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Jürgen Habermas and the risk of liberal eugnics for the ethical self-understanding of species

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The article analyzes the problem of human nature that presents Jürgen Habermas in his work The future of human nature, Towards a liberal eugenics? The rapid advances in biotechnology demand a rigorous bioethical reflection that the German philosopher confronts superimposing to his ethics of the discourse a new ethics of the species. Habermas outlines a model of human nature built on precepts such as human dignity and dignity of the human life, symmetry of people's inter-relationships and, as a result of these, the ethical self-understanding of the species. Regarding the liberal eugenics, the author criticizes positive eugenics and protects the negative one, for which bases its argument about the existence of two types of humanity: the genetically enhanced and that genetically intact. Finally, this paper discusses the main criticisms about the Habermasian approach.