Speaker

Dr. Jonathan K. Crane is the Raymond F. Schinazi Scholar of Bioethics and Jewish Thought at Emory University’s Center for Ethics. He is also an Associate Professor of Medicine, Emory School of Medicine, and an Associate Professor of Religion, Emory College. He is the founder and co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Jewish Ethics. A past president of the The Society of Jewish Ethics, he frequently speaks and publishes broadly on Judaism, ethics and bioethics, comparative religious ethics, narrative ethics, eating, environmental and animal ethics, among other topics.

Abstract

When is an intervention therapy and when an enhancement? Distinguishing these categories is ethically fraught, for it involves clarifying such slippery notions as baseline, normal/abnormal, and excellence. While we have new prowess to alter our bodies and minds, questions of enhancement are ancient. This presentation considers how one religious tradition—Judaism—wrestles with such questions and possibilities.