Presentation of the book by Veselin Mitrović
10 April 2013
Moderator: Vojin Rakić
Participants:
Marija Bogdanović
Jovan Babić
Nada Sekulić
Veselin Mitrović
Abstract
The breakthrough development of biomedical science and technology since the middle of the 20th century has initiated new moral and social questions that arise from the means of using these advances on healthy people. In order to better understand the consequences of such developments, this book analyzes the use of new biotechnologies (Human enchancement technologies – HET) aimed at “enchancing” healthy people.
The first part of the book analyzes the pro et contra argumentation of three theoretical currents: the tranhumanist, whose representatives openly advocate genetic, prosthetic and cognitive enchancement of the human species – the transition of the human into the posthuman society; the bioconservative, whose representatives see a threat in undermining human dignity, meddling into “Divine affairs” and in changing the nature of the human being; the representatives of the middle current hold that the danger lies in the dialectics of the relation between “capitalism and medicine”. The authors of the middle current view the approachability and use of biotechnology as a resource for the betterment of social positions.
Through the analysis of arguments and positions within the aforementioned currents, the book faces the incoming need for researchers to also focus on researching the instruments of moral enhancement. Thus, for example, the critical analysis of the stances of Nicholas Agar reveals the importance of disgust towards certain actions in the prevention and protection of human life, which is why we reject Agar’s equalization of ability to feel disgust and moral responsibility. The demythologization of the so-called moral disgust is gaining particular importance nowadays in the debates on moral enhancement and the instruments that could prevent massive destruction of the human species. Apart from that, the analysis of Savulescu’s stances heralds his personal moral transition from the moral duty to enhance posterity with the help of genetic engineering to the duty to morally enhance people who might abuse new technologies.
The second part analyzes enhancement technologies that arise from several scientific fields and that are used both on the inside and on the outside of the human body. This analysis creates the possibility of moving along the scientific-theoretical axis, while also giving insight into the ethics of goals and possibilities within the technologies themselves.
The improvement of the quality of life is almost unquestionably accepted as one of society’s paramount values. Hence, the third part of the book had to analyze the socio-cultural consequences of such interventions.
Biography
Veselin Mitrović, PhD, works as a Research Assistant at the Institute for Sociological Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. He is involved in a research project on the reproductive rights of women and deals with the issues of genetic engineering and in vitro fertilization. He has cooperated on the following research projects of the Faculty of Philosophy’s Department of Sociology: Postmodernism and Contemporary Anthropology, Cultural Sociology, Sociology of Mass Culture, Traditional and the Modern in Culture. He has also cooperated on the course “Bioethics” of the Department of Philosophy.
His doctoral thesis “The Social Aspects of “Enhancing” Human Beings within the Rim of New Biotechnical Studies” (2011) problematizes the social aspects of genetic interventions, as well as the possible consequences of scientifically based genetic interventions within developed societies. These problems introduce the issue of the non-ethical use of various enhancement technologies. Other than that that, the issues of the relation between ethics, technology and social values, authenticity and identity, as well as the dialectics of the relation between medicine and capitalism are also introduced. Apart from the book The Outstep of Bioethics, Veselin Mitrović has also published several articles in scientific journals and has been involved in a number of domestic and international scientific gatherings dealing with relevant topics: the use of bio-medical interventions on healthy people with the goal of creating an enhanced species.
