From assistive to enhancing technology: should the treatment-enhancement distinction apply to future assistive and augmenting technologies?

Abstract

The treatment-enhancement distinction is often used to delineate acceptable and unacceptable medical interventions. It is likely that future assistive and augmenting technologies will also soon develop to a level that they might be considered to provide users, in particular those with disabilities, with abilities that go beyond natural human limits, and become in effect an enhancing technology. In this paper, we describe how this process might take place, and discuss the moral implications of such developments. We argue that such developments are morally acceptable and indeed desirable.

How Discourse on Moral Bioenhancement and Bioethics Has Evolved Since Their Inception

“…Most of the reasoning is consistent with previous eras: the protection of traditional values and human nature, the unnaturality of biomedicine and the fear of the unknown (Douglas, 2008). However, a new argument becomes prominent in the data during this time: the distinction between treatment and enhancement (Outram, 2010;Minerva, 2018).…”

“…One argument however for the economics of bioenhancements is the return on the cost of health care. If we are able to make our populations healthier in the long-term, that would put far less of a burden on the health care system and government spending on medicine (Minerva, 2018).…”

“…But some also see the economic investment in biomedical enhancements as having worthwhile social returns. Minerva (2018), for instance, predicts that the technologies will naturally become cheaper over time with promises of even greater societal return. Murphy and Topel (2003) also present numerical figures that minimal reductions in mortality have astronomical returns in what they call "additional life-years" to which they put a value of $500 billion per one percent reduction in mortality.…”

“…"We argue that such developments are morally acceptable and indeed desirable." Minerva and Giubilini, 2018 Viewing bioenhancements as equal to traditional forms in that they achieve the same goals. The potential risks of enhancements are too high to allow them to exist.…”

Ethical and legal considerations of mood enhancement technology

“…According to them, respecting people's choices to be enhanced means respecting their autonomy. If HETs were banned, this would go against the principle of autonomy (Minerva and Giubilini, 2018). The third group of scholars reject the one-size-fits-all approach toward autonomy due to the cognitive diversity of individuals.…”