Liberal Eugenics
In Defence of Human Enhancement
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by Nicholas Agar
Blackwell Publishers
Due/Published
December 2004, 216 pages,
paper
ISBN
1405123907
Public debate about the use of genetic technology is dominated by fears of a Huxleyan 'Brave New World' or a return to the fascist eugenics of the past. In this controversial book, philosopher Nicholas Agar defuses these anxieties and defends the idea that parents should be allowed to enhance their children's genetic characteristics.Agar describes three technologies that may soon make liberal eugenics a practical possibility Ð cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer, genomics, and genetic engineering Ð and argues that parents can use these technologies to realize their procreative goals without harming the people they will bring into existence. He rejects the idea that eugenics need divide society into genetic haves and have-nots, and denies that social pressures need force eugenic choices to converge on a single view of human excellence, suggesting that these threats to liberal social arrangements can be resisted. Contents 1. Genius Sperm, Eugenics, and Enhancement Technologies: Two kinds of eugenics Technological possibilities Moral perplexities Hither posthumanity? 2. A Pragmatic Optimism about Enhancement Technologies: Will we be able to clone geniuses? Human genomics and the search for smart genes Doogie’s downside Nuclear powered vacuum-cleaners or nuclear bombs A pragmatic optimism about enhancement technologies 3. Making moral images of biotechnology: Utilitarian and Kantian advice about enhancement Moral images and moral consistency Midgley’s scepticism about consistency Harvesting Stem cells: RESEARCH or THERAPY? Are enhancement technologies wrong because they are ‘yucky’? Why food is different Are enhancement technologies wrong because they will destroy meaning? 4. The moral image of therapy: The biotechnological solution to disease Who benefits from gene therapy? Are we essentially human beings or essentially persons, and does it matter? Genetic influences, environmental influences, and the formation of human identities Interactionism’s implications for identity The scope of THERAPY and the notion of disease Buchanan, Brock, Daniels, and Wikler on protecting normal functioning THERAPY, obligation, and procreative liberty’s diminishment 5. The moral image of nature: Enhancement, NATURE, and Posthumanity The biology of human nature A moral parity of natural and engineered genetic arrangements Pluralism about human flourishing How to avoid infringing freedom of choice Are we permitted to enhance (or reduce) intelligence? 6. The moral image of nurture: A moral and developmental parity of genes and environment Manufacturing humans Enhancement and bad parenting The limited powers of genetic engineers Are enhancements problematic because they are positionally valuable? Regulating the pursuit of positional value 7. Our Postliberal Future: Two biotechnological tendencies: polarisation and homogenisation Distributing access to enhancement technologies Reducing the burden of universal access Biotechnology’s threat to citizenship The importance of reciprocity The threat of homogenization Prejudice and enhancement Kitcher and Buchanan et al. on resisting morally defective environments A parallel between GM humans and GM food The ethics of shifting bigotry’s burden 8. Enhanced humans when? The Precautionary Principle and enhancement technologies The real problem with developing enhancement technologies A clash of moral gestalts A biotechnological Catch-22 Once we have traversed the ethically impossible passage Further readings on human enhancement Bibliography Index |
