For more than two decades, Erik Parens has participated in the debates about using technologies like surgery and pharmacology to shape our selves—debates that have at their core no less than the question, What does it mean for human beings to flourish? Based on his experience, he has written a book to help people who are new to bioethics to understand, better than he did when he started out, what such debates actually entail. They entail more than the exchange of impartial reasons. They also entail efforts by critics of and enthusiasts about technologically shaping selves to justify their own ... More

For more than two decades, Erik Parens has participated in the debates about using technologies like surgery and pharmacology to shape our selves—debates that have at their core no less than the question, What does it mean for human beings to flourish? Based on his experience, he has written a book to help people who are new to bioethics to understand, better than he did when he started out, what such debates actually entail. They entail more than the exchange of impartial reasons. They also entail efforts by critics of and enthusiasts about technologically shaping selves to justify their own ways of being in the world—efforts that far too often entail accepting the false binary choices that our languages foist on us: Are human beings by nature creators or creatures? Are technologies morally neutral or value-laden? Is disability a medical or a social phenomenon? Indeed, are we free or determined?Parens offers a habit of thinking that benefits from, rather than ignores, the insights offered by both poles of those binaries. He shows how that habit of thinking can inform one kind of action: making choices about using technology to shape our selves. The book culminates in a discussion of children and families deciding whether appearance-normalizing surgery will promote the flourishing of their children with atypical bodies.