Notes on Biotechnology Beyond Therapy

1. A Question (generalizing from Watson's question): If we could make better human beings and better human lives through applications of biotechnologies, why shouldn't we?

2. What are some ways in which we already do this?

3. Does this sort of interference with the order of nature constitute 'playing God' in any problematic sense?

4. Digression: Follow-up on euthanasia and the use of biotechnology to end life.

Rachels and Foot on voluntary euthanasia under extreme circumstances.

Foot on the waiving of the negative right not to be killed (or of the doctor's negative duty not to kill one). Note that this is meant to be possible only under very special circumstances.

Question: Does this use of biotechnology constitute 'playing God' in any problematic sense?

o What is the thought here?

o A joke and a counter-thought.

o What does 'respecting life' involve? Are we called upon primarily to respect life, or to respect persons? And can respecting persons sometimes involve ending life?

5. Ethical Issues Surrounding Some 'Beyond Therapy' Uses of Biotechnology

Once we move beyond curing diseases, what is our standard for measuring what counts as making life better for us, which is the goal of enhancement technologies? Do we have any clear conception of it?

Simple hypothetical example: basketball and imaginary genetic enhancement. What would that get us?

Making ourselves better at certain things vs. making things better for us.

Do we have a clear understanding of what an ideal life would look like, to serve as something to strive toward? If not, are we sure that in pursuing certain enhancements we're really effectively pursuing our ultimate goal?

Consider ways in which technology generally has made our lives easier by changing our circumstances. By doing that, it has changed the activities we fill our time with. Is that always or on the whole an improvement to our lives and to ourselves? Cf. Wendell Berry's "What Are People For?"

Consider next how technologies have led to changes more directly to ourselves.

o E.g., use of steroids in athletics.

o What exactly have we gained? Again, consider the distinction between making ourselves better at certain things vs. making things better for us.

o What kind of value do our goals (such as athletic goals) have? Intrinsic? Or only value in the context of human strivings with our native abilities?

o But where do we draw the line? Can we articulate this in a general way?

But what is so sacrosanct about our native abilities or their genetic basis, either individually or as a species, given what we now know about their origins? Why shouldn't we change things for the better if we can, given that nature has no plausible authority over us?

Again, however, there are deeper worries about what really will make things better, and what that amounts to. Cf. Huxley's Brave New World.

o Question: Do we owe it to our children to make them the best they can be? Some worries:

o The medicalization of childhood. Is something important being lost?

o Mood-altering and personality-altering drugs: what are some dangers in the context of enhancement?