Suffering, Enhancement, and Human Goods

A well-intentioned concern for the alleviation of suffering—the “relief of man’s estate,” in Francis Bacon’s words—motivates much of modern science, medicine, and biomedical research.1 Such commonality is possible because man’s estate is one of suffering, pervasive suffering. It includes the suffering of disease and disability, obviously, and this is the focus of those parts of medicine that seek to cure. But it also includes the suffering brought about by both our mortality and our awareness of that mortality; by our limitations in the face of nature, including our own biological nature; by our persistently bad choices, bearing both upon ourselves and on others, and by the corresponding bad choices of those others; and by the fact that our reach always exceeds our grasp, leaving us frustrated in our desires and pursuits. Suffering follows upon each of these features of our condition, and we are quick to respond with the resources of modern medicine and biotechnology: we cure what disease and disability we can; we seek to provide relief for incurable suffering; some seek to end the lives of those whose suffering is intolerable; and the most visionary of us look to the days when the sources of our suffering will have been more thoroughly addressed, not only by the elimination of disease and disability, but also by the indefinite extension of the human life span, and the vast increase of our capacities, such that all that we desire lies within reach. But if concern for suffering runs like a thread through the entirety of our medical and biotechnological world, how is it that this world is so riven with disagreement? If there is a common enemy—human suffering— why cannot we all just rally around the flag, and defeat it together? It is surely not the case that so-called bio-conservatives want to suffer, though this caricature seems sometimes to be drawn by their opponents; so why are there bio-conservatives, people who shout “stop!” at some efforts, at least, to end suffering?2