‘Beyond’ Human Enhancement — Taking the Developing Country’s Perspective Seriously

Abstract

Bioethicists and philosophers dominate the on-going debate on human enhancement. They have debated the definition of human enhancement as well as the potential impacts of human enhancement technologies (such as pharmaceutical enhancements or pre-natal selection). These discussions have percolated, through bioethics bodies and bioethics recommendations, policy makers and have eventually been translated into policy. While some suggestions have been based largely in Western liberal democracies, others have deliberated the geopolitical consequences of human enhancement technologies. This paper argues that the present debate currently lacks perspectives from developing countries. It begins by introducing the current debate on human enhancement and recognizes Allen Buchanan’s well-raised concerns on how these technologies may potentially cause new injustices for low- and middle-income countries (‘developing countries’). It then provides two arguments calling for further research into human enhancement from the perspective of developing countries. First, this paper will argue that the current frames with which enhancement technologies are viewed are inherently neoliberal and require change. The second argument shows how the potential impacts of human enhancement technologies in developing countries have not been fully realized by analyzing how human enhancement technologies will impact Thailand, a developing country.

The Relationship between Human Capital and Economic Growth beyond Logarithmic Production Function

“…Sachdev and others argue that many scientists often explore these two questions by exploring changes in energy and inertia [3]. Salimov and Stefanchuk believe that there are three main interaction relationships between energy and nonenergy factors: substitution, complementarity, and uncertainty; that is, under the same level of economic development, increasing the input of nonenergy factors has three different effects on energy consumption, namely reduction, increase, and uncertainty [4].…”