What Sort of People Should There Be?

Abstract

Chapter 2: Questions About Some Uses of Genetic Engineering … There is a widespread view that any project for the genetic improvement of the human race ought to be ruled out: that there are fundamental objections of principle. The aim of this discussion is to sort out some of the main objections. It will be argued that our resistance is based on a complex of different values and reasons, none of which is, when examined, adequate to rule out in principle this use of genetic engineering. The debate on human genetic engineering should become like the debate on nuclear power: one in which large possible benefits have to be weighed against big problems and the risk of great disasters. The discussion has not reached this point, partly because the techniques have not yet been developed. But it is also partly because of the blurred vision which fuses together many separate risks and doubts into a fuzzy-outlined opposition in principle. 1. Avoiding the Debate About Genes and the Environment In discussing the question of genetic engineering, there is everything to be said for not muddling the issue up with the debate over the relative importance of genes and environment in the development of such characteristics as intelligence. … The nature-nurture dispute is generally seen as an argument about the relative weight the two factors have in causing differences within the human species: 'IQ is 80 percent hereditary and 20 per cent environmental' versus 'IQ is 80 percent environmental and 20 percent hereditary'. No doubt there is some approximate truth of this type to be found if we consider variations within a given population at a particular time. … We can avoid this dispute because of its irrelevance. … In other words, to take genetic engineering seriously, we need take no stand on the relative importance or unimportance of genetic factors in the explanation of the present range of individual differences found in people. We need only the minimal assumption that different genes could give us different characteristics. To deny that assumption you need to be the sort of person who thinks it is only living in kennels which makes dogs different from cats.