The Bio-Revolution and its Ethical Implications

In this lecture, Professor Julian Savulescu will examine some recent advances in genetics and biology more generally and will argue that they open up the prospect of human enhancement in a number of domains. Exploring how this bio-revolution might increase human well-being, promote justice, increase economic productivity and even improve love and personal relationships, he will aim to argue that there is a moral imperative to using these new technologies to improve the human condition.

Professor Savulescu holds the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford and is the Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics within the Faculty of Philosophy. He is Director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, which is one of three strategic centres in biomedical ethics in the UK funded by the Wellcome Trust. He is also Director of the Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences, which is one of the 10 founding Institutes within the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. In 2009 he was also awarded a major Arts and Humanities Research Council grant on Cognitive Science and Religious Conflict. He very much bridges the gap between academic and public life, having trained as a medical doctor and worked in genetics before becoming a philosopher, and one of his visions for the development of applied ethics is to encourage public debate. Most recently, he was one of the leading commentators on the ethical issues arising from the Craig Venter synthetic biology development, which attracted substantial media attention.

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