If this mixed system eliminates the anxiety about genetic changes being introduced by a few powerful people with limited horizons, there is a more general unease which it does not remove. May not the limitations of one generation of parents also prove disastrous? And, underlying this, is the problem of what values parents should appeal to in making their choices. How can we be confident that it is better for one sort of person to be born than another?
Values
The dangers of such decisions, even spread through all prospective parents, seem to me very real. We are swayed by fashion. We do not know the limitations of our own outlook. There are human qualities whose value we may not appreciate. A generation of parents might opt heavily for their children having physical or intellectual abilities and skills. We might leave out a sense of humour. Or we might not notice how important to us is some other quality, such as emotional warmth. So we might not be disturbed in advance by the possible impact of the genetic changes on such a quality. And, without really wanting to do so, we might stumble into producing people with a deep coldness. This possibility seems one of the worst imaginable. It is just one of the many horrors that could be blundered into by our lack of foresight in operating the mixed system. Because such disasters are a real danger, there is a case against positive genetic engineering, even when the changes do not result from centralized decisions. But this case, resting as it does on the risk of disaster, supports a principle of caution rather than a total ban. We have to ask the question whether there are benefits sufficiently great and sufficiently probable to outweigh the risks.
But perhaps the deepest resistance, even to a mixed system, is not based on risks, but on a more general problem about values. Could the parents ever be justified in choosing, according to some set of values, to create one sort of person rather than another?
Is it sometimes better for us to create one sort of person rather than another? We say ‘yes’ when it is a question of eliminating genetic defects. And we say ‘yes’ if we think that encouraging some qualities rather than others should be an aim of the upbringing and education we give our children. Any inclination to say ‘no’ in the context of positive genetic engineering must lay great stress on the two relevant boundaries. The positive–negative boundary is needed to mark off the supposedly unacceptable positive policies from the acceptable elimination of defects. And the genes–environment boundary is needed to mark off positive engineering from acceptable positive aims of educational policies. But it is not clear that confidence in the importance of these boundaries is justified.
The positive–negative boundary may seem a way of avoiding objectionably God‐like decisions, on the basis of our own values, as to what sort of people there should be. Saving someone from spina bifida is a lot less controversial than deciding he shall be a good athlete. But the distinction, clear in some cases, is less sharp in others. With emotional states or intellectual functioning, there is an element of convention in where the boundaries of normality are drawn. And, apart from this, there is the problem of explaining why the positive–negative boundary is so much more important with genetic intervention than with environmental methods. We act environmentally to influence people in ways that go far beyond the elimination of medical defects. Homes and schools would be impoverished by attempting to restrict their influence on children to the mere prevention of physical and mental disorder. And if we are right here to cross the positive–negative boundary, encouraging children to ask questions, or to be generous and imaginative, why should crossing the same boundary for the same reasons be ruled out absolutely when the means are genetic?
Notes
1 1 Chris Graham has suggested to me that it is misleading to say this without emphasizing the painful slowness of this way of changing gene frequencies.
2 2 The Future of Man (The Reith Lectures, 1959), London, 1960, chapter 3; and in ‘The Genetic Improvement of Man’, in The Hope of Progress, London, 1972.
3 3 Genes. Dreams and Realities, London, 1971, p. 81.
4 4 ‘Already they have pushed Cline’s results further, obtaining transfer between rabbit and mouse, for example, and good expression of the foreign gene in its new host. Some, by transferring the genes into the developing eggs, have managed to get the new genes into every cell in the mouse, including the sex cells; those mice have fathered offspring who also contain the foreign gene.’ Jeremy Cherfas: Man Made Life, Oxford, 1982, pp. 229–30.
5 5 Out of the Night, New York. 1935. To find a distinguished geneticist talking like this after the Nazi period is not easy.
6 6 John Maynard Smith: On Evolution, Edinburgh, 1972; the article is reprinted from the issue on ‘Utopia’ of Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1965.
7 7 Anarchy, State and Utopia, New York, 1974, p. 315.
8 8 Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 315.
9 9 This kind of unworldly innocence is part of the engaging charm of Nozick’s dotty and brilliant book.
10 10 Decision‐taking by a central committee (perhaps of a dozen elderly men) can be thought of as a ‘Russian’ model. The genetic supermarket (perhaps with genotypes being sold by TV commercials) can be thought of as an ‘American’ model. The mixed system may appeal to Western European social democrats.
14 The Moral Significance of the Therapy–Enhancement Distinction in Human Genetics
David B. Resnik
Introduction
The therapy–enhancement distinction occupies a central place in contemporary discussions of human genetics and has been the subject of much debate.1–7 At a recent conference on gene therapy policy, scientists predicted that within a few years researchers will develop techniques that can be used to enhance human traits.8 In thinking about the morality of genetic interventions, many writers have defended somatic gene therapy,9,10 and some have defended germline gene therapy,11,12 but only a handful of writers defend genetic enhancement,13 or even give it a fair hearing.14–
