Social enhancement: re-thinking the role of emerging technologies

The discussion about human enhancement has been dominated by two main and somehow extreme views. One is the biomedical view, still the dominant view, which sees enhancement as interventions going beyond therapeutic goals. The other is what I refer to as the transhumanist view, which sees enhancement as interventions that promote atypical features in order to reach a posthuman stage. This paper starts by highlighting the main features of the biomedical and the transhumanist views of human enhancement. Then, it explores an alternative view on human enhancement, a view refer to as social enhancement. In order to provide some background behind the idea of social enhancement, the social determinants of health are introduced. After this, the paper describes the main characteristics of social enhancement. Finally, it argues that social enhancement, as an alternative way to approach human enhancement, could be a better and more ethical way to use emerging technologies while addressing the pitfalls of the current dominant views of human enhancement.