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Fritz Allhoff Institute for Ethics American Medical Association February 2, 2005 Wednesday, 4:00pm-6:00pm BA (Close/Hipp) 008 In the first part of this paper, I consider some arguments that have been advanced against genetic enhancement. The two that I spend the most time on are the allegations that genetic enhancement undermines accomplishment and that it is vicious because it demonstrates inhumility; I try to show that these criticisms are ineffective. While I think that arguments against genetic enhancement can be readily handled, there remains an important task of arguing for the more morally contentious forms of it and, in particular germ-line genetic enhancement. The reason that these interventions are more problematic than the others (e.g., somatic cell therapy, somatic cell enhancement, and germ-line therapy) is because these interventions will affect all future generations and, unlike germ-line therapy, will do more than "merely" cure (genetically enabled) disease. While germ-line enhancements might, conceivably, be easily justified on consequentialist grounds, I try to advance a deontic defense that, in my assessment, is absent in the literature. The ultimate claim is that germ-line genetic enhancements are morally permissible if and only if they augment (or give rise to augmentations of) Rawlsian primary goods; these goods are defined as that ones that all rational agents would want, regardless of their conceptions of the good. This account is responsive to the worries about non-consent from future generations since, ex hypothesi, all rational agents would consent to the augmentation of Rawlsian primary goods. This account has the further merit of restricting some of the more nefarious sorts of genetic interventions since such interventions would not satisfy my criterion.  |
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