[Discussion] CFP: Human Enhancement and Human Rights (1/1/06; 5/26/06-5/28/06)

[gpultar@cstgroup.org]

From: "CARRICO, NORMAN DALE" <dalec@berkeley.edu>

CALL FOR PAPERS

"Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights"

May 26-28, 2006

Stanford University Law School, Stanford, California

Submit proposals via e-mail by January 1, 2006 to director@ieet.org

Sponsored by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, the Center for
Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and the Stanford Center for Law and the
Biosciences

Much of the criticism of enhancement technologies has focused on the potential
for increased discrimination against women, people of color, the poor, the
differently enabled, or "unenhanced" humans. Some bioethicists have proposed a
global treaty to ban enhancement technologies as "crimes against humanity."

Defenders of enhancement argue that the use of biotechnologies is a fundamental
human right, inseparable from the defense of bodily autonomy, reproductive
freedom, free expression and cognitive liberty. While acknowledging real risks
from genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive enhancement, defenders of enhancement
believe that bans on the consensual use of new technologies would be an even
greater threat to human rights.

Health care, disability and reproductive rights activists have argued that
access to technology empowers full and equal participation in society. On the
same grounds a generalized right to "technological empowerment" might connect
defenders of enhancement technologies with disability activists, reproductive
rights activists with would-be parents seeking fertility treatments, the
transgendered with aesthetic body modifiers, drug policy reformers and
anti-aging researchers with advocates for dignity in dying.

Yet what, if any, limits should be considered to human enhancement? On what
grounds can citizens be prevented from modifying their own genes or brains? How
far should reproductive rights be extended? Might enhancement reduce the
diversity of humanity in the name of optimal health? Or, conversely, might
enhancements inspire such an unprecedented diversity of human beings that they
strain the limits of liberal tolerance and social solidarity? Can we exercise
full freedom of thought if we can't exercise control over our own brains using
safe, available technologies? Can we ensure that enhancement technologies are
safe and equitably distributed? When are regulatory efforts simply covert,
illiberal value judgments?

Between the ideological extremes of absolute prohibition and total lassez-faire
that dominate popular discussions of human enhancement there are many competing
agendas, hopes and fears. How can the language of human rights guide us in
framing the critical issues? How will enhancement technologies transform the
demands we make of human rights?

With the Human Enhancement and Human Rights conference we seek to begin a
conversation with the human rights community, bioethicists, legal scholars, and
political activists about the relationship of enhancement technologies to human
rights, cognitive liberty and bodily autonomy. It is time to begin the defense
of human rights in the era of human enhancement.

Examples of topics that might be addressed:

Day One: Human Enhancement and Control of the Body

- How much morphological diversity can a polity sustain?
- Animal-human chimeric enhancement and animal rights
- Reproductive cloning: Irrelevant, futile or an important battle?
- Disability rights and cyborg assistive technology
- Life extension and the right to die: Two sides of the same coin?
- Germline engineering and the consent of future generations
- Procreative liberty and the genetic enhancement of children
- The medicalization of transgenderism
- Cosmetic surgery and future body modification

Day Two: Cognitive Enhancement Technology

For instance, papers might address:
- Enhancing capacities for citizenship
- Social equality and cognitive enhancement
- Freedom of thought as a basis for rights to use cognitive enhancement
- Pychoactive drug law reform
- Religious liberty and entheogens
- Regulating the risks of neural implants and brain machines
- The myth of the "authentic self"
- Challenges to human personhood and citizenship from cognitive enhancement
- Use of technologies of personality modification in criminal rehabilitation

Instructions for Submitting Presentations

Include all of the following information in a two-page proposal for your
presentation

- Title of presentation
- Type of presentation: paper, panel, poster, workshop
- Abstract (25-100 words) for inclusion in the conference program
- Media to be used and audiovisual equipment needed (if any).
- Designated contact person (only one per proposal)
- Complete name, title, organization, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail
address for each session presenter
- Brief biographical sketch of each presenter

Please submit your proposal electronically to the conference chair James Hughes
at director@ieet.org

The presenters of accepted proposals will need to pre-register for the
conference by April 15, 2006 at the reduced rate of $100 in order to be included
in the program.

For more information please contact the conference chair James Hughes Ph.D.,
Public Policy Studies, Trinity College, Williams 229B, 300 Summit St., Hartford
CT 06106, james.hughes@trincoll.edu, (860) 297-2376.

Timeline for Presenters

Proposals due by: January 1, 2006
Notification of acceptance: March 1, 2006
Deadline for pre-registration by presenters: April 15, 2006



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