Are Human Biomedical Interventions Legitimate Regulatory Policy Instruments?

This chapter examines the legitimacy of utilizing human biomedical interventions for regulatory purposes, drawing on regulatory governance scholarship, bioethical debates about human enhancement, and constitutional scholarship concerning fundamental rights. It considers whether the use of biomedical techniques to pursue regulatory and other public policy purposes is ethically equivalent to the use of traditional techniques that target the design of the social environment, including the alleged ethical ‘parity’ between social and biological interventions into the human mind. It argues when contemplating these techniques, we must consider who is seeking to utilize them, for whom, for what purpose, for whose benefit, and at what cost (and to whom). In wrestling with these questions, we must also attend to the social meanings associated with particular ends–means relationships, what is it that we value in human nature, and different understanding of ideas of human flourishing and the good life.