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Bioethics ISSN 0269-9702 (print); 1467-8519 (online) Volume 29 Number 5 2015 pp 369–377
doi:10.1111/bioe.12108
PREVENTING ULTIMATE HARM AS THE JUSTIFICATION FOR BIOMORAL MODIFICATION TIMOTHY F. MURPHY
Keywords children, enhancement, environment, ethics, genetics, ultimate harm
ABSTRACT Most advocates of biogenetic modification hope to amplify existing human traits in humans in order to increase the value of such traits as intelligence and resistance to disease. These advocates defend such enhancements as beneficial for the affected parties. By contrast, some commentators recommend certain biogenetic modifications to serve social goals. As Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu see things, human moral psychology is deficient relative to the most important risks facing humanity as a whole, including the prospect of Ultimate Harm, the point at which worthwhile life is forever impossible on the planet. These risks can be mitigated, they say, by enhancing moral psychology in novel ways. Persson and Savulescu argue that some parents should modify the underlying biogenetics of their children’s moral psychology, if such measures were safe and effective, but they admit these interventions may not decouple humanity from Ultimate Harm. Neither are these modifications the only options, they concede, for addressing risks to humanity. Even with these concessions, saving humanity from itself is a fairly poor reason to modify the moral psychology of children. In most ways, adults would be better candidates, morally speaking, for modifications of psychology. Even then, there is no direct link between morally enhanced human beings and the hoped-for effect of better protection from Ultimate Harm. Asserting a general duty of all to contribute to the avoidance of Ultimate Harm is a better moral strategy than intervening in the moral psychology of some, even though meeting that duty may involve substantial interference with the free exercise of one’s interests.
As some commentators see things, improvements to human welfare hinge on genetic modifications to enhance the capacities human beings already have, such as capacities to resist disease and capacities to learn. These bioenhancements are theorized primarily in terms of their benefit to the affected individual. For example, Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler have argued that prenatal genetic modifications should favor the ‘best interests’ of children.1 Toward this
end, they imagine two categories of interventions: interventions that undo opportunity-limiting conditions and interventions that enhance general-purpose capacities. They mean by the latter term ‘capabilities that are broadly valuable across a wide array of life plans.’2 For analysts like these, the moral acceptability of genetic interventions in children turns on the value of those interventions for the affected children.3 In fact, some commentators invoke the individual child’s well-being as the basis
1 A. Buchanan, D. W. Brock, N. Daniels & D. Wikler. From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2000.
2
Ibid: 174. A. Buchanan. Better than Human: The Promise and Perils of Enhancing Ourselves. New York: Oxford University Press; 2011. 3
Address for correspondence: Prof. Timothy F. Murphy, Dept. of Medical Education m/c 591, 808 S. Wood St., University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, Chicago IL, 60618. USA. Email: [email protected] Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Preventing Ultimate Harm as the Justification for Biomoral Modification for arguing that some interventions of this kind can be obligatory.4 By contrast, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu open the door to biogenetic modifications whose primary benefit accrues to society rather than to the individual. They describe human beings as lacking the moral psychology necessary to cope with the most profound threats to the continued existence of humanity, the two most important being weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and environmental degradation.5 Persson and Savulescu are persuaded that we must bring moral psychology under the influence of human design – and soon – in order to avoid Ultimate Harm, the point at which worthwhile life is forever impossible on this planet.6 They say that the very emergence of the possibility of Ultimate Harm demonstrates the inadequacy of our moral psychology, as does our unwillingness to engage it in proportion to its danger and proximity. While other biogenetic enhancements of human capacities might be attractive for the benefits they confer on individuals, Persson and Savulescu argue for modifications whose benefits accrue to humanity as a whole: ‘moral enhancement is necessary if human civilization is to have a reasonable chance of surviving not merely the present century, but also the following centuries.’7 They find good prospects for some of that enhancement in the modification of human psychology. The prospect of Ultimate Harm is not the only worry that drives Persson and Savulescu’s advocacy of biogenetic modification. They describe certain moral features of contemporary life as also objectionable enough to justify the modification of human moral psychology. For example, they think that maldistribution of wealth is also an effect of human moral psychology as it has shaped global economics.8 Even if there were no risks of Ultimate Harm ahead, they think grounds exist to intervene against human moral psychology as it helps form and perpetuate staggering economic inequality.9 While this line of analysis is interesting in its own right, I analyze here only the modification of human moral psychology as justified by Persson and Savulescu in relation to the risks of Ultimate Harm. I will note, however, that opening the door to moral modifications to address social problems necessarily raises the question of the criteria to distinguish between problems that are legitimate grounds for biogenetic modification and problems to be addressed
4 J. Savulescu. New breeds of humans: the moral obligation to enhance. Repro Biomed Online 2005; 10(1): 36–39. 5 I. Persson & J. Savulescu. Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement. New York: Oxford University Press; 2012. 6 Ibid: 46. 7 Ibid: 133. 8 Ibid: 128. 9 Ibid: 10.
