Assuming that currently there exists the technological capability to pick and choose the attributes that you want, from either you or your mate, to create your ideal child, would you do it? Would it be moral? And what would be the consequences?
To be clear, this would still be a baby that you could potentially conceive with your partner. It’s just that in this case you’re able to choose from all the probabilities the most desirable outcome. For instance the child’s sex, pigmentation, resistance to diseases, features, intelligence, athletic abilities, sexual orientation, and perhaps even to some extent his or her personality predispositions.
Something that I thought about after watching one of my favorite films, Gattaca.
Assuming that currently there exists the technological capability to pick and choose the attributes that you want, from either you or your mate, to create your ideal child, would you do it? Would it be moral? And what would be the consequences?
To be clear, this would still be a baby that you could potentially conceive with your partner. It’s just that in this case you’re able to choose from all the probabilities the most desirable outcome. For instance the child’s sex, pigmentation, resistance to diseases, features, intelligence, athletic abilities, sexual orientation, and perhaps even to some extent his or her personality predispositions.
Something that I thought about after watching one of my favorite films, Gattaca.
It would most certainly be moral to pick the traits best suitable for survival and long-term happiness for your child. And this isn’t just limited by the “baby you could potentially conceive [naturally]” rule. If you say that it is immoral to choose such things for your child, then it should be immoral to, say, educate or feed or really do anything “unnatural” for your child and he should just develop on his own.
Something that I thought about after watching one of my favorite films, Gattaca.
Also, I really disliked Gattaca personally. Genetic determinism is a ridiculous notion that would never be accepted on such a wide scale by such an inherently rational company as one dedicated to space exploration.
Assuming that currently there exists the technological capability to pick and choose the attributes that you want, from either you or your mate, to create your ideal child, would you do it? Would it be moral?
I can’t see why it wouldn’t be. Well, I suppose it matters what you mean by “create the ideal child”. I’m assuming that you mean, doing things before birth to assure a certain output, and not “stick little Johnny into the kid-polisher at age 10 to eliminate his bad habits”.
And what would be the consequences?
In this sci-fi world, it could mean the elimination of birth defects, for example. Your presumptions are somewhat contradictory, since you want to have the technology to control ideal features, but then you don’t since that was perhaps control his personality. All children would be very intelligent, athletic, physically attractive. Some unfortunate children would have purple skin (just as some children were named “Dweezil” and “Moon Unit”), or would have one giant eye in the middle of her forehead. I think that would be an immoral choice. It might be cute for about 5 minutes, but not for a whole life.
To be clear, this would still be a baby that you could potentially conceive with your partner.
As an aside, I don’t get why anyone should care about passing on their genes. Your genes are the least important thing you pass on to your children. Someone who values a shared appearance with a child over shared values and ideas has a very low estimate of his values or of ideas as such. That kind of genetic determinism is suitable with attempting to have unprotected sex with as many partners as possible, not parenthood.
As an aside, I don’t get why anyone should care about passing on their genes. Your genes are the least important thing you pass on to your children. Someone who values a shared appearance with a child over shared values and ideas has a very low estimate of his values or of ideas as such. That kind of genetic determinism is suitable with attempting to have unprotected sex with as many partners as possible, not parenthood.
You make the assumption that our genes are only responsible for our appearance. They are responsible for laying the foundations off all of what we are. This includes personality traits as well as intelligence (what ever the hell that is!)
Such inherited cognitive characteristics can increase or decrease the probability of adopting certain values and beliefs. For example, there have been some heritability studies that have shown there may be a genetic basis to religiosity for God’s sake!!
You make the assumption that our genes are only responsible for our appearance. They are responsible for laying the foundations off all of what we are.
What is this “foundation” stuff anyhow? What’s one thing that isn’t related to body shape etc. that is provably influenced by genetics? Schizophrenia and manic-depressiveness seem to be inheritable mental defects. Is that what you’re talking about?
Assuming that currently there exists the technological capability to pick and choose the attributes that you want, from either you or your mate, to create your ideal child, would you do it? Would it be moral? And what would be the consequences?
To be clear, this would still be a baby that you could potentially conceive with your partner. It’s just that in this case you’re able to choose from all the probabilities the most desirable outcome. For instance the child’s sex, pigmentation, resistance to diseases, features, intelligence, athletic abilities, sexual orientation, and perhaps even to some extent his or her personality predispositions.
