Cuadernos de Bioetica最新文献

The present work analyzes the classical notion of human nature. He studies this concept in Aristotle, in whom the Greek intellectual understanding of the notion of nature culminates as the later Thomistic reception of it. The main objective of this work is to provide a brief and concise introduction to the philosophy of man, which underlies in many of the authors who not only consider transhumanist thought reductive, with respect to their conception of what man is, but also they try to provide ethical solutions to take on the great opportunities that technoscience presents to today's man.

This article analyzes the general evolution of human rights due to the influence of transhumanist ideas, which were already present in 1948. Specifically, we will consider their denial of human nature, and self-determination as the new cornerstone of the legal order. We will see how nature is no longer considered the foundation of law, and instead how the focus is now on self-determination and the possibilities of technology. Although the 1948 Declaration of Rights has not changed, the anthropological conception has been modified, and new rights have been introduced, thanks to the interpretation made by the courts. The proposal is to recover the notion of human nature and natural law, which offers a universal terrain for dialogue and inspiring keys to find the true rights of the person and the good of society.

The Spanish Congress of Deputies has approved the law regulating euthanasia. Precisely, the article deals at the statements made by its defenders. These revolve around the following concepts: dignity, right, freedom and, finally, pain-suffering. Human dignity is the individual and social principle par excellence and from which the other three are derived. For this reason, by defending the dignity that the human being possesses, simply, by the fact of being it, it is against said Law. Human dignity is not destroyed by terminal illness, or by dependency, suffering, weakness or frailty. Each human life has value in itself, which must be safeguarded and which makes it non-negotiable in all situations and conditions. That the non-negotiable value of life sustains any democratic system. However, the supposed right to euthanasia is typical of an individualistic and reductionist vision of the human being and his life; and of a freedom detached both from the goodness or badness of the choice and action carried out, and from the responsibility towards the lives of others. Faced with offering euthanasia, as the only solution to the suffering of people in the last stage of their life, quality palliative care should be proposed. These are the only ethical option, consistent with respect for human dignity. Respecting, valuing, caring for, and attending to vulnerable and fragile human life means progress in humanity.

In this article we start by submitting a definition of transhumanism and then turn to the main bioethical problems that arise from it, with particular attention to the so-called human enhancement perspective. Secondly, and without being exhaustive, we shall seek to identify some of the main challenges posed by emerging sciences in the 21st century, specially with an eye to convergent technologies or NBICs (nanotechnology, biotechnology, informatics and cognitive sciences). And finally, we end up by enumerating some of the bioethical questions every researcher should take into account before considering applying any new technology on humans in the coming decades.

The purpose of this paper is to show the historical continuity of transhumanism over time, from the birth of Darwinist eugenics to the present day. The history of transhumanism is rooted in the ideas of Francis Galton, who were assumed by the one who defined the current term, Julian Huxley. The influence of Huxley's thinking on present transhumanist philosophy cannot be considered marginal, as his philosophy was continued by the founders of the first transhumanist movements in the United States of America, F.M. Esfandiary and Timothy Leary. Both thinkers were the masters of today's transhumanists. This is how we seek here to establish a historical line from eugenics to today's transhumanism.

Transhumanism-posthumanism is a current of thought that appears closely linked to the development of technoscience and its application to man. At the same time that this current must be subject to criticism, an anthropological and ethical paradigm must be illuminated that allows accepting or not the new technoscientific advances, making a discernment between them. Such discernment should lead us to weigh the goodness of these advances, rejecting only those that represent a degradation of the human being, and accepting those that help man to be more fully man. To do this, the article proposes starting the discernment from an ethical principle such as respect for the integrity of man. Together with him, it is necessary to act with caution regarding human health, considered in relation to his psychosomatic unity. It will also be necessary to avoid deriving the ethics of the advances from the same technoscience. Finally, discernment requires, ultimately, starting from an idea about what man is, proposing the need to do so from a dual rather than dualistic conception of the human person. Based on all of the above, various ethical criteria are indicated in the work that complete the principle of respect for human integrity indicated above: respect and promote human life in all its dimensions, use of technology at the service of human beings in a controlled manner and that report social benefit or value by each technique, not only from a therapeutic perspective, but also from the improvement of the human psychosomatic unit. In conclusion, it is necessary to recognize in man the uniqueness of him as he is a bodily being who knows and loves in freedom, whose ends are not limited to material or sensible things, but which are only achievable in and from his own material condition. Consequently, any techno-scientific intervention that substantially alters his body condition is inhuman, not instead when it repairs or enhances -without abolishing them- his own qualities.

The recent development of NBIC technologies has led to the emergence of new techniques that allow the modification of genetic, morphological, and physiological aspects of the human being to improve their capacities. In light of this situation, the eternal debate continues: is everything technically possible ethically acceptable? To answer this question, an ethical reflection is needed to assess the scope of enhancement techniques and to direct them to the service of human progress and the common good. Many authors have already begun this reflection, opting for a case-by-case evaluation. However, there is a great lack of specificity in the definition of the criteria that would allow an ethical analysis of each technique, in order to determine the licitness of its application. In response to this need, a practical guide for the ethical assessment of not only human enhancement techniques, but of any intervention on the human body is proposed. This guide is based on the four principles of personalist bioethics proposed by Sgreccia: the principle of defense of physical human life, the principle of totality or the therapeutic principle, the principle of freedom and responsibility, and the principle of sociability and subsidiarity. These principles are the common thread of some questionnaires that serve as support in discerning the licitness of a technique, by virtue of the overall good of the person in their three-dimensional structure: body, mind and spirit, and the respect for their inalienable dignity.

Gender post-feminism or ″gender ideology″ is a revolution against man that denies the existence of his human nature, and promotes a homogenized world with interchangeable roles without sexual distinction. As man has been transforming the world with technology and depending on it, he has been changing himself and we get to the point that, when faced with a machine and a human being, we opt for the machine because the human being seems imperfect to us. The transhumanist ideology as an overcoming of the human supposes the dehumanization of man. It is not that we only transform into other beings, but we could end up despising the human. Does a totally artificial world await us? The key question we have to ask ourselves is what perspective of man does transhumanism have? What are we to this ideology? Will it show the happiness of man?

The human being experiences in the depths of his being a longing for fulfilment. However, pain, disease and death accompany their existence. Transhumanism tries to overcome the limits of man through all a technological scientific development and ventures to predict the definitive triumph over death. In this study, we will analyse the meaning of vulnerability, limits, consciousness of finitude and death for both transhumanism and an anthropology focused on the human being. Transhumanism and this anthropology coincide in the desire to conquer death. The understanding of the concepts studied and the means to save humanity that are proposed differ in both approaches. We understand that in transhumanism there is a reductionism of the definition of person and therefore of the solution that is offered to respond to the deep longing inscribed each human being.

In some countries, particularly Spain, one of the arguments used to justify the legalization of euthanasia is that there is a strong social demand for it. To try to ascertain the truth of this statement, we review different surveys of physicians and the general public, to determine their opinion on whether or not to legalize this practice. We found that the percentage of respondents who approve this practice varies widely from one country to another, with some countries in which approval is close to 80% and others in which it fails to reach even 40%. It has been suggested that this may be because the questions included in the various surveys differ greatly, since not all use the word ″euthanasia″ directly, replacing it with words or phrases of similar meaning. Thus, some respondents may not quite identify them with euthanasia. We conclude that, in the vast majority of countries, there does not seem to be an objective social demand to justify the legalization of euthanasia.