Buchanan- Human Status and Moral Enhancement (Summary 2nd Half) Essay

Buchanan- Human Status and Moral Enhancement (Summary 2nd Half) - Essay Example Buchanan treats this larger question under two subsets, the first of which deals with the question â€Å"If enhancement did result in posthumans, what implications would this have for the concept of human rights: would it make that concept obsolete, as some have claimed; and if it did, would this be a moral catastrophe, as they have intimated?†. The second subset, which and the further sections are under analysis in this paper, deals with the question â€Å"Could the emergence of post humans result in there being a moral status higher than that of persons and hence require a rejection of the widely held Moral Equality Assumption, the assumption that all who have the characteristics sufficient for being persons are of equal moral status?† (353). The second question which rather addresses the concerns regarding privileging the enhanced group of persons – post persons – and thus resulting in a higher moral status raises questions regarding the very basic assumptions regarding moral equality. Buchanan, in the second section, contemplates on this basic assumption and challenges those concerns on the basis of the â€Å"inviolability†, which should be understood as a threshold concept, of this assumption (363-364). That greater â€Å"personhood† does not confer â€Å"greater inviolability† seems to question the belief that ‘persons’’ interests might be sacrificed in the interests of the ‘post persons’ (364). Even in times of â€Å"supreme emergency† when persons might literally have to be sacrificed for the benefit of many it does not follow that there is a difference between the values of the former and the latter (364). Buchanan justifies himself by refe rring to instances of racism, ethnic minorities, developmental and physical disabilities etc., where similar concerns popped up and were dealt with on the basis of the