Abstract

What role should sentient animals play in the current debate on enhancement? The question covers several different philosophical fronts that demand urgent global ethical analysis. This touches issues that go from prohibition, permissivity or obligation that should characterize the new biotechnologies oriented to the enhancement of individuals, to the debate surrounding the moral rights of animals. Furthermore, the difficulty arises not only from the controversial moral categories involved, but also from the very extent of the objective proposed. However, this also gives rise to the pertinence of the above-mentioned question posed at the outset: on the one hand, the need for consistency in an eminently biased debate, and on the other the need to justify the proposal in which all sentient individuals are legitimate protagonists without this necessarily leading to implausible scenarios.