In a series of influential essays, Sharon Street has argued, on the basis of Darwinian considerations, that normative realism leads to skepticism about moral knowledge. I argue that if we begin with the account of moral knowledge provided by Aristotelian naturalism, then we can offer a satisfactory realist response to Street’s argument, and that Aristotelian naturalism can avoid challenges facing other realist responses. I first explain Street’s evolutionary argument and three of the most prominent realist responses, and I identify challenges to each of those responses. I then develop an Aristotelian response to Street. My core claim is this: Given Aristotelian naturalism’s account of moral truth and our knowledge of it, we can accept the influence of evolutionary processes on our moral beliefs, while also providing a principled, non-question-begging reason for thinking that those basic evaluative tendencies that evolution has left us with will push us toward, rather than away from, realist moral truths, so that our reliably getting things right does not require an unexplained and implausible coincidence.

Must realists be skeptics? An Aristotelian reply to a Darwinian Dilemma

In public debates over biotechnology, theologians, philosophers, and political theorists have proposed that biotechnology could have significant implications for human nature. They argue that ethical evaluations of biotechnologies that might affect human nature must take these implications into account. In this book, Gerald McKenny examines these important yet controversial arguments, which have in turn been criticized by many moral philosophers and professional bioethicists. He argues that Christian ethics is, in principle, committed to some version of the claim that human nature has normative status in relation to biotechnology. Showing how both criticisms and defences of this claim have often been facile, he identifies, develops, and critically evaluates three versions of the claim, and contributes a fourth, distinctively Christian version to the debate. Focusing on Christian ethics in conversation with secular ethics, McKenny's book is the first thorough analysis of a controversial contemporary issue.

Biotechnology, Human Nature, and Christian Ethics

My goal in this chapter is to provide a sympathetic interpretation of Foot’s grammar of goodness, clarifying and expanding it in a few places, and defending it against some objections. I begin by sketching Foot’s grammar. As I understand it, that grammar includes four main notions: (1) The Good Of, (2) Good As/Good In, (3) Good For, and (4) Goods/Good Things. I then consider the relation between Good For, on the one hand, and The Good Of and Good As, on the other. Is it always Good For a living thing to be Good As the kind of thing it is? Could something be Good For an organism without being part of The Good Of that kind of thing? I argue that Good For, Good As, and The Good Of are inseparable: What is Good For a living thing just is that which furthers or constitutes The Good Of such a creature, and The Good Of any creature is the actualization of those well-formed capacities that make it Good As the kind of creature that it is. In the final part of this chapter, I consider how happiness fits into Foot’s grammar of goodness as applied to human beings, paying special attention to the idea that The Good Of any living thing consists in a certain form of activity.

Foot’s Grammar of Goodness

Human Enhancement: Deontological Arguments

Neuroenhancement concerns the improvement of a person’s mental properties, abilities, and performance. The various techniques of neuroenhancement offer new opportunities of such improvement, but also come with substantive perils. Neuroenhancement thus involves significant normative challenges for individual persons as well as for society as a whole. This expert report provides a concise overview of the contemporary debate on neuroenhancement. It discusses the definition, techniques and targets of neuroenhancement and examines arguments for and against it at the level of individual persons, social interaction, and social policy.

Neuroenhancement

In discussions about the ethics of enhancement, it is often claimed that the concept of ‘human nature’ has no helpful role to play. There are two ideas behind this thought. The first is that nature, human nature included, is a mixed bag. Some parts of our nature are good for us and some are bad for us. The ‘mixed bag’ idea leads naturally to the second idea: the fact that something is part of our nature is, by itself, normatively inert. The Inert View claims that nothing normative follows from the mere fact that some trait is a part of our nature. If the Inert View is correct, then appeals to the value or importance of human nature in debates about enhancement are indeed misplaced. We argue that the Inert View is wrong, and that a certain concept of human nature – which we refer to as ‘human form’ – does have an important role to play in debates about enhancement.

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Is There a Role for ‘Human Nature’ in Debates About Human Enhancement?

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Is There a Role for ‘Human Nature’ in Debates About Human Enhancement?