Fooling Mother Nature. An Ethical Analysis of and Recommendations for Oversight of Human-Performance Enhancements in the Armed Forces

摘要

This article analyzes several philosophical arguments against the use of human-performance enhancements and then applies analogies to the military setting. We conclude by advocating the establishment of procedures in the armed forces for ethical oversight of the development and utilization of these technologies. The implementation of this recommendation in imperative because the commercial inducements for performance enhancers, as well as the increasing scientific sophistication of other nations, make their emergence inescapable. Sine the capabilities will become available, the systems necessary to analyze their implications and plan their appropriate implementation must be created before their use is upon us. We need to relearn the lesson of Hiroshima- don't develop deadly, world-altering technologies in a moral and ethical vacuum.