Health Sciences 2610F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Boundary Marker, Biomedicine, Androgen Replacement Therapy
10 Mar 2020
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Document Summary
One clue to the ethics of enhancement is to ask what is being advanced, augmented, etc. The idea of enhancement covers a lot of ground. Understanding the ethics of enhancement begins with getting clear about the concept, as well as the factors likely to move people to pursue biomedical enhancement. A good way to begin the search for clarity is to ask what sort of work the concept does, and how well it performs the tasks for which it is recruited. Warning that we"ve entered a poorly mapped and possibly dangerous moral territory. Enhancement is often used to mark off moral boundaries within the realm of biomedicine: enhancement is contrasted with medically indicated" treatment. Health professionals may find enhancement to be a useful boundary marker that sets off things health professionals are not ethically obligated to do - enhancements - from what their professional moral obligations to patients require - therapeutic intervention.
