A Not-So-New eugenics: Harris and Savulescu on human enhancement

Hastings Center Report

Volumn 41, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 32-42

  Sparrow, Robert ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BIOETHICS; CELL NUCLEUS TRANSPLANTATION; ETHICS; FERTILIZATION IN VITRO; FORECASTING; GENETIC ENHANCEMENT; HUMAN; MEDICAL GENETICS; METHODOLOGY; MORALITY; PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS; STANDARD;

BIOETHICAL ISSUES; EUGENICS; FERTILIZATION IN VITRO; FORECASTING; GENETIC ENHANCEMENT; HUMANS; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; NUCLEAR TRANSFER TECHNIQUES; PREIMPLANTATION DIAGNOSIS;

EID: 79551586040     PISSN: 00930334     EISSN: 1552146X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/j.1552-146x.2011.tb00098.x     Document Type: Article

References (120)

1. N. Agar, "Whereto Transhumanism? The Literature Reaches a Critical Mass," Hastings Center Report 37, no. 3 (2007): 12-17.
2. G. Stock, Redesigning Humans: Choosing Our Children's Genes (London: Profile Books, 2003)
3. L.M. Silver, Remaking Eden: Cloning, Genetic Engineering and the Future of Human Kind (London: Phoenix, 1999)
4. N. Bostrom, "Human Genetic Enhancements: A Transhumanist Perspective," The Journal of Value Inquiry 37, no. 4 (2003): 493-506
5. R.M. Green, Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 2007)
6. J. Glover, Choosing Children: Genes, Disability, and Design (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2006)
7. N. Agar, Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement (Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 2004).
8. Agar, Liberal Eugenics, 3-16
9. A. Buchanan, "Choosing Who Will Be Disabled: Genetic Intervention and the Morality of Inclusion," Social Philosophy and Policy 13, no. 1 (1996): 18-46, at 18-19
10. D. Wikler, "Can We Learn from Eugenics?" Journal of Medical Ethics 25, no. 2 (1999): 183-94.
11. J. Harris, Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007).
12. The cover illustration of the hardcopy edition of this book-a muscled male arm, dressed in what appears to be Superman's blue costume, with the rising sun behind it-suggests that Harris is not unduly concerned about the historical resonances of his philosophical program.
13. J. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Reasons Not to Have Disabled Children," in The Sorting Society, ed. L. Skene and J. Thomson (Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
14. J. Savulescu, "In Defence of Procreative Beneficence," Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (2007): 284-88
15. J. Savulescu, "Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Enhancement of Human Beings," in The Oxford Handbook on Bioethics, ed. B. Steinbock (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2006), 516-35
16. J. Savulescu, "New Breeds of Humans: The Moral Obligation to Enhance," Ethics, Law and Moral Philosophy of Reproductive Biomedicine 1, no. 1 (2005): 36-39
17. J. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children," Bioethics 15, no. 5 (2001): 413-26.
18. S. Grose, "Why We Should Cuddle Up to Designer Babies," Canberra Times, June 22, 2005
19. A. Denton, Enough Rope, Episode 187, September 29, 2008, ABC TV (Australia), transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/ transcripts/s2374638.htm
20. M. Metherell, "Bring on the Super Humans," Sydney Morning Herald, June 9, 2005
21. J. Miles, "How Far Would You Go for the Perfect Baby? How Far Should Society Go in Allowing Genetic Manipulation to Produce Happier, Healthier and Physically Pleasing People?" Townsville Bulletin, June 18, 2005, 67
22. J. Maley, "We Could Radically Change the Nature of Human Beings (Interview with Professor Julian Savulescu)," The Sun Herald, August 10, 2008
23. "The Ideas Interview: Julian Savulescu," The Guardian, October 10, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/oct/10/genetics.research/print
24. J. Savulescu, National Australia Bank Address to National Press Club, June 8, 2005, Barton, Canberra, Australia, http://www.asmr.org.au/MRW/NPCTRSC05. pdf.
25. J. Harris, "The Survival Lottery," in Bioethics: An Anthology, 2nd ed., ed. H. Kuhse and P. Singer (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2006)
26. J. Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality: Ethics and the Genetic Revolution (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1998), 223-25
27. J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (London and New York: Routledge, 1985), 21-22
28. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Reasons Not to Have Disabled Children," 51-53. In a 2009 article that appeared after this paper was submitted for publication, Savulescu and Kahane admit that the principle of procreative beneficence is a "maximising" principle but deny that it need rest on consequentialist foundations or that it is incompatible with deontological or virtue ethical approaches to morality