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First of all, anything that can prevent such dreadful things as Autism, Polio or CP in children is good. I have a cousin whose son has CP, and it is very very hard for the mother and the entire family. I wouldn’t wish such a thing on anyone, and if modern science and medicine can provide a solution then it is wonderful.
However, I will go on and say that if you have the ability to make sure that your child will be intelligent, healthy and athletic and you don’t do so, you are immoral. Raising your child to be a productive, educated and goal motivated human being is probably one of the greatest values you can have during your life, and therefore if you don’t use every measure you can to fulfill your goal by making sure your child’s life is better (e.g Good health, high intelligence, good looks) then you are morally wrong.
By the way, if you are concerned that people might do “crazy” things with their child’s “design” (for lack of better word) , you should remember that if (or when) such a procedure is possible ,it will probably be performed by doctors who will have some personal judgment or laws that will prevent too much creativeness.
What is this “foundation” stuff anyhow? What’s one thing that isn’t related to body shape etc. that is provably influenced by genetics? Schizophrenia and manic-depressiveness seem to be inheritable mental defects. Is that what you’re talking about?
Quite so David, with regard to Schizophrenia and manic depressiveness. These are two of the more obvious directly heritable neurological conditions. However, my previous post was referring to less obvious, more indirectly heritable psychological landscapes that make for certain belief structures being more or less likely to be constructed than for people with differing mental landscapes.
A particularly obvious example would be the difference between introverts and extroverts. Of course, there are no such types except insofar as we define them. They are merely two opposite ends of a scale.
Psychopathy (extreme extroversion), Gullibility, thoughtfulness, sociability, and many other cognitive traits have a measurable heritability to them (primarily via monozygotic twin studies). Each of these traits makes for the mental landscape I have mentioned earlier. This provides the foundations for certain behavioural patterns, certain learned habits, certain beliefs to be more likely to develop in some people than for others. I know that what I am arguing implies that people’s freedom to form their own beliefs and values is somewhat limited…but there we are.
A particularly obvious example would be the difference between introverts and extroverts.
Are you claiming that this is this difference is genetically determined? If so, I assume you have some factual basis for the claim, which, if you don’t voluntarily provide, I will request from you.
As an aside, I don’t get why anyone should care about passing on their genes. Your genes are the least important thing you pass on to your children. Someone who values a shared appearance with a child over shared values and ideas has a very low estimate of his values or of ideas as such.
While shared values with my children is more important to me that shared genes, I still prefer to have both. I want my children to be a cross-section of me and my wife. I like the idea that their appearance will be a blending of the two of us. They may also share other genetic peculiarities, to the extent that genes contribute to personality, mannerisms, etc. Beyond that, there is symbolic value in the fact that my child is an actual physical piece of us. There is further symbolic value in the fact that our child is a result of an act of love between me and my wife.
These preferential, symbolic values are not the main reasons I want to have children. If my wife could not have kids, I would still want to adopt. However, it is perfectly valid to value passing on ones genes for the reasons I mentioned. That’s why most people prefer to have their own kids instead of adopt. Otherwise, what’s the point in going through the pains of pregnancy? If there was such a thing as a fetus-production company that created (genetically) top of the line fetuses, I would still want to have my own child. This would be my preference, even though my child may not be as intelligent, beautiful, or healthy as the engineered fetus. Most prospective parents would agree.
I agree with the thrust of what you said, that shared values are more important than shared genes, I’m just addressing the question of why shared genetics is a value at all.
Regarding Moebius’s original question, I would have no problem genetically engineering my child. In fact, I would greatly prefer this method to the idea of adopting a top of the line fetus from the fetus-production company.
It would most certainly be moral to pick the traits best suitable for survival and long-term happiness for your child.
Most qualities you would pick for your child probably isn’t necessary for “survival”, considering the infant mortality rate and life expectancy currently WITHOUT designer babies. Long-term happiness on the other hand I think is necessarily directly related to how good looking, athletic, or smart your child is. I mean what if you can create a child that is extremely happy, but also happens to be a dumb and ugly weakling? Would it then be your only moral choice to place happiness above all else?
If you say that it is immoral to choose such things for your child, then it should be immoral to, say, educate or feed or really do anything “unnatural” for your child and he should just develop on his own.
Feeding and educating your child is completely and one hundred percent natural… Even lions feed their cubs and teach them to hunt.
Your presumptions are somewhat contradictory, since you want to have the technology to control ideal features, but then you don’t since that was perhaps control his personality.
