The Ethics of Designer Babies
About two years ago, researchers announced that one can potentially save a child from blood problems, cystic fibrosis, and certain forms of cancer by changing their genes in embryo (Gallager). Sounds great! No one ought to object, right? The issue is that these changes involve altering the germline, that part of the genetic code that we pass on to the next generation. It’s that element of permanece that many people think puts humanity in a role that belongs to God alone. What, then, is the ethical status of germline therapy?
I will analyze four different answers to this question. Some maintain that gene therapy is neither a moral nor immoral practice in any objective sense. David Hume provides the philosophical bedrock for this position. Others argue that genetic engineering is possibly justifiable because it could benefit most of humanity. This is the utilitarian argument, originating with Jeremy Bentham. Of course, Hume and Bentham are long-dead philosophers who never so much as contemplated DNA, but I find that analysis of what their positions would be is entirely relevant to today’s discussion designer babies. Another viewpoint is that germline therapy is immoral because it violates a “right to consent” of future generations. Scott B. McRay makes this argument briefly in his work on ethics. A final argument is the tinkering with our genetic code amounts to playing God, and is therefore immoral.
According to David Hume, an influential Scottish philosopher writing and living in the eighteenth century, there is nothing objectively wrong with manipulating the germline of an embryo because morality is a subjective enterprise. When it comes to reason on the one hand and taste on the other, “[t]he former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood; the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, virtue and vice” (Hume 485). On Hume’s view, there are no real moral duties that bind our lives, much less a duty relevant to the embryo and human progeny. Moral duties and value judgements (e.g., it is good to love, it is wrong to hate, etc.) are statements of taste, not statements of fact. Chocolate may be my favorite flavor of ice cream, but no one is objectively incorrect if they prefer vanilla. As with flavors, so with morals (per Hume).
Hume develops two arguments for his thesis. First, no description of the world entails a moral duty. From how the world is, one cannot derive how it ought to be. For example, from the mere fact that a boy falls into a river, I cannot know if I ought to save him. Or again, from the fact that I love my friends, it does not follow that it is good for me to love them. Now, if duties and values do not follow from facts about the world, statements of morality cannot be factual.
This argument does not convince me. The proponent of objective morality can argue that instead of distinguishing between values and facts, we should distinguish between mere facts and value facts (Craig and Moreland 407–408). Any true statement about how something ought to be is a value fact, while all other true statements are mere facts. This distinction is equally justified alongside Hume’s. For example, there is no contradiction in asserting that it is a fact that I ought to love others. To insist on anything else is to simply assume that the moral objectivist view is false.
A second argument Hume gives is that if following the dictates of morality did not produce some feeling of satisfaction, morality would be impotent — therefore, morality is nothing more than feeling. For example, if I did not feel good when I helped someone carry their groceries to the car, I would not do it. In other words, the efficacy of morality reduces to its ability to create subjective feelings in its adherents. Hume takes this to imply that moral duties and value judgements are nothing more than statements of feeling (i.e., taste or preference), as opposed to statements of fact.
In response, I think the argument confuses a motive with an identity. Positive feelings offer motivation for carrying out one’s duties, but it does not follow that feelings are identical to duties and values themselves. For example, scientists may be motivated by nothing other than the warm feeling they get when they expound scientific theories. It does not follow from this, however, that those same theories are identical to feelings and impressions; those theories might still be objectively true.
But perhaps I have interpreted Hume incorrectly. Perhaps Hume’s point is subtler: our moral beliefs stem from our subjective feelings, and not an objective consideration of the world. For all we know, there are moral facts “out there” in reality; nevertheless, when we form our moral beliefs, we do so simply and solely based on subjective impressions. If there is something beyond impressions, we cannot know it.