29. J. Savulescu and G. Kahane, "The Moral Obligation to Create Children with the Best Chance of the Best Life," Bioethics 23, no. 5 (2009): 274-90, at 283. However, the case they make is unconvincing. Neither deontology nor virtue ethics naturally admit maximizing principles of this sort; deontological frameworks will typically characterize our obligations with reference to principles that set out necessary standards rather than goods to be maximized, while virtue ethics is notoriously hostile to the idea that "more is always better." Moreover, if, as Savulescu and Kahane suggest here, the reasons provided by procreative beneficence can be outweighed or defeated by nonconsequentialist considerations, then-assuming that nonconsequentialist accounts of the ethics of reproduction may adduce such considerations-it is simply unclear whether anything like an obligation to have "the best child" would appear in such accounts.
30. W. Glannon, "CQ Review: Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People, by John Harris," Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 17 (2008): 473-76, at 473. Harris's homepage at the University of Manchester states that "John Harris has, throughout his career, defended broadly libertarian - consequentialist approaches to issues in bioethics," http://www.law.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/staff/john-harris/default.htm, accessed October 5, 2010.
31. J. Cohen and G. Tomkin, "The Science, Fiction, and Reality of Embryo Cloning," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 4, no. 3 (1994): 193-203. If the technology to create germ cells from somatic cells via induced pluripotent stem-cells is realized, then this will further extend the potential of PGD by greatly increasing the number of embryos a couple can create.
32. D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1984), 351-79.
33. The most high-profile and challenging attempts to make an argument along these lines is Jurgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2003).
34. C. Farrelly, "Virtue Ethics and Prenatal Genetic Enhancement," Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology 1, no. 1 (2007): 1-13.
35. L.R. Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge of Bioethics (San Francisco, Calif.: Encounter, 2002), 267-68
36. E. Parens, "The Goodness of Fragility: On the Prospect of Genetic Technologies Aimed at the Enhancement of Human Capacities," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 5, no. 2 (1995): 141-53
37. M.J. Sandel, The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007).
38. A. Buchanan, "Human Nature and Enhancement," Bioethics 23, no. 3 (2009): 141-50.
39. This is not to deny that such a decision raises serious ethical issues or that some writers have objected to the use of PGD to prevent the birth of children with disabilities.
40. A. Asch, "Prenatal Diagnosis and Selective Abortion: A Challenge to Practice and Policy," American Journal of Public Health 89, no. 11 (1999): 1649-57
41. A. Asch, "Why I Haven't Changed My Mind about Prenatal Diagnosis: Reflections and Refinements," in Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights, ed. E. Parens and A. Asch (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2000)
42. D. Kaplan, "Prenatal Screening and Its Impact on Persons with Disabilities," Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology 36, no. 3 (1993): 605-612 (Pubitemid 23259811)
43. M. Saxton, "Disability Rights and Selective Abortion," in Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, ed. R. Solinger (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997)
44. S. Wendell, The Rejected Body (New York: Routledge, 1996). However, while there are good reasons to think carefully about what counts as "severe" disabilities or a "serious genetic disorder," there is a broad consensus in the literature that the use of PGD to prevent the birth of children with such conditions is morally acceptable and significant support for the thought that it is morally obligatory; Buchanan, "Choosing Who Will Be Disabled."
45. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 8-9
46. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children," at 419.
47. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 9 and 185.
48. Ibid., 9.
49. Savulescu endorses engineering psychological character traits with the goal of improving individuals' welfare
50. "Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Enhancement of Human Beings."
51. This argument is developed at more length in R. Sparrow, "Procreative Beneficence, Obligation, and Eugenics," Genomics, Society, and Policy 3, no. 3 (2007): 43-59
52. and R. Sparrow, "Should Human Beings Have Sex? Sexual Dimorphism and Human Enhancement," American Journal of Bioethics 10, no. 7 (2010): 3-12.
53. Agar, Liberal Eugenics, 111-120
54. A. Buchanan, D.W. Brock, N. Daniels, and D. Wikler, From Chance to Choice (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 156-61
55. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 1-7
56. Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality, 171-74, 203
57. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children"
58. Savulescu, "New Breeds of Humans," 37.
59. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Reasons Not to Have Disabled Children," 60-61.
60. I. de Melo-Martin, "On Our Obligation to Select the Best Children: A Reply to Savulescu," Bioethics 18, no. 1 (2004): 72-83, at 81.
61. L. Cannold, "Reprogenetic Technologies: Balancing Parental Procreative Autonomy and Social Equity and Justice," in The Sorting Society, ed. L. Skene and J. Thomson (Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
62. It is true that in different social settings the ideal child will also differ. For instance, Harris and Savulescu's arguments imply that parents in China should have children that instantiate Chinese ideals of health and beauty. However, this does not distinguish the new from the old eugenics; it has always been the case that eugenic ideals have had such local character.
63. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children," 424
64. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Reasons Not to Have Disabled Children," 60-62.
65. See also Savulescu and Kahane, "The Moral Obligation to Create Children with the Best Chance of the Best Life," 288.
66. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Reasons Not to Have Disabled Children."
67. The revised formulation of the principle of procreative beneficence offered in Savulescu and Kahane ("The Moral Obligation to Create Children with the Best Chance of the Best Life") stipulates that the principle "assumes that the child created will be the reproducers' biological child" (note 3, 274-75). However, the authors offer no defense of this stipulation.
68. Buchanan, Brock, Daniels, and Wikler, From Chance to Choice
69. Cannold, "Reprogenetic Technologies," 70
70. Glover, Choosing Children, 54-55
71. M. Parker, "The Best Possible Child," Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (2007): 279-83.
72. R. Sparrow, "Better than Men? Sex and the Therapy/Enhancement Distinction," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 20, no. 2 (2010): 115-44, at 122, 129-31.
73. Sparrow, "Should Human Beings Have Sex?"
74. Denton, Enough Rope
75. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 72-85, 94-95
76. Savulescu, "Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Enhancement of Human Beings" and "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children."
77. J. Savulescu, "Deaf Lesbians, 'Designer Disability,' and the Future of Medicine," British Medical Journal 325 (2002): 771-75.
78. Glannon, "CQ Review: Enhancing Evolution," 273. In describing Harris and Savulescu as libertarians in what follows, I intend to characterize only their opposition to the use of state power to bring about enhancements and make no claims about their wider politics elsewhere.
79. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 71-72.
80. J. Feinberg, "Wrongful Life and the Counterfactual Element in Harming," Social Philosophy and Policy 4, no. 1 (1987): 145-78.
81. Glover, Choosing Children, 50
82. Savulescu, "Deaf Lesbians, 'Designer Disability,' and the Future of Medicine." This is an important point on which Harris and Savulescu appear to part company-although I believe that this is more a matter of the language they prefer than a substantive disagreement. Harris insists that people can in fact be harmed by decisions that resulted in their birth, if they are born in a "harmed condition" (where a harmed condition is one that a rational person would prefer not to be in)
83. J. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 91-93
84. J. Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality, 109-113.
85. Harris also holds that individuals are harmed if they are not enhanced-as it would be rational to prefer to have superior capacities. However, he denies that children who were born when other, better-off children might have been born are wronged by the decision that led to their birth, as long as they have "lives worth leading." Moreover, he denies that parents should be required by legislation to avoid harming their children in this fashion, which suggests that the moral weight of this harm is, on his account, negligible. I have therefore chosen to follow Glover (Choosing Children, 25) and interpret Harris as claiming that choices about which individuals to bring into the world "harm" the resulting individuals only in a technical, nonstandard use of the term. To the extent that Harris wishes to maintain that people may be harmed by circumstances that also determine their identity, then the argument that coercion will sometimes be justified in order to prevent such harm will have that much more force.
86. Savulescu, "Deaf Lesbians, 'Designer Disability,' and the Future of Medicine"
