Seminar: Prof Brunello Stancioli, "From the necessity of being human to the possibility of being whatever you want: human enhancement as basic right"

Past Event

Date
 17 January 2012, 3:00pm - 4:30pm

Location
 Lecture Theatre, Oxford Martin School
34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD

This seminar series is hosted by the Future of Humanity Institute and the Institute for Science and Ethics

Speaker: Professor Brunoello Stancioli, Law Professor, The Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract: The presentation has two main goals. First, it argues that human enhancement is not new in human history. On the contrary, it was fundamental for the emergence of mankind. With further developments, human enhancement can play a vital role on the construction of personhood and raising new possibilities for human existence. The second goal is to demonstrate that human enhancement, strongly connected to a non-positional value, must be considered a basic right. On this path, it will be argued that the ethical basis for human rights is the very same of human enhancement: autonomy and the good life.

Biography: Brunello Stancioli (LLD, LLM, LLB) is a Law Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, and an academic visitor at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics/Faculty of Philosophy. His PhD thesis, published in Brazil in 2010, is about the renouncement of basic rights and the concept of person. He researches human enhancement, neuroethics, applied ethics and the impact of new technologies on the concepts of person, identity, autonomy and human rights. He is currently investigating human enhancement as a basic right.