# Julian Savulescu **Domain:** Bioethics / Human Enhancement **Doc Type:** Person Node **Maturity:** Developing ## Definition **Julian Savulescu** is a bioethicist who argued in a 2005 paper that the reasons to treat and prevent disease may also support beneficial human enhancement. This is a philosophical duty claim; the paper's abstract does not demonstrate any particular intervention's safety or capacity to deliver a complex trait. ## Relationships - **Authored:** [“New breeds of humans: the moral obligation to enhance,” *Reproductive BioMedicine Online* 10 Suppl. 1 (2005)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15820005/), PMID 15820005. - **Normative branch:** [[wiki/Self-Directed Evolution|Self-Directed Evolution]] distinguishes an ethical argument for enhancement from actual technical control over inherited traits. - **Adjacent but distinct:** [[wiki/John Harris|John Harris]] also argued for beneficial enhancement as a duty; similarity of positions is not evidence of joint authorship or a unified program. - **Collection and article routes:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]], [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]], and [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] supply conceptual and historical context. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “This paper argues that we have a moral obligation to enhance human beings. … To be human is to strive to be better.” > **— Julian Savulescu**, *“New breeds of humans: the moral obligation to enhance,” 2005 abstract* [[reminders/Evolution/Enhancement Can Be a Moral Obligation by Julian Savulescu|Enhancement Can Be a Moral Obligation by Julian Savulescu]] > “We claim that human beings now have at their disposal means of wiping out life on Earth and that traditional methods of moral education are probably insufficient to achieve the moral enhancement required to ensure that this will not happen. Hence, we argue, moral bioenhancement should be sought and applied.” > **— Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu**, *“Getting Moral Enhancement Right,” Bioethics, 2013* [[reminders/Moral Enhancement/Power to Destroy Life Demands Moral Bioenhancement by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu|Power to Destroy Life Demands Moral Bioenhancement by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu]] > “Obviously, there is a bootstrapping problem about a judicious use of techniques of moral enhancement: it is human beings with their current moral blemishes that have to apply these techniques to themselves.” > **— Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu**, *“The Turn for Ultimate Harm,” Journal of Medical Ethics, 2011* [[reminders/Moral Enhancement/Flawed Humans Must Apply Their Own Moral Enhancement by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu|Flawed Humans Must Apply Their Own Moral Enhancement by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu]]