Ethics guidelines for human enhancement R&D

Technologies to improve human performance raise ethical concerns The term “human enhancement” refers to a broad range of interventions and technologies that aim at improving human beings beyond what is considered typical or normal. Examples include prosthetic limbs that outperform biological limbs, or drugs that boost cognitive capacities beyond typical human range. Human enhancement is widely discussed as an area of serious ethical concern ( 1 , 2 ), but there has been no systematic means for implementing ethical oversight of research and development (R&D) that could be directed at human enhancement. In 2021, however, the European Commission (EC) endorsed a set of ethics guidelines for human enhancement that is now included in the ethics review guidance for its Horizon Europe funding program ( 3 ). This is the first time that extensive guidelines for human enhancement have been proposed and set for research. Though developed within a European context, the guidelines, whose development and limitations are discussed below, aim to be international in scope.