This interpretation fairs no better than the first. It seems to me that we can draw a parallel between our moral experience and our sense experience. With our sense experience, we discover a physical world independent of ourselves. Now, our senses are fallible; sometimes they mislead us. Nevertheless, we trust them unless we have some reason not to. With our moral experience, we discover a moral order independent of ourselves. I think Hume captures the point that the experience, whether of the moral type or sense experience, is subjective; that does nothing, however, to prove that the object of our experience is subjective. Unless Hume can provide us with some reason to doubt our senses, whether moral or physical, we ought to trust them.
In short, germline therapy may well be an objectively ethical or unethical practice; Hume fails in showing that there is no answer.
In contrast to Hume, Bentham accepts the objective nature of morality. He espouses utilitarianism, the thesis that the moral action in any situation is the action that produces the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people. Bentham writes that “the interests of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the phraseology of morals” (Solomon 557). For any action x, consequences alone determine the morality of x. He therefore offers a different answer to our question than Hume: germline therapy is permissible so long as it results in the greatest good for the greatest number. Given that freedom from various diseases would probably work out for the greatest good, modification of the genetic code is morally permissible in those cases.
Many give a slippery-slope objection to arguments like the above: if we alter the genetic code to change the state of a child’s health, we are only one step away from making changes to their physical appearance, their intellectual abilities, musical talents, and so forth. In short, we begin a slippery-slope to designer babies, a morally abhorrent reality (according to the objector, at least).
The utilitarian can respond that slippery-slope arguments are not necessarily successful. For example, the government may force pedestrians to walk on the sidewalk; it does not follow that the government will soon take away our freedom of expression. In the real world, technological progress happens and we attempt to legislate it in accord with ethics at the same rate. It is plausible that as germline therapy becomes a reality, laws will mandate when it is acceptable and when it is not. In any case, the objector has no reason to think that the worst-case scenario of designer babies is likely.
Moreover, it is not clear why designer babies are morally unacceptable. Parents with the means to do so give their children piano lessons, tutoring sessions, dental work, dermatologist consultations to do away with acne, and so on. It is unclear why gene therapy on your future child is different from these practices in kind, rather then merely in degree.
But even if this objection isn’t very strong, our ignorance of the future undermines consequence-based ethical reasoning. We have no idea what the long-term consequences of genetic alternation are, and by the time we find out, it will be too late. A utilitarian ought to reserve judgment on the matter because one cannot know if germline manipulation will result in the greatest good for the greatest number. Freedom from diseases is, ostensibly, a very positive outcome; but what of the secondary and tertiary consequences? Discerning the long-term state of the world that would result given a decision today is impossible. It would be a tragedy if we destroyed the lives of those who had no say in the matter simply because we did not have the wisdom to wait. For this reason, I don’t think consequentialism works as an ethical theory in general, or in this case in particular.
Scott B. Rae, a contemporary philosopher, builds upon western philosophy’s emphasis on universal rights and applies it to genetic modification. Per Rae, germline therapy “raises ethical concerns about the rights of succeeding generations to inherit a genetic code that is manipulated without their consent” (199). Rae appears to be arguing that people have a right to self-determination. They are free to decide for themselves what their lives will look like, who they will love, how they will spend their money, and so forth. Genetic modification appears to violate that right because embryos and future generations did not choose those modifications. Stated explicitly, Rae presents the following argument:
It is easy enough to see where (1’) goes wrong. It is morally permissible to take one’s children to the dentist without their consent and to perform surgeries on them with only the parent’s consent. We generally only grant people a right to self-determination when their cognitive faculties are in full working order. In that vein, it may well be the case that succeeding generations do have a right to determine their lives in some circumstances but not in the present case of genetic modification because that circumstance more closely resembles the example of children and healthcare.
Moreover, premise (2) is open to challenge principally because future generations do not yet exist. It is difficult to make sense of the present tense affirmation that succeeding generations are people. In reality, they are not anything because they do not exist. It is not even the case that succeeding generations are potential persons; there is no object in the world that has the property potential person. An embryo might be a potential person, but there is simply nothing there further down the line.
