Until about 75 years ago, the mechanisms of human enhancement were limited to some natural short-acting pharmaceuticals, hard work, or a mate with the desired characteristics. Sometime in the middle of the 20^th century the options expanded with a growing list of pharmaceuticals, more scientific methods of improving one’s physical and mental capabilities, new surgical techniques to address both physical and aesthetic limitations, and picking the right mate. As the 20^th century closed, the growing capabilities of recombinant DNA technologies shed light on new options. Most recently, the development of CRISPR, nanotechnologies and the prospects of melding biology and technology together into a singularity have raised the stakes of human enhancement significantly. How should we think about the tremendous number of options available to us? Which ones, and under what conditions, are they morally permissible?

In Shaping Our Selves: On Technology, Flourishing, and a Habit of Thinking, Erik Parens, a bioethicist at The Hastings Center, seeks to persuade us to think differently about this question than we are accustomed. The common approach critiqued by Parens, and used in his own early consideration of human enhancement, is one he characterizes as framed by monocularity. It approaches a complex problem with a single lens, which lends itself toward a commitment to approval or disapproval of enhancement technologies. The supporting rational arguments regarding any particular enhancement technology are developed afterwards in light of this general approval or disapproval. This single lens view is often characterized by an attitude of gratitude for human existence, leading to an objection to enhancement technologies, or by an attitude of humans as creators. Human existence is, therefore, just another canvas upon which humans create and experiment, leading to embracing enhancement technologies. In other cases the distinction is between humans as subjects, uniquely experiencing the world, or humans as objects, free to be manipulated similar to other objects. When these single lenses are utilized, it becomes easy to reach crisp answers regarding enhancement technologies. But questions of enhancement are “meaning questions,” raising significant issues about the nature of human existence, flourishing and the meaning of being human. Meaning questions do not lend themselves to easy or precise answers. Parens argues that in addressing meaning questions, the narrow perspectives of moncularity will fail us. A perspective that focuses upon the broader questions of what counts as true enhancement and whether any particular intervention facilitates this enhancement must be developed if we hope to address the nuances and particularities of different enhancement technologies.

The new approach advocated by Parens is labeled binocularity, although if one were to truly embrace the approach the term is too limiting. It isn’t just two lenses we need, but many lenses; the focus upon two lenses can be attributed to the existing exercise of a variety of binary positions (gratitude and creativity, object and subject) of the monocularity approach. The approach of binocularity requires us to understand and apply the lenses of gratitude and creativity or object and subject, even though most of us have a tendency towards one or the other. From each of these perspectives, sometimes using both simultaneously and other times oscillating between them, we must focus upon whether the enhancement technology will lead to true enhancement, which increases flourishing, for a particular individual. There can be no universal answer as each individual will be affected differently by any enhancement. An enhancement applied to one individual may reflect authenticity and truly lead to flourishing, whereas the same enhancement applied to a different person compromises that individual’s authenticity and leads to a decrease in flourishing. The application of both lenses helps to ensure that the question of flourishing is adequately explored before a decision is reached. At the point of decision, Parens claims (I think inappropriately so) that one reaches a “monocular moment,” since one must choose or reject any enhancement; one cannot do both. These moments of decision are not monocular, but decisive, and may represent a blend of the various lenses used to consider the enhancement.

This relatively short book is often written in a narrative form, as Parens traces the changes to his own early commitments against enhancement to a more nuanced view, sensitive to questions of authenticity and human flourishing. The “habit of thinking” recommended is not a rigid approach with carefully laid out steps to be followed, but rather a mindset, or perspective, about how we should consider these issues. Although Parens examines and critiques the perspectives of the monocular approaches, the support for his position of binocularity is not argued for in a detailed manner. One will read this book and be persuaded by the approach, I think, largely because one has a tendency towards the binocular approach rather than a monocular approach. If one is fully committed to a monocular approach this volume is unlikely to persuade otherwise. Nonetheless, I find (perhaps naturally so) that the focus on authenticity and human flourishing and its variability, and the need to recognize that people will be affected differently by the same enhancement, a refreshing and welcome perspective, one that is useful in considering human enhancement,  but  could also be more widely utilized in applied ethics. This volume will prove useful for those approaching this subject for the first time and Parens provides brief but useful discussions of various arguments in the enhancement controversies related to antidepressants and disabilities to illustrate both monocular and binocular approaches. Although Parens does not pay much attention to recent developments in genetic manipulation or bioengineering, his approach will be applicable to considering the controversies that lie ahead of us as well.

© 2015 Russell W. Askren

Russell W. Askren is an ethicist, teaching in the College of Engineering at the University of Utah and in the department of philosophy at Utah Valley University. He may be reached atRuss.Askren@utah.edu.