One more small bit on normal:
Some bioethicists who worry about enhancement don’t worry about normalization; some embrace enhancement precisely because they think it offers a way out of normalization.
Neither position makes sense insofar as enhancement and normalization are linked.
The enhancement-worriers fret about new techs or practices taking us away from a baseline normal human, yet don’t wonder about the creation of that baseline normal human. The enhancement- embracers think other-than-normal is just dandy, yet don’t consider that enhancement can lead to new normals.
This is not, I must say, the position of all those who write on enhancement and normalization; one of the things I like about Parens’s book Enhancing Human Traits is that it includes plenty o’ pieces by those who weigh both enhancement and normalization.
Me, I think the real issue is normalization, such that my concerns about enhancement are precisely that they might become the new norm. Enhancement leads to questions; normalization feeds off forgetting.
I think forgetting is a bigger problem for humans than questioning.
AbsurdBeats 