Technology, Body and Human Enhancement – Prospects and justice

International audienceHuman enhancement is at the same time an old and a new practice. It includes age-old habits such as consuming coffee or alcohol, but the popular understanding of the term is more closely related to practices such as new reproductive techniques, the development of prosthetics or the professional consumption of psychostimulants. A lot of new technologies involve applications for enhancing human body or human mind. In this light, human enhancement seems to be a new phenomena, deeply rooted in technology. Moreover, the words and concepts surrounding these practices have not yet been clearly defined and the accompanying social, academic and political debates are far from being closed but are instead multiplying.In light of this situation, we have chosen to approach the issue in a particular way. First, we adopt a specific definition of “human enhancement” that excludes other competing definitions. Second, we have chosen to combine a discussion of the present-day judicial positions on questions of enhancement in a number of developed countries with critical questions concerning these positions and an overview of prospective developments. This double choice results from the aim of this text, which must be more a guide for the future than a review of the present and already partly obsolete laws. With this purpose in mind, this chapter, even if it is informed by the abundant ethics literature on human enhancement, will adopt a more concrete and prospective approach, combining elements of sociology, anthropology and philosophy. In fact, thinking about the future of such laws leads away from the focus on rare, atypical cases and instead draws our attention to implications for day-to-day life in the future, because laws are not speculative abstractions but effective and operative regulations. Applied to human enhancement, this reflection on crime and justice is upon the regulation of enhancement, by legal or other frameworks. This in turn clarifies the (new) kinds of criminalities which may emerge from violations of these regulatory frameworks. It helps us to identify telltale sign of tensions, risks and abuses behind the perceived need for rules