Consider some absurd moral implications that follow if future generations have rights that now apply to them. For example, it would be profoundly immoral not to procreate, because one would be denying one’s children the right to life. For similar reasons, abortion is automatically immoral, wholly apart from whether the fetus is currently a person. Or again, if a husband and wife associate with a religion, that may well determine the religious beliefs of any future children born in the family. Should we say that the parents are infringing upon their future child’s freedom of religion? No, we should not.
A common objection to designer babies is that permanently changing the genetic make-up of a human being puts humanity in a position that belongs to God alone. It's a theological point that there are two groups of actions: actions that humanity and God can perform, and actions that only God may partake in. Genetic engineering falls into the second category.
What can we make of this argument? I think we need to be honest about what germ line therapy actually signifies. Removing a life-threatening gene sequence is nothing more than a type of preventive medicine given at a very early age. Just as we take medication to cope with or prevent diabetes, headaches, asthma, and so forth, so too we may use germ line therapy to prevent cystic fibrosis and cancer. The objector might point out that medical practice never involves changing the constitution of a human body, while genetic alteration does. However, organ donation, artificial limb usage, and tumor removal all involve changing someone’s physical make-up, but are nonetheless morally permissible. Germ line therapy is simply this type of medical care taken to a more fundamental level. The definition of humanity is no more in danger from germ line changes than it is from cholesterol pills.
In conclusion, Hume’s argument turns out to be question-begging, Mill cannot prove that changing the genetic code will have long-term positive outcomes, Rae fails to show that potential persons have rights, and there is little reason to think that altering the genetic code amounts to changing human nature. In the end, my primary aim has been more to address popular arguments in the debate about genetic modification than to issue in a conclusion of my own. Food for thought, I hope.
Gallagher, James. “GM Embryos ‘essential’, Says Report.” BBC News. BBC, 10 Sept. 2015. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. <http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34200029>.
Hume, David. “Reason as Slave of the Passions.” Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings. Ed. Robert Solomon, Kathleen Higgins, and Clancy Martin. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. 483–485. Print.
Moreland, James Porter, and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003. Print.
Rae, Scott B. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009. Print.
Solomon, Robert, Kathleen Higgins, and Clancy Martin, eds. Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
I will analyze four different answers to this question. Some maintain that gene therapy is neither a moral nor immoral practice in any objective sense. David Hume provides the philosophical bedrock for this position. Others argue that genetic engineering is possibly justifiable because it could benefit most of humanity. This is the utilitarian argument, originating with Jeremy Bentham. Of course, Hume and Bentham are long-dead philosophers who never so much as contemplated DNA, but I find that analysis of what their positions would be is entirely relevant to today’s discussion designer babies. Another viewpoint is that germline therapy is immoral because it violates a “right to consent” of future generations. Scott B. McRay makes this argument briefly in his work on ethics. A final argument is the tinkering with our genetic code amounts to playing God, and is therefore immoral.
Is ethics a matter of taste or fact?
According to David Hume, an influential Scottish philosopher writing and living in the eighteenth century, there is nothing objectively wrong with manipulating the germline of an embryo because morality is a subjective enterprise. When it comes to reason on the one hand and taste on the other, “[t]he former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood; the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, virtue and vice” (Hume 485). On Hume’s view, there are no real moral duties that bind our lives, much less a duty relevant to the embryo and human progeny. Moral duties and value judgements (e.g., it is good to love, it is wrong to hate, etc.) are statements of taste, not statements of fact. Chocolate may be my favorite flavor of ice cream, but no one is objectively incorrect if they prefer vanilla. As with flavors, so with morals (per Hume).
Hume develops two arguments for his thesis. First, no description of the world entails a moral duty. From how the world is, one cannot derive how it ought to be. For example, from the mere fact that a boy falls into a river, I cannot know if I ought to save him. Or again, from the fact that I love my friends, it does not follow that it is good for me to love them. Now, if duties and values do not follow from facts about the world, statements of morality cannot be factual.