I’m not sure where the contradiction is. By “feature” I was referring to facial features, and by “perhaps controlling his personality” I’m referring to the portion of your personality that is potentially determined by your genetics.
If you don’t believe that a person’s genetic makeup has anything to do with his personality, then feel free to disregard that part, as that really isn’t relevant to this particular discussion.
Feeding and educating your child is completely and one hundred percent natural… Even lions feed their cubs and teach them to hunt.
But lions don’t cloth their children, they don’t cook the food for their children, nor teach them to read or write. In their “natural state”, as wild, primitive savages, men do not either. So if I understand this idea of adhering to the primitive natural state of man (referring to the 100% natural), one should not teach children any conceptual skills, one should just allow children to learn by observing. Since that’s absurd, you should conclude that it’s 100% natural to use the product ones mind to improve the life of ones children, including genetic wiring, if that becomes possible.
But lions don’t cloth their children, they don’t cook the food for their children, nor teach them to read or write. In their “natural state”, as wild, primitive savages, men do not either. So if I understand this idea of adhering to the primitive natural state of man (referring to the 100% natural), one should not teach children any conceptual skills, one should just allow children to learn by observing. Since that’s absurd, you should conclude that it’s 100% natural to use the product ones mind to improve the life of ones children, including genetic wiring, if that becomes possible.
I’m not sure why whether something is natural or not is even an issue… But some animals chew the food for their children, some teach them survival skills. I’m sure the so-called “wild, primitive savages” did also, even if we’re talking about how to use fire, or how to skin a deer for clothes. Bottomline is I’ve never said one should not teach children because it is “unnatural” because 1) I think it is completely natural and, 2) even if it wasn’t I think it should be done anyway.
By the way I also agree that one should use everything at their disposal to improve the life of their children, despite not stating it one way or another in the initial post to hopefully ensure a more neutral discussion. My only real issue with artificial selection through genetic tampering is that it greatly reduces the genetic variance of the population, and in evolutionary term puts humanity in a much riskier position.
For instance, if every child was artificially selected, then Albert Einstein probably would not have been born since he suffered from dyslexia.
My only real issue with artificial selection through genetic tampering is that it greatly reduces the genetic variance of the population, and in evolutionary term puts humanity in a much riskier position.
Okay, now you’re pointing to a real issue. I understand the argument, except that I think it’s predicated on an unnatural “naturalistic, wild-savage” assumption. It is true, though, that we don’t fully understand everything about disease and human genetics, and if we were to eliminate a certain genetic defect, that might unbeknownst to us eliminate a positive genetic trait that for example reduces the severity of malaria attacks. So imagine if all women were engineered to be clones of Britney Spears and all men were engineerd to be clones of Russell Crowe (well, there goes the human race right there) and it turns out that this happens by eliminating a gene that protects against Vrangyllian blood fever, which mankind hasn’t been exposed to yet. Then we’re screwed, unless we find a cure within a very short time. But look at the whole Dawn of the Dead movie series – even without massive genetic engineering, a life-destroying disease wipes out the world in a week or so. This isn’t a reason to not engage in genetic engineering, it’s simply a reason to understand what you’re doing, to simply apply a bit of practical Objectivist epistemology and check what you know, and why you think you know it.
Your Einstein argument fails, because his parent would simply have had him reorganised in utero, so that he’d still be born but in addition wouldn’t be dislexic. If your proposed system works on the basis of test-and-abort, i.e. you can’t directly change the fetus’s genetic makeup, you can only check what it is and abort and retry, I think that would have negligible effect. Most Japanese couples are not gonna mess with 50 abortions to get the necessary gene for blonde hair. It’s just not going to happen.
Having just watched the Spielberg movie “Artificial Intelligence” about robot children who look, act and love like real children, this topic caught my eye for a few reasons.
Assuming one could choose all or most of the attributes of a their children raises some interesting questions:
How does this affect the natural balance of genetic traits distribution among the population?
Would a large number of parents choosing a certain set of attributes have the effect of reducing the available pool of humans with other genetic attributes by gender, and hence reduce the possibility of certain humans with a preference for the less-chosen genetic attributes, of finding a mate?
If nature designs in certain traits for a reason, and we design them out, how does it affect the survivability of the race?
In the movie AI, interesting metaphysical and moral questions were raised. One was the issue of self-aware robots that could learn to love and to have empathy. The moral issues of destroying said robots was raised, in the event a set of parents did not want the child robot any longer and after “imprinting” had occured, forever bonding the child robot to its new family.
It was quite an interesting flick, a little Kubrickian toward the end with the 2000 year leap in time, but raised a lot of the same issues as talked about here.
Your Einstein argument fails, because his parent would simply have had him reorganised in utero, so that he’d still be born but in addition wouldn’t be dislexic.
Yes and no. I think it’s certainly possible for Einstein’s genius to exist concurrently with his dyslexia. At the time I wrote that I was actually thinking about phenomenons like savants, where a portion of their genius is tied also to their “defects”.
Or, for instance, if being manically depressed make one a better artist or musician.
But look at the whole Dawn of the Dead movie series – even without massive genetic engineering, a life-destroying disease wipes out the world in a week or so. This isn’t a reason to not engage in genetic engineering, it’s simply a reason to understand what you’re doing, to simply apply a bit of practical Objectivist epistemology and check what you know, and why you think you know it.
I think the Dawn of the Dead movie is a bit of an extreme example, although perhaps potentially possible. However one flaw with that example is when it comes to genetic engineering, it isn’t “simply knowing what you’re doing”, because just because you think you know doesn’t make it necessarily so. It could be the case that the knowledge you possess right now, while accurate in so far as you know it, isn’t sufficient information to anticipate all the future consequences. For instance the man that invented a gas engine couldn’t have known that a few decades down the road it would be causing global warming.
For instance, if every child was artificially selected, then Albert Einstein probably would not have been born since he suffered from dyslexia.
..or he might have not died from a heart defect, and gone on to publish more brilliant works. Think of all the brilliant people who died prematurely because of genetic diseases or a genetic susceptibility to illness. Environmentalist arguments such as this are an example of the broken window fallacy - focusing on the visible costs while ignoring the benefits that did not have a chance to happen.
But lions don’t cloth their children, they don’t cook the food for their children, nor teach them to read or write. In their “natural state”, as wild, primitive savages, men do not either. So if I understand this idea of adhering to the primitive natural state of man (referring to the 100% natural), one should not teach children any conceptual skills, one should just allow children to learn by observing. Since that’s absurd, you should conclude that it’s 100% natural to use the product ones mind to improve the life of ones children, including genetic wiring, if that becomes possible.
Furthermore, using the argument “it’s not natural” against efforts to improve human life amounts to a rejection of human nature. Human beings evolved to use reason as a means of survival, and simply cannot survive without it. We CANNOT revert to a pre-rational state - we don’t have biological facilities (claws, fangs, or muscle power) to survive without relying on reason. Banning humans from using technology amounts to advocating the extermination of humanity. Drawing an arbitrary line at any particular application of reason concedes the basic argument that using reason is “unnatural” and so is just a pause on the path to extermination. See environmentalism.
I doubt the claim that genetic variety would decrease. I also doubt that genetic variety is of any objective value.
First, different people have different tastes. Not everyone is going to want a blonde-haired, blue-eyed child. So as to those sorts of traits (the ones that have no bearing on the child’s ability to reason), genetic variety would not decrease. Britney Spears and Russell Crowe? Yuck.
Second, if our hypothetical baby-writing technology has advanced to the point where we can pick things like eye color, body type and susceptibility to heart disease, why isn’t it of sufficient precision to be able to affect only the target gene? If you’re eliminating from your custom baby the genetic defect that causes Down’s syndrome, it doesn’t follow that you’re removing or impairing your baby’s ability to fight off Vrangyllian Fever. The immune system is over here (points one way) and the polysomy is over there (points the other way). And why would we eliminate any genes whose function we don’t understand?
Finally, maintenance of genetic diversity and ensuring the survival of the species aren’t legitimate parental concerns unless they have a direct bearing on the welfare of the child. An arbitrary assertion of increased susceptibility to Vrangyllian Fever isn’t enough to establish that connection.
-Q
PS:
Artificial Intelligence: AI was originally developed by Kubrick. He adapted the story from the source materials and planned to film it himself, but eventually concluded that, if he directed it, it would be too depressing, so he gave it to Spielberg.
Gattaca is as darn near to a flawless film as I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it’s detrimental to a film to depict a company (or society for that matter) operating on flawed premises and yet capable of spaceflight. In fact, that disconnect is one of the driving elements of the film.
Dawn of the Dead was also mentioned in the thread, but I don’t really have anything to say about it right now.