Hypothermia particularly in severe cases is rightly considered a malady in Bio Technology

An important part of the definition offered by Gert is that for a condition to be considered a malady there must be an absence of an external distinct sustaining cause. There must not be a cause that is linked to the condition in such a way that the harm or evil associated with the condition is only present when the cause is and if the cause is removed then so too is the harm or evil associated with the condition. For a condition to count as a malady, the harm caused by the condition must still be present even if the cause of the condition is removed. For example, suppose I apply an electrical current to you cause to pain without doing any actual damage to you either mentally or physically. Furthermore this pain does not remain after the removal of the current. Even though while I was administering the current you would be suffering pain, which as has been shown is a harm or evil, which should be avoided, you could not be said to be suffering from a malady. For as soon as I removed the current, the pain would also cease. The harmful condition pain, would have a distinct sustaining cause, that of the electricity that I am passing through your body. If, however, by passing an electrical current through your body on a number of occasions, I caused a harmful condition, either physical (there was actual damage to parts of your body, such as burn, or organs whose activities were compromised) or mental (a rational fear of being in a room with strangers with electrical cables) that continued after the current stopped, then you could be suffering from a malady. A more problematic example may be that of hypothermia, where it could be suggested that the sustaining cause is intense cold and if that is removed then so is the hypothermia, and so hypothermia does not count as a malady. This however is not entirely correct, unlike in the case of non-harmful electroshock, when a person is removed from intense cold, the condition does not abate immediately. In fact hypothermia may actually cause long-term damage to the person’s body. It is possible therefore that hypothermia particularly in severe cases is rightly considered a malady.

acceptable and unacceptable forms of enhancement of Bio Technology...

The problem when considering drawing a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forms of enhancement is that of justification, given the plurality of views about what constitutes the good life and how one can best achieve this. There will lead to significant differences in what particular people consider to be acceptable forms of enhancement. Some might think that enhancements are acceptable are those that improve a person’s mental faculties, but find physical improvements to muscle size, strength, and flexibility are unacceptable, because the latter are not part of their conception of the good life. Another person may believe completely the opposite to be the case. For this reason, we need to develop a method of determining the moral acceptability that allows for individual conceptions of the good life to be encompassed, while protecting the rights of individuals that will be affected by these enhancements. This is of particular importance if these enhancements take the form of germ-line interventions aimed at passing on specific characteristics to future offspring who are also entitled to for their own views of what they choose to pursue in their lives

Clinical childhood obesity can treat through Bio Technology…

The first problem here is what is to be classified as neglect and this becomes particularly relevant when we consider the minimal expectations of parents put forward earlier. Obviously if a child is not being fed or the actions of the parents in some other way endanger the life of the child directly then there seems to be no problem. But what about the situation where a seven year old is left alone in his home every night after school, from 3.00pm until 7.00pm without any parental supervision. All of the other aspects of the child’s life are being catered for, they are being fed and clothed, it is just that the parent/s of the child are required to work until 7.00pm in the evening. Does leaving a child this young alone consistently satisfy a definition of neglect? Are the parents of children whose dietary habits are such that they become clinically obese at an early age and continue this trend as they mature to be considered to be neglecting their child, due to the problems associated later in life with clinical childhood obesity? If we think that there are problems with these cases, then if we accept the contention that governments should only intervene when there are cases of neglect or abandonment, then we will need to accept that while the parents of these children may be doing something we disapprove of, but that the government can not intervene as they are still within their rights as parents. If we are not willing to accept this then we will need to widen the view of what it means to neglect a child and doing this may have implications that include increasing government intervention in the parent/child relationship, into areas where we have clear intuitions that they should not intervene.