- 253 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
The field of biomedical technology has experienced rapid growth in recent years. New technologies promise to diagnose, treat, and prevent human diseases. Increasingly, however, the ability of these technologies to "enhance" normal human functioning beyond what is necessary to restore or sustain health has raised considerable debate about the proper limits of biotechnology. Whereas the public-facing proponents of bioenhancements tend to come from privileged positions in society, Bioenhancement Technologies and the Vulnerable Body seeks to analyze the nuances of bioenhancement from the perspective of those who are often marginalized in bioethical discussions.
Any moral assessment of technology must consider its effects on all people, principally those who have not benefited equally from technological advancements. From the premise that minority perspectives yield new insights into biomedical enhancements, this volume centers the bodies of persons who are vulnerable to health disparities--particularly persons with disabilities and persons of color. Contributors critically examine bioenhancement technologies with two key questions in mind: What does it mean to be human? and What does it mean to be vulnerable? Each chapter uses distinct Christian theological methods and ontological suppositions to reflect on the distinctiveness of human creatureliness in relation to technology and what difference bioenhancement might make for our conceptions of vulnerability. Bioenhancement Technologies and the Vulnerable Body is aimed primarily at Christian scholars and graduate students already conversant in bioethics but will also appeal to contextual theologians and others not well-versed in these debates.
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Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page, Copyright
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- I: Creaturely Ontology
- 1. Fleshly Transhumanism: A Positive Account of Body Modification and Body Enhancement
- 2. The Groaning of Creation: Technological Interventions in Creaturely Suffering
- 3. The Tree of Life: Aquinas, Disability, and Transhumanism
- 4. Ontology: Where It Comes In and How It Matters: A Conversation between Friends
- II: Transfiguring Vulnerability
- 5. Transfiguring the Vulnerability of Suffering
- 6. This Is My Body: Faith Communities as Sites of Transfiguring Vulnerability
- 7. The Lame to Walk and the Deaf Fear: Why It Pays for Surveillance Capitalism to Exploit the Disabled
- 8. Christian Transhumanism in Context: The Relevance of Race
- 9. Disability Justice, Bioenhancement, and the Eschatological Imagination
- Epilogue: Enhancing Bodies: From What to What?