This argument does not convince me. The proponent of objective morality can argue that instead of distinguishing between values and facts, we should distinguish between mere facts and value facts (Craig and Moreland 407–408). Any true statement about how something ought to be is a value fact, while all other true statements are mere facts. This distinction is equally justified alongside Hume’s. For example, there is no contradiction in asserting that it is a fact that I ought to love others. To insist on anything else is to simply assume that the moral objectivist view is false.
A second argument Hume gives is that if following the dictates of morality did not produce some feeling of satisfaction, morality would be impotent — therefore, morality is nothing more than feeling. For example, if I did not feel good when I helped someone carry their groceries to the car, I would not do it. In other words, the efficacy of morality reduces to its ability to create subjective feelings in its adherents. Hume takes this to imply that moral duties and value judgements are nothing more than statements of feeling (i.e., taste or preference), as opposed to statements of fact.
In response, I think the argument confuses a motive with an identity. Positive feelings offer motivation for carrying out one’s duties, but it does not follow that feelings are identical to duties and values themselves. For example, scientists may be motivated by nothing other than the warm feeling they get when they expound scientific theories. It does not follow from this, however, that those same theories are identical to feelings and impressions; those theories might still be objectively true.
But perhaps I have interpreted Hume incorrectly. Perhaps Hume’s point is subtler: our moral beliefs stem from our subjective feelings, and not an objective consideration of the world. For all we know, there are moral facts “out there” in reality; nevertheless, when we form our moral beliefs, we do so simply and solely based on subjective impressions. If there is something beyond impressions, we cannot know it.
This interpretation fairs no better than the first. It seems to me that we can draw a parallel between our moral experience and our sense experience. With our sense experience, we discover a physical world independent of ourselves. Now, our senses are fallible; sometimes they mislead us. Nevertheless, we trust them unless we have some reason not to. With our moral experience, we discover a moral order independent of ourselves. I think Hume captures the point that the experience, whether of the moral type or sense experience, is subjective; that does nothing, however, to prove that the object of our experience is subjective. Unless Hume can provide us with some reason to doubt our senses, whether moral or physical, we ought to trust them.
In short, germline therapy may well be an objectively ethical or unethical practice; Hume fails in showing that there is no answer.
What are the consequences of altering our children’s DNA?
In contrast to Hume, Bentham accepts the objective nature of morality. He espouses utilitarianism, the thesis that the moral action in any situation is the action that produces the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people. Bentham writes that “the interests of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the phraseology of morals” (Solomon 557). For any action x, consequences alone determine the morality of x. He therefore offers a different answer to our question than Hume: germline therapy is permissible so long as it results in the greatest good for the greatest number. Given that freedom from various diseases would probably work out for the greatest good, modification of the genetic code is morally permissible in those cases.
Many give a slippery-slope objection to arguments like the above: if we alter the genetic code to change the state of a child’s health, we are only one step away from making changes to their physical appearance, their intellectual abilities, musical talents, and so forth. In short, we begin a slippery-slope to designer babies, a morally abhorrent reality (according to the objector, at least).
The utilitarian can respond that slippery-slope arguments are not necessarily successful. For example, the government may force pedestrians to walk on the sidewalk; it does not follow that the government will soon take away our freedom of expression. In the real world, technological progress happens and we attempt to legislate it in accord with ethics at the same rate. It is plausible that as germline therapy becomes a reality, laws will mandate when it is acceptable and when it is not. In any case, the objector has no reason to think that the worst-case scenario of designer babies is likely.
Moreover, it is not clear why designer babies are morally unacceptable. Parents with the means to do so give their children piano lessons, tutoring sessions, dental work, dermatologist consultations to do away with acne, and so on. It is unclear why gene therapy on your future child is different from these practices in kind, rather then merely in degree.
