PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ingmar Persson
AU  - Julian Savulescu
TI  - The turn for ultimate harm: a reply to Fenton
AID  - 10.1136/jme.2010.036962
DP  - 2011 Jul 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - 441--444
VI  - 37
IP  - 7
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/37/7/441.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/37/7/441.full
SO  - J Med Ethics2011 Jul 01; 37
AB  - Elizabeth Fenton has criticised an earlier article by the authors in which the claim was made that, by providing humankind with means of causing its destruction, the advance of science and technology has put it in a perilous condition that might take the development of genetic or biomedical techniques of moral enhancement to get out of. The development of these techniques would, however, require further scientific advances, thus forcing humanity deeper into the danger zone created by modern science. Fenton argues that the benefits of scientific advances are undervalued. The authors believe that the argument rather relies upon attaching a special weight to even very slight risks of major catastrophes, and attempt to vindicate this weighting.