To recap, in Part 2 of the Introduction I reviewed debates concerning how best to understand “human enhancement”. I have argued that not much is at stake in these debates. When we understand enhancement in an objective sense we need an accompanying normative account that explains which particular enhancements are good, bad, permissible or impermissible. While a normative understanding of enhancement can provide reasons to believe enhancements are good, this approach merely shifts the debate to one about which particular biotechnologies should be considered as enhancements. In neither case does our choice of enhancement concept make a significant difference to the ethical analysis of a particular capacity-altering biotechnology.
113 R. Bailey. Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution. Amherst:
Prometheus Books; 2005. p. 235.
114 Harris, op. cit. note 79. p.79.
115 J. Glover. Choosing Children: Genes, Disability, and Design. Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press; 2006. p. 77. 116 A. Buchanan, et al. From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
2001. p. 183. 40
I then discussed the various normative arguments that have been put forward to suggest why enhancement biotechnologies might raise special concern. I argued that none of these arguments suggests there is anything intrinsic about altering our traits that has special moral significance. Rather than trying to assess enhancements as a general class of interventions, we should instead approach the ethics of enhancement technologies in a contextualised manner – looking at the costs and benefits associated with different technologies in particular contexts. The task for bioethicists is to identify the moral reasons for and against particular technologies and assess how strong these reasons are.
This is my goal in this thesis. In collaboration with co-authors, I have written five articles which analyse the costs and benefits of enhancement technologies in different contexts. I identify the reasons for and against particular uses of enhancement technologies, and discuss whether these reasons may be strong enough to justify further actions, such as state sponsored restrictions. These five separate manuscripts have been brought together in this “thesis by compilation”. Hence the next five chapters can be read as five different standalone pieces – each making a different set of claims. However, the forthcoming chapters can also be read as five interrelated pieces that support a general conclusion about human enhancement. This conclusion is that we need to considerer certain population-level properties, such as diversity and robustness when assessing the permissibility of particular enhancement technologies. When individuals alter their own genes, or the genes of their children, they also influence the human gene pool. Similarly when individuals alter their cognitive capacities they also influence the collective cognitive resources available to the population as a whole. These types of effects on collective properties provide reasons both for and against particular uses of enhancement technologies.
In Chapter 1 I take an in-depth look at how effects on genetic diversity can be relevant to debates on genetic engineering technologies. I argue that what is important is not genetic diversity per se, but rather the ability to balance the exploration of novel genes with the exploitation of successful genes. I show that one risk of allowing widespread access to genetic engineering technologies is that we could throw off this balance. The use of these technologies could lead to the over exploitation of particular genes, thereby reducing valuable forms of genetic diversity. This in turn could compromise important collective goods like the continued existence of the species.
I further develop the idea that the loss of certain types of genetic diversity could ground objections to enhancement technologies in Chapter 2. I show that reproductive genetic technologies that target genes involved in innate immunity and cognition could lead to
“collective action problems”. If individuals use these technologies in ways that make
themselves and their children better off, they could leave everyone worse off. This is because while some particular genes are good for specific individuals to possess, our populations as a whole benefit from diversity in these genes. In these cases what is
good for each can be bad for all. Where the availability of enhancement technologies is
likely to result in collective action problems, I suggest there is a plausible prima facie case that access to the technologies should be restricted.
In Chapter 3, I suggest that similar considerations may justify restrictions on one of the most accepted uses of reproductive genetic technologies – selection against disability. I argue that particular disabilities like Asperger’s syndrome and dyslexia might
contribute to some valuable forms of diversity, which result in widespread social benefits. In these cases the state may be justified in restricting access to reproductive genetic technologies which target disability, as these actions would be preventing a type of harm.
Just as considerations of genetic diversity are important when considering forms of genetic enhancement, so too are considerations of cognitive diversity to debates on cognitive enhancement. This is my focus in Chapter 4. I suggest that if cognitive enhancement technologies are employed without efforts to enhance cognitive diversity and improve cooperation, they may be collectively self-defeating. We could improve the cognitive ability of each individual in a population but make society as a whole less able to solve complex problems. This provides an argument for a coordinated approach to cognitive enhancement, which also involves maintaining diversity and improving our ability to cooperate with each other.
In my final chapter, I argue that both cognitive diversity and genetic diversity are relevant when we consider the ethics of radical forms of human life extension. I argue that a regular generational turnover provides a source of genetic and cultural novelty that benefits our populations as a whole. If radical forms of human life extension were to dramatically slow the rate of generational turnover, this could cause our populations to become less able to adapt to challenges in our environment.
In sum, in addition to being standalone pieces, the next five chapters are interrelated arguments that show how human diversity matters to human enhancement. In light of this, the best way to understand the next five chapters is as five separate pillars – each able to stand on its own terms – but that together support a general approach to human enhancement that stresses the importance of human diversity.