote the biochemical enhancement of healthy people via the concepts of bio-happiness and bio-love (love drugs). The paper is based on an assessment of the value attributed to the lives of disabled people vis-à-vis those of healthy people. The value imbalance in the transhumanist conception is criticized on the grounds that it is an incorrect response to the posthuman urge to redefine human beings. The authors’ final standpoint is that the value of human beings should be derived primarily from our naturalness and that artificiality (which is indisputably a part of people) should be subordinate to this.