Giftedness, Humility and Genetic Enhancement

Abstract

Life is a gift. To not appreciate and respect it as such is a moral failing. Genetic enhancement, at its deepest level of critique, involves just this moral failing.

The above is a sketch of the line of reasoning developed by Michael J. Sandel in “The Case Against Perfection.”1 Let us call it the argument from giftedness. Though Sandel gives the most robust articulation and defence of these ideas, they are not rare in the recent bioethics literature. For example, Leon Kass appeals to the ideas in arguing against human cloning and defending the old fashioned way of having children.2 The ideas are of immediate practical significance, for Sandel is a past member and Kass is a current member of The President’s Council on Bioethics. In what follows I examine Sandel’s version of the argument.