Nicholas Agar

Who is Nicholas Agar?

Nicholas Agar is a professor of ethics and an associate professor at the Victoria University of Wellington. Agar has a BA from the University of Auckland, an MA from the Victoria University of Wellington, and a PhD from the Australian National University. He has been teaching at Victoria since 1996. Agar's main research interests are in the ethics of the new genetics. He has also published on personhood theory, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of mind. In 2010, he was elected as a Hastings Center Fellow.

Ethically, Agar is described as occupying a position between bioconservatives like Leon Kass and transhumanists. Transhumanists argue that biotechnology should be used to overcome our human limitations so we may all become "better than well". Agar's supports reproductive freedom - the right of prospective parents to pursue enhancement technologies for their future children but without forcing them to embrace it. However, in his later work Humanity's End he states that "radical enhancement" should be rejected. Humanity's End was a 2011 Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title.

Agar is a member of the New Zealand Government's Environmental Risk Management Authority Ethics Advisory Council. He was appointed in April 2008.