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in other ways. The two examples that Persson and Savulescu offer as justifying biogenetic modification are very different from one another. Ultimate Harm would ruin life for human beings as a class. Economic inequality affects everyone, but not in the same way; humans as a class could tolerate economic inequality across the indefinite future. If a social problem like economic inequality would justify interventions against human psychology, then how far down the ladder of social problems could one go with the same kind of interventions? What, after all, are the qualifying criteria and the limiting criteria? Would problems of racism or sexism also quality? These are important questions, but my concern here is to analyze only the question of whether the risks of Ultimate Harm justify modifications of human psychology. As Persson and Savulescu see things, our given moral psychology tips us toward unrecoverable catastrophes.10 They do allow that human beings might be able to avoid Ultimate Harm despite our given moral psychology, but they are not optimistic. For example, they note that we could eliminate a lot of disease and starvation around the world at present, but we do not do so to good effect or with urgency equal to the gravity of the matter.11 We behave in ways that – far from constraining threats – only put humanity at ever-greater at risk.12 The most profound threats to the environment are, furthermore, not posed by marginal numbers of people. Every society only ever consumes more and more goods at the expense of the earth’s resources, leaving more and more environmental degradation behind. If threats to the environment were not enough, some nation states around the globe – and terrorist groups alongside them – do what they can to possess WMD, which in their own way menace the very future of humanity. Against the backdrop of these threats, Persson and Savulescu do acknowledge the importance of traditional means of moral modification through education and social suasion, but they simultaneously make a case for bioenhancement of human moral psychology. By contrast to that term, I will generally refer to the interventions they have in mind as biomoral modification, leaving open the question of whether the modification actually amounts to an enhancement.13 Persson and Savulescu do not think it is impossible for human beings to contain the grave threats at hand from within the framework of our existing moral psychology; in fact, they even allow that biomoral modification may not be any more effective than traditional means of moral enhancement. Even so, they argue that biomoral enhancement is permissible in principle, even if it is not itself the solution to the 10 11 12 13
Ibid: 1. Ibid: 103. Ibid: 2. Buchanan, op. cit. note 3, p. 6.
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problems at hand, and even if its perfection does not come in time to forestall Ultimate Harm.14 In their proposal, Persson and Savulescu identify limitations of human moral psychology and propose to ‘correct these limitations, by traditional or new scientific means’.15 We could continue to rely on traditional methods to raise moral consciousness relative to the most important threats facing humanity, but in spite of the allowance Persson and Savulescu make for that option, they are suspicious that existing methods of moral enhancement can be sufficient. They see biomoral modification as an important tool for putting human moral psychology on a footing equal to the threats of Ultimate Harm. In general, Persson and Savulescu hope that biomoral modification will deepen empathy and a sense of responsibility for others now living, those yet to live, and for non-human animals. They hope as well that biomoral modification will broaden people’s sense of responsibility for the effects of their acts and omissions.16 People with a modified moral psychology will, they think, find it easier to make choices that undercut the prospects of Ultimate Harm. This moral defense of biomoral modification succeeds on one count, since nothing about the moral psychology that Persson and Savulescu envision confers any inherent disadvantage on the affected parties and perhaps no extrinsic disadvantage either. No one would necessarily suffer simply by being more empathetic, for example, and that increased empathy would not necessarily put anyone at a social disadvantage either. The defense of biomoral interventions in relation to protection against Ultimate Harm is less successful, however, since a direct effect of modified moral psychology and a humanity better protected against Ultimate Harm is hard to demonstrate. No direct line connects the philosophical defense of biomoral modification to the hoped-for political effect. Biomoral enhancements could succeed in the fight against Ultimate Harm only under the most auspicious circumstances. In 14
Persson and Savulescu, op cit. note 5, pp. 3, 11. Persson and Savulescu join a discussion about global harm that is already underway on a number of fronts. For example, some economists recommend various kinds of taxation and regulatory schemes in order to slow global warming. (See P. Krugman. Gambling with Civilization. New York Review of Books. 2013; Nov. 7: 14,26,19.) Others have proposed direct kinds of climate engineering. (See C. Hamilton. Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering. New York: Yale University Press; 2013.) Persson and Savulescu do not compare the merits of their proposal with those of other proposals bearing on the same threats; and in a sense they do not need to, because they are only making a case in favor of biomoral modification as a matter of principle. Then again, any estimated value of biomoral modification will eventually have to be measured against the comparative benefits of all proposals on the table. While I will not offer that comparative analysis here, I will point out the practical indeterminacies that attach to biomoral modification, since so much of their expected utility hangs on their foreseeable effects. 15 Ibid: 133. 16 Ibid: 108, 109.
the day-to-day swirl of global politics, it is unclear how these modifications could make themselves felt in any significant way. Saving humanity from itself turns out to be, therefore, a fairly poor reason to modify human moral psychology, at least on the terms Persson and Savulescu set forth. An undercurrent in their analysis does raise one possibility – a generalized duty on the part of all to work against Ultimate Harm – that might be more useful in the task, yet Persson and Savulescu do not develop the implications of their own analysis this way, as I will show.
