Perfective and Technocratic Enhancement: An Aristotelian–Thomistic Inquiry Into Contemporary Bioethical Challenges

Abstract

Drawing on the philosophical and scientific coherence of the Instruction Dignitas Personae, promulgated in 2008 by the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this essay examines the technological manipulation of the human body, focusing on human enhancement. It explores why certain biomedical interventions, ranging from gene editing to pharmacological treatments like statins, raise important bioethical and metaphysical questions about the nature of health, the goals of medicine, and the limits of human self-transformation. The argument begins by analyzing the pharmacological profile of statins to clarify their actual therapeutic role, thereby challenging their classification as enhancement tools. Then, by advocating for a robust theory of medicine grounded in Aristotelian–Thomistic principles, it reaffirms the therapy–enhancement distinction as one of differentiation, not opposition. Applying classical hylomorphism, the essay distinguishes between perfective enhancement, which aligns with human nature, and technocratic enhancement, which seeks to transcend it. This perspective enables a reframing of the paradigm of statins, integrating biomedical data, metaphysical realism, and a rational theory of medicine to argue that true human flourishing requires fidelity to the limits inscribed in nature. Ultimately, the central question addressed herein concerns the moral licitness of enhancement, which is permissible only insofar as it is ordered toward the perfection of the human being, not its indiscriminate transformation.