Pharmacological Enhancements in the Military: Legal and Ethical Aspects

Human enhancement is a rapidly advancing field and the speed of advance of technology, from being available to being used, results in a delay to the ethics surrounding it. This is true of pharmacological enhancement (PCE) as much as exoskeletons and human-machine interfacing. Ethical issues arising from human enhancement include autonomy, safety and dignity. The first two are the cornerstones of the ethics surrounding informed consent (IC) which emanated from the necessity to protect human subjects against the risks of research. What remains unclear is how those risks are quantified, who decides whether the risk is an acceptable one and whether IC is required. This volume explores all these legal and ethical issues, including the theory and history of IC and the role of military doctors.