Education
He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975.
(Biotechnologies already on the horizon will enable us to ...)
Biotechnologies already on the horizon will enable us to be smarter, have better memories, be stronger and quicker, have more stamina, live longer, be more resistant to diseases, and enjoy richer emotional lives. To some of us, these prospects are heartening; to others, they are dreadful. In Beyond Humanity a leading philosopher offers a powerful and controversial exploration of urgent ethical issues concerning human enhancement. These raise enduring questions about what it is to be human, about individuality, about our relationship to nature, and about what sort of society we should strive to have. Allen E. Buchanan urges that the debate about enhancement needs to be informed by a proper understanding of evolutionary biology, which has discredited the simplistic conceptions of human nature used by many opponents of enhancement. He argues that there are powerful reasons for us to embark on the enhancement enterprise, and no objections to enhancement that are sufficient to outweigh them.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199671494/?tag=2022091-20
(In Better than Human?, noted bioethicist Allen Buchanan g...)
In Better than Human?, noted bioethicist Allen Buchanan grapples with the ethical dilemmas of the medical revolution now upon us. Biomedical enhancements, he writes, can make us smarter, have better memories, be stronger, quicker, have more stamina, live much longer, be more resistant to disease and to the frailties of aging, and enjoy richer emotional lives. They can even improve our character, or at least strengthen our powers of self-control. In spite of the benefits that biomedical enhancements may bring, many people instinctively reject them. Some worry that we will lose something important-our appreciation for what we have or what makes human beings distinctively valuable. To think clearly about enhancement, Buchanan argues, we have to acknowledge that nature is a mixed bag and that our species has many "design flaws". We should be open to the possibility of becoming better than human, while never underestimating the risk that our attempts to improve may backfire.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199797870/?tag=2022091-20
bioethicist ethicist philosopher professor
He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975.
He taught at the University of Arizona, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Minnesota before joining Duke"s faculty in 2002 as professor of public policy and philosophy. He has written six books covering such topics as Marx, applied ethics (especially bio-medical ethics), social justice, and international justice, including the foundations of international law. Buchanan served as staff philosopher for the President"s Commission on Medical Ethics in 1983.
From 1996 to 2000 he served on the Advisory Council for the National Human Genome Research Institute.
He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.
(Biotechnologies already on the horizon will enable us to ...)
(In Better than Human?, noted bioethicist Allen Buchanan g...)
Buchanan, Allen (1982) Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism.