Do we have an obligation to breed smarter babies? Julian Savulescu says yes!
I'm not sure he's entirely wrong. Levy, argues that we need to concentrate on helping Africa out of poverty, but that seems to me to be a red herring. That is a separate issue, and ideally, we should do both. If we could only do one, then perhaps Africa would be more important, since the vast amount of human suffering there is important to eliminate, as opposed to the benefits of a moderately or even greatly more intelligent population.
Often our obligations will lead us to conflicting things, but if we could do both, we should.
I'm really beginning to like the things that Savulescu is saying. He might be my second all-time favorite philosopher!
Monday, February 14, 2011
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That is a very interesting find. I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed in the opposition; they didn't put up a fight at all! The first sentence of this article, regarding social inequality, could have been a fine argument for opponents of this idea. But no. No, they had to argue about Africa.
ReplyDeleteEven when the idea of social inequality regarding cognitive enhancements is discussed by proponents of the idea, it is done so using a terrible comparison. Caffeine, ritalin, and anti-depressants, to people who are born with naturally superior cognitive functioning. Utterly ridiculous. The biggest problem with this comparison is that anyone, regardless of how they were bred, born, or raised, can get these drugs. They may have to do some lying to get the anti-depressants, but the point is that they're available for anyone to consume and take advantage of, regardless of how they were born. The idea proposed in this article is one that is present from birth, as a direct result of planning that the individual takes no part in.
This comparison, though, is a bit of a toughie:
"'If you have an enriched environment as a kid, you're just going to have a higher IQ -- that's an effective cognitive enhancer and probably more effective than Ritalin,' Prof Levy said.
'Birth weights strongly predict IQ and the mother's nutritional status strongly predicts IQ. But these are things we're not worried about, because we're used to them.'"
If what Levy says is true, then why aren't people discriminating against people who were raised in "enriched environments," and carried by mothers with a decent "nutritional status"? Perhaps it is because the parents have to actively work before the average-baby is born (through the diet of the mother) and after the average-baby is born (the enriched environment) to ensure the best possible cognitive development for the child, while in the case of the designer-baby, the parents merely cough up the cash.
And at the end of it all, which child ends up with the higher IQ? That is a key factor missing here. Will the designer-baby always end up smarter than the natural-baby, no matter what the parents do to ensure its development? This is an important factor, but nobody knows yet, so the whole thing is moot.
That aside, if this technology is ever fully realized and perfected, I shudder to think of the lives these "designer babies" might lead. Granted, we know nothing about just how smart they could become, but if we assume that these individuals are in fact given better cognitive skills than the average person, then it is reasonable to assume that they will be able to grasp difficult concepts quickly. Somehow I doubt this knowledge will bode well with the legions of people who were unfortunate enough to be born in a "natural" manner.
Furthermore, what becomes of an individual who believes, even in the slightest, that his accomplishments are the product of his breeding rather than his own merit? Would this designer-person live a happy life, or would he feel forever isolated among people who cannot reason (as) well? It's already mentioned that "It's possible an embryo that appeared to have a perfect genetic make-up for intelligence might turn out to have less desirable attributes in other areas, such as health or personality," so why is this idea dismissed so quickly? Does it not matter that we could be creating a group of deeply disturbed individuals?
I want to support this idea. I want to love the idea of a society with reasonable people roaming around everywhere, but I just can't quite shake the feeling that this will do more harm than good.
Cameron, is it really any different now, than in the future? Right now, everyone is born in the "natural" way, and we have some people who are smarter, and others who are not.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure anyone would really question their own accomplishments. I don't think anyone really believes that his or her genetics determine everything in their lives. I don't think, gosh, I'm such a great teacher, because I have great genes... I think, gosh, I'm a great teacher, because I've worked hard at teaching.
