Knowra Human enhancement Human enhancement Human enhancement is the use of interventions to improve human abilities or traits beyond ordinary levels. It includes medical, technological, and behavioral methods.
Human nature : The characteristic capacities, behaviors, and conditions associated with human beings. Enhancement debates turn on which traits count as ordinary or fundamental to humans.
Cognitive enhancement : The use of interventions to improve mental functions such as memory, attention, or reasoning. It applies enhancement aims specifically to cognitive performance.
Bioethics : The study of ethical questions arising from biology, medicine, and life sciences. Bioethics supplies frameworks for evaluating enhancement interventions and their consequences.
Cosmetic surgery : Surgical procedures that alter appearance, often without treating disease or injury. It is a widespread example of elective intervention intended to change ordinary traits.
Enhancement versus therapy : A distinction between interventions that improve ordinary functioning and those that restore or protect health. The boundary is difficult to apply when the same intervention can serve both aims.
Medical treatment : Interventions intended to prevent, diagnose, or alleviate disease and injury. Treatment restores or protects health, while enhancement aims to exceed ordinary functioning.
Gene therapy : The introduction, removal, or alteration of genetic material to treat or prevent disease. Gene-editing techniques raise the possibility of changing traits beyond disease treatment.
Transhumanism : A movement advocating the use of science and technology to expand human capacities and overcome limitations. Transhumanism makes deliberate enhancement a central social and philosophical project.
Doping in sport : The use of prohibited substances or methods to improve athletic performance. Athletic doping is a highly regulated case of performance enhancement.
Human germline editing : The alteration of reproductive cells or embryos in ways that can pass changes to future generations. Heritable enhancement could affect people who cannot consent and reshape future populations.
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