[Apologetics] The case against perfection: Ethics in the age of genetic engineering

[Stephen Korsman]

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?issn=0021-9738&volume=117&issue=10&page=2739


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Sandel has written a fine, short book that is well worth the time of the casual reader or the reader in a bioethics class. Although he does not break new ground, he provides an excellent synthesis of the arguments for and against genetic enhancement. Despite his liberal leanings, his sympathies are apparent from the title.

Sandel is a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University, known for his work on liberalism and justice. In a development he did not anticipate, he was appointed to the President's Council on Bioethics. An accidental tourist to bioethics, Sandel brought his on-the-job training back to the academy where he team-taught a course, "Ethics, biotechnology, and the future of human nature," with Douglas Melton, a well-regarded Harvard stem cell biologist. This book is an offshoot of that course.

Sandel believes that parents have a duty to promote their children's excellence. He recognizes that they both do and overdo this already with the use of Ritalin, orthodontics, and Scholastic Aptitude Test coaches as well as in many other material ways. Yet, he asks, if it is permissible and even admirable for parents to help their children in these ways, why isn't it equally admirable for parents to use whatever genetic technologies may emerge to enhance their children's intelligence, musical ability, appearance, or athletic skill? An emerging group of liberal eugenicists believe that eugenic measures, such as embryo selection, are unobjectionable and may be morally required as long as the benefits and burdens are fairly distributed throughout society. Legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin (quoted by Sandel) stated, "If playing God means struggling to improve our species, bringing into our conscious designs a resolution to improve whatever God deliberately or nature blindly has evolved over eons, then the first principles of ethical individualism command the struggle." But despite his willingness to explore arguments pro and con, Sandel is no liberal eugenicist. Rather, he argues that eugenic parenting is objectionable because it shows a misunderstanding of our place in creation and confuses our role with God's. This was the error of Prometheus.
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