87. J. Savulescu, M. Hemsley, A. Newson, and B. Foddy, "Behavioral Genetics: Why Eugenic Selection Is Preferable to Enhancement," Journal of Applied Philosophy 23, no. 2 (2006): 157-71, at 162.
88. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 72-85, 94-95
89. Savulescu, "Deaf Lesbians, 'Designer Disability,' and the Future of Medicine," and "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children."
90. D.J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985)
91. L.L. Lovett, Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1938 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2007)
92. P.M.H. Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics, and Human Failings: The Eugenics Society, Its Sources and Its Critics in Britain (London and New York: Routledge, 1992)
93. D.B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity, 1865 to the Present (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1995)
94. W.H. Schneider, Quality and Quantity: The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
95. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 72-80
96. Savulescu, "Deaf Lesbians, 'Designer Disability,' and the Future of Medicine" and "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children."
97. It might be possible to finesse the argument here and hold-as Harris and Savulescu apparently do-that we should always prioritize the welfare of existing persons over the welfare of future persons. However, there is a significant risk that any such attempt would make the consequentialist case for enhancement effectively collapse. Presumably the force of the claim that we have an obligation to enhance our children is that it will sometimes give us reasons to do things we would otherwise not be inclined to do. Yet if the welfare of future persons is always trumped by that of existing persons, then parents will never have reasons to change their minds about their reproductive decisions because their existing preferences-which would be frustrated were they to do something else-will settle the matter.
98. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 361-64.
99. The most thorough and impressive investigation of this topic to date remains Buchanan, Brock, Daniels, and Wikler, From Chance to Choice.
100. Importantly, the mere existence of the option of enhancement may harm others by coopting them into a genetic rat race in order to secure access to important goods that include a positional component; Cannold, "Reprogenetic Technologies." This fact may ground an argument in favour of denying people access to enhancement in order to avoid establishing a destructive collective action problem-although this is controversial
101. Agar, Liberal Eugenics, 128-31
102. Buchanan, Brock, Daniels, and Wikler, From Chance to Choice, 182-87
103. Bostrom, "Human Genetic Enhancements," 501-3
104. Glover, Choosing Children, 80-81. However, my interest here is in arguments that suggest people might be required to enhance their children.
105. R. Wilkinson, Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality (London: Routledge, 1996)
106. R.G. Wilkinson and K.E. Pickett, "Income Inequality and Population Health: A Review and Explanation of the Evidence," Social Science and Medicine 62 (1996): 1768-84.
107. Harris, Enhancing Evolution, 21-22
108. Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality, 223-25.
109. This "right" will, of course, be only a useful fiction according to a consequentialist account of our obligations
110. Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality, 257, and The Value of Life, xvi.
111. It should also be noted that there are some enhancement technologies that would affect persons, such as gene therapies, pharmaceuticals like hGH or modifinal, and cybernetic implants. Any obligation to employ such technologies would have much more dramatic implications for the extent to which we should respect the liberty of parents not to provide these to their children, as failure to provide these enhancements would directly harm existing persons. While Harris and Savulescu also believe that we should pursue such enhancements, discussion of the policy implications of this position is a matter for another paper.
112. Agar's Liberal Eugenics is perhaps the leading candidate here.
113. After the cover illustration, perhaps the next most striking feature of Harris's book Enhancing Evolution is its tone, which conveys its author's obvious contempt for the arguments he is dismissing.
114. Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity
115. F. Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (London: Profile Books, 2003)
116. M. Sandel, The Case against Perfection.
117. Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality, 238-39
118. Savulescu, "New Breeds of Humans," 38.
119. Z. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000)
120. M. Horkheimer and T.W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, trans. E. Jephcott (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002).