人类增强可以作为道德义务吗?——约翰·哈里斯“人类增强进化论”解析

Can Human Enhancements Serve as Moral Duties?——An Analysis on John Harris' Theory of“Enhancing Evolution”

约翰·哈里斯的"人类增强进化论"强调人类增强能够使人成为更加完善的人,增强在人类进化当中也起到重要作用。当代高新技术条件下的人类增强技术以一种对人的身体直接编辑、制定的方式大大缩短了人类的进化进程,以"刻意选择"代替"自然选择"、以"增强进化论"代替"达尔文进化论"。哈里斯进而认为人类增强能够作为绝对的善或积极的道德义务。哈里斯的批评者们则认为哈里斯对增强的定义过于宽泛,也没有明确界定"义务"的概念,因而否认人类增强是一种绝对的善或积极的道德义务的观点,认为人类增强至多是一项"显见义务"。人类增强的伦理学呼吁一种负责任的人类增强事业,只有作为一项负责任"事业"的人类增强才是我们应当去推进并接纳的道德义务。

John Harris theory of“Enhancing Evolution”underlines that human enhancements not only make better people,but also play a profound role in human evolution.Contemporary human enhancements under advanced technologies can directly edit and engineer human bodies,which greatly shorten the process of human evolution,and replace“natural selection”with“deliberate selection”and Darwinian evolution with“enhancement evolution”.Thus,human enhancements can be seen as“absolute good”or“positive moral duty”.However,Harris critics think that Harris definition of“enhancement”is too wide to figure out and“duty”is not clearly defined as well.Accordingly,they deny Harris arguments and state that enhancements are no more than“prima facie duties”.Finally,the ethics of human enhancements calls for a responsible enterprise,i.e.,only human enhancements as a responsible“enterprise”can be recognized as a moral duty which we should both develop and adopt.