The idea that affecting intelligence genes would affect other things, should give us pause, but we won't really know until we start doing experiments.... And in this case, it would necessarily have to be human experiments. So we may or may not be creating disturbed individuals. For all we know, some intelligence genes might affect hair color. So instead of creating disturbed individuals, we create red-headed individuals.
So the question really becomes, are the risks significant enough for the individual produced from genetic manipulation, that we should not do it? I'm not sure. I think there might be good reason to start seriously considering such human experiments, since we're already good enough at it with animals.
You make some interesting points; I'll be responding to them in chunks:
ReplyDelete“Cameron, is it really any different now, than in the future? Right now, everyone is born in the "natural" way, and we have some people who are smarter, and others who are not.”
I fully acknowledged that this is the case; the article even mentions it at one point. However, the people who end up smarter than others are generally (and I’m just quoting the article here) the products of healthy mothers (during pregnancy) and nurturing environments. There is no costly gene therapy involved, and the possibility of some unknown and potentially horrifying side effect is nonexistent. If both methods create the same result (an intelligent person), then why bother taking such a risk in the first place? Why bother with the ethics of human experimentation at all, when there exists a perfectly viable alternative option that any parent can explore?
"I'm not sure anyone would really question their own accomplishments. I don't think anyone really believes that his or her genetics determine everything in their lives. I don't think, gosh, I'm such a great teacher, because I have great genes... I think, gosh, I'm a great teacher, because I've worked hard at teaching."
Right, but you weren't literally designed from birth to have better cognitive abilities than others, so of course you can take solace in knowing that your success is related to your own merit. A "designer-baby," on the other hand, might be forever haunted by the idea that none of his success can be attributed to his own hard work. Everything he accomplishes carries an asterisk next to it, because he is literally designed to have better logic and reasoning skills.
"The idea that affecting intelligence genes would affect other things, should give us pause, but we won't really know until we start doing experiments.... And in this case, it would necessarily have to be human experiments. So we may or may not be creating disturbed individuals. For all we know, some intelligence genes might affect hair color. So instead of creating disturbed individuals, we create red-headed individuals."
Fair point. We really don't know how things could turn out, and testing would be necessary to ever truly know, but ...
“So the question really becomes, are the risks significant enough for the individual produced from genetic manipulation, that we should not do it? I'm not sure. I think there might be good reason to start seriously considering such human experiments, since we're already good enough at it with animals.”
… I think the risks are, in fact, great enough to end any consideration of this. The social conflict it would create is far greater than the article and its proponents are letting on, and the people created would exist as separate entities in a society that views them as awkward test subjects. If our goal is really just making smarter people, then we can achieve that goal through other means, which I mentioned earlier -- and without the ethical issues of human experimentation, or the problems that stem from creating people in a way that (possibly) dooms them to a life of solitude and utter dejection.
The point of doing the experiment is increasing the number of smart people, to benefit the whole. Intelligent persons don't just benefit themselves, they benefit the society and community in which they live.
ReplyDeleteThere's two possible responses to your fear of merit: First, don't tell them. This doesn't seem terribly satisfying, but most people really don't know the exact circumstances of their birth, and even if they did, they arn't typically haunted by it. e.g. My circumstance was that I was an accident. But that doesn't make me question everything in my life because I wasn't a planned child. Second no matter what genes we engineer into a child, we clearly need good nurturing as well, to take fullest advantage of those genes. We know this today. I don't think, Gosh, all my accomplishments are due to my parents giving my flintstones vitamins when I was a child. I know that my success today is attributable to my genes, and my environment. But I don't fret over the lack of my merit. In engineering a child, nothing has changed, their genes and environment play a causal role in their success, only its not left to dumb luck. Quite the opposite, people get MORE frustrated when they play games of chance, and lose, because there is no reason/rationale behind it.
A lot of the fears that you're raising have been raised for other types of children, like children who were conceived for the purpose of saving a sibiling from certain types of cancer an in vitro babies. None of these fears have really panned out. So why would they suddenly pan out on this occasion?