But even if this objection isn’t very strong, our ignorance of the future undermines consequence-based ethical reasoning. We have no idea what the long-term consequences of genetic alternation are, and by the time we find out, it will be too late. A utilitarian ought to reserve judgment on the matter because one cannot know if germline manipulation will result in the greatest good for the greatest number. Freedom from diseases is, ostensibly, a very positive outcome; but what of the secondary and tertiary consequences? Discerning the long-term state of the world that would result given a decision today is impossible. It would be a tragedy if we destroyed the lives of those who had no say in the matter simply because we did not have the wisdom to wait. For this reason, I don’t think consequentialism works as an ethical theory in general, or in this case in particular.
Would it violate the future’s right to consent?
Scott B. Rae, a contemporary philosopher, builds upon western philosophy’s emphasis on universal rights and applies it to genetic modification. Per Rae, germline therapy “raises ethical concerns about the rights of succeeding generations to inherit a genetic code that is manipulated without their consent” (199). Rae appears to be arguing that people have a right to self-determination. They are free to decide for themselves what their lives will look like, who they will love, how they will spend their money, and so forth. Genetic modification appears to violate that right because embryos and future generations did not choose those modifications. Stated explicitly, Rae presents the following argument:
- People have a right to self-determination.
- Future generations are people.
- Therefore, future generations have a right to self-determination.
(1') People have a right to self-determination in every situation.
(1'’) People have a right to self-determination in some situations.It is easy enough to see where (1’) goes wrong. It is morally permissible to take one’s children to the dentist without their consent and to perform surgeries on them with only the parent’s consent. We generally only grant people a right to self-determination when their cognitive faculties are in full working order. In that vein, it may well be the case that succeeding generations do have a right to determine their lives in some circumstances but not in the present case of genetic modification because that circumstance more closely resembles the example of children and healthcare.
Moreover, premise (2) is open to challenge principally because future generations do not yet exist. It is difficult to make sense of the present tense affirmation that succeeding generations are people. In reality, they are not anything because they do not exist. It is not even the case that succeeding generations are potential persons; there is no object in the world that has the property potential person. An embryo might be a potential person, but there is simply nothing there further down the line.
Consider some absurd moral implications that follow if future generations have rights that now apply to them. For example, it would be profoundly immoral not to procreate, because one would be denying one’s children the right to life. For similar reasons, abortion is automatically immoral, wholly apart from whether the fetus is currently a person. Or again, if a husband and wife associate with a religion, that may well determine the religious beliefs of any future children born in the family. Should we say that the parents are infringing upon their future child’s freedom of religion? No, we should not.
"You're not God!"
What can we make of this argument? I think we need to be honest about what germ line therapy actually signifies. Removing a life-threatening gene sequence is nothing more than a type of preventive medicine given at a very early age. Just as we take medication to cope with or prevent diabetes, headaches, asthma, and so forth, so too we may use germ line therapy to prevent cystic fibrosis and cancer. The objector might point out that medical practice never involves changing the constitution of a human body, while genetic alteration does. However, organ donation, artificial limb usage, and tumor removal all involve changing someone’s physical make-up, but are nonetheless morally permissible. Germ line therapy is simply this type of medical care taken to a more fundamental level. The definition of humanity is no more in danger from germ line changes than it is from cholesterol pills.
In conclusion, Hume’s argument turns out to be question-begging, Mill cannot prove that changing the genetic code will have long-term positive outcomes, Rae fails to show that potential persons have rights, and there is little reason to think that altering the genetic code amounts to changing human nature. In the end, my primary aim has been more to address popular arguments in the debate about genetic modification than to issue in a conclusion of my own. Food for thought, I hope.
Works Cited
Gallagher, James. “GM Embryos ‘essential’, Says Report.” BBC News. BBC, 10 Sept. 2015. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. <http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34200029>.
Hume, David. “Reason as Slave of the Passions.” Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings. Ed. Robert Solomon, Kathleen Higgins, and Clancy Martin. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. 483–485. Print.
Moreland, James Porter, and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003. Print.
Rae, Scott B. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009. Print.
Solomon, Robert, Kathleen Higgins, and Clancy Martin, eds. Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
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