SIENNA D3.7: Proposal for an ethical framework for human enhancement

This report provides proposals towards, and discussions of, a general ethical framework for research on and development of human enhancement technologies (HET). Until now, in spite of the extensive discussions on human enhancement and its ethical aspects, both in academic as well as in popular circles, very few, if any, proposals for ethical guidelines to guide research, development and human enhancement technologies have been made In this deliverable we will consider both the pros and cons of the development of ethical guidelines at this time. We will start by distinguishing between general ethical guidelines and guidelines for specific types of enhancement. We will then present three options for developing ethical guidelines for human enhancement, if the choice is made to do so: self- contained general ethical guidelines, self-contained domain- or field-specific ethical guidelines, and general or field-specific guidelines incorporated into existing guidelines for medical, computer and engineering ethics. We will then discuss more specifically how research ethics committees (RECs) in the medical, computer and engineering sciences could implement guidelines for human enhancement into their existing protocols. Finally, in our annexes, we include two documents: firstly a reference document that RECs could use to inform researchers about ethical issues in human enhancement and how these could be addressed in their self-assessment, and secondly case studies that could further help in understanding what types of issues can arise in connection to HET.