This paper explores the ethics of human enhancement through considering various forms of posthuman design. It argues that designs that engage with ethical issues around enhancements shape debates on the topic. The paper examines substantive ethical arguments conveyed through artifacts depicting multi-limbed frogs, third hands, ear implants, augmented skin, and performances involving musical instruments, prosthetics, gene therapy and more. It concludes that imagining potential posthuman designs is important for discussing enhancement ethics into the future.

1. Posthuman designs By Andy Miah This paper explores the ethics of human enhancement by considering various manifestations of design. It argues that designart enters the biopolitical sphere, thus reconstituting the parameters of moral debates on human enhancements. Drawing on a wide variety of aesthetic forms that engage ethical concerns about such modifications, the paper considers the substantive ethical arguments that are articulated through such artifacts. Multi-limbed Pacific Tree frog

2. Stelarc: third hand

4. Stelarc: 1/4 scale ear

8. Olivier Goulet: Skin

9. Bob Dylan: We’re different. We come from two different worlds. You come from England; I come from the United States. Interviewer: That’s true, that’s true, but we’re still human beings, so there’s some sort of connection between us. Bob Dylan: No, I’m just a guitar player, that’s all. From the film (1967) Don’t Look Back

11. The Reactable,designed at University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, used by Bjork on 2008 tour http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc&feature=related

12. the bionic athlete

13. TED FRIEDMANN (WADA Gene Therapy) H. LEE SWEENEY (IGF-1 mice)

16. Tommy John’s Surgery

17. Oscar Pistorius, Cheetah legs

18. Aimee Mullins, Photo by Nick Knight

19. Cremaster 3, Matthew Barney (dir)

20. design

21. Telephone tooth implant Auger & Loizeau

22. bioethics and culture

23. The ethics of stem cell research

24. Fukuyama, F. and F. Furger (2007). Beyond Bioethics: A Proposal for Modernizing the Regulation of Human Biotechnologies. Washington, D.C. “ there are several deeply held alternative views on this issue, over which it is not likely that there will be consensus any time in the near future”

25. ‘we cannot survey the possibilities we cannot imagine’ (Sorenson) We cannot apply our imagination far enough without thinking about enhancement questions To conclude