My gf just pointed my attention to this:

Human Upgrades

The site is fictional but interesting. The tagline, “the possibility is our obligation”, should be taken with a grain of salt. Statements like this, of course, are what gets transhumanists in trouble with the mainstream all the time, and it seems like some people in the mainstream actually want transhumanists to say things like this, because it gives them more ammo in arguments.

Is it our obligation to take a child to the hospital when they are sick? Yes… although members of the First Church of Christ, Scientist seem to disagree in certain respects.

Is it our obligation to ensure that our child has a genetic disposition to be healthy and free of birth defects, if the technology to do so exists and is cheap and noninvasive? Most transhumanists and many normal people seem to think so, although some members of the President’s Council on Bioethics seem to disagree. Many would convincingly argue that they are wrong.

Is it our obligation to ensure that our minds are free from the propensity to be emotionally erratic, or make inferences that contradict probability theory, or follow short-term incentives when we would forgo them if we had the self-control? Ensuring this would require substantial neurological modification, probably beyond what simple genetic engineering could muster. But some would argue that these properties are what define us as human. I argue that we do have an obligation to free ourselves from these errors, even if they are part of what defines us as “human” - although this obligation is not strong enough to justify overriding free choice.

What creates obligations? The needs of others. If we can modify our psychologies to interact effectively with an extremely wide range of beings with all manner of errors, then can we eliminate any such need, thereby eliminating obligations constraining our forms entirely? No, because there are certain fundamental ethical imperatives, like “minimize suffering”, that will always contradict it. I assume that we will converge on a basic set of ground rules, within which there is huge room for variation, but states outside of which are forbidden or strongly discouraged. For example, don’t create a mind whose life is not worth living.