MODIFYING THE MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF CHILDREN In most of Unfit for the Future, Persson and Savulescu discuss biomoral modification only in general terms, as part of an argument to show its permissibility in principle or, to put it another way, to dispute arguments against it. In the course of this analysis, they do not generally specify exactly who the candidates for modification should be. In one singular instance, however, they identify children as the subjects of modification, saying ‘some children should be subjected to moral bioenhancements, just as they are now subjected to traditional moral education.’17 As it stands, this proposal to modify children raises more questions than it answers. How would specific parents know if they had an obligation to modify their children, and of their children which ones? What marks a particular child as a candidate for modification? Beyond the question of identifying the candidates for modifications we must ask what expectations of success are realistic in staving off Ultimate Harm if only some but not all children are biomorally modified? No matter how these questions would be answered, this characterization of biomoral modification as obligatory for only some children only is odd, coming as it does from one of the leading advocates – Savulescu – of the biogenetic enhancement of children. On his own and with Guy Kahane, Savulescu has championed the duty of parents to enhance their children – when and where they can – through various kinds of prenatal interventions.18 If biomoral modification really is an enhancement, would it not be desirable – in an aspirational sense – for all children? Would not all parents as such have a prima facie duty to enhance their children this way? Or is there something about this would-be enhancement that does not 17
Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 113; emphasis added. J. Savulescu & G. Kahane. The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. Bioethics 2009; 23: 274–290. See J. Savulescu. Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best possible children. Bioethics 2001; 15: 414–426. See also J. Savulescu. New breeds of humans: the moral obligation to enhance. Repro Biomed Online 2005; 10(1): 36–39. 18
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Preventing Ultimate Harm as the Justification for Biomoral Modification confer on children the prospects for the best possible lives, relative to the lives that possible children might have? Perhaps the hesitation to propose this modification as a duty for all parents has to do with its intended beneficiaries, others and not the children themselves. Savulescu’s stock-in-trade advocacy of prenatal interventions generally depends on conferring benefits on children, enriching their experiences, giving them the best prospects for the best possible lives. But there is precious little in Unfit for the Future to think of biomoral modification on those terms. In other words, the welfare directly at stake is social rather than individual and not therefore about treating disease, preventing disease, protecting well-being, and enhancing the well-being of children, which are the justifications that Savulescu typically deploys in favor of modifying the genetic endowment given by chance at conception.19 Persson and Savulescu do attribute one benefit to children themselves from this kind of modification; they say the modification will inoculate people against becoming criminals! Biomodification early in children’s lives or even prenatally would therefore have a protective effect against the punishment and social effects that come with that status.20 That effect might come to pass if the modifications function to increase pro-social behavior, but it would not spell the end to all crime since violations of the law vary in their causes. For example, some people intentionally and publicly violate laws as a way of protesting against them. In making that kind of choice, biomorally modified parties might have to balance the benefits of violating the law (to protest an apparent injustice) and the risks of violating the law (punishment and social stigma). Let’s hope that biomoral modification would not render people too socially docile to stand up in favor of civil disobedience when necessary. Except for this singular example, however, Persson and Savulescu do not otherwise argue that biomoral modifications are of direct benefit to the children. Despite the lack of direct benefit of biomoral modification for the affected children themselves, would it be implausible to expand the requirement of modification from some children to all children? to assert a general duty for all parents to modify their children’s moral psychology? What, if anything, stands in the way of asserting a prima facie duty to modify the moral psychology of all children? Why should the costs (whatever they are) of those efforts be borne only by some families? Since all people stand to benefit from the effects of constraining the risks of nuclear war and environmental degradation, why would it not be reasonable to ask all families to shoulder some measure of the costs of humanity’s continuing existence and prosperity? 19 20
Savulescu, 2005, op. cit. note 18, p. 39. Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 113.
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Furthermore, if parents are ordinarily obliged to intervene in ways that give their children the best prospects for the best possible lives, one could make a reasonable case that modifications to their moral psychology are no less than other traits subject to that obligation. A life ahead without the risks of Ultimate Harm seems to me a better life than the alternative. This is not to say that every parent must modify their children’s moral psychology, but it is to say that every parent who does not should probably have to show cause to be excused from that duty. One might also make a reasonable case that the prospect of a best possible life – on Savulescu’s own terms – is a life open to the rewards that inhere in increased empathy, a more expansive sense of responsibility, and less psychological interest in immediate gains. It may be that some measures for assessing the value of different lives are incommensurable, but why assume in advance that a modification that increases, for example, empathy for others is less valuable than a modification that increases intelligence by some fraction? Or why assume that a modification that increases attention to long-term interests is less a component of a valuable life than a modification that increases resistance to certain infections?
THE BIOMORAL MODIFICATION OF ADULTS In their focus on children, Persson and Savulescu overlook a more morally suitable candidate for biomoral modification. Unrecoverable environmental degradation and mass death from nuclear weapons are possible in the lifetime of anyone now living. Adults contribute in their own way – through acts and omissions – to the risks of that harm, with degrees of responsibility without parallel in children. If an effective intervention to enhance moral psychology became available, why not ask adults to step forward and shoulder their share of responsibility for averting Ultimate Harm? As long as the discussion involves only hypothetical interventions, I see no reason to exclude living adults from the analysis. There is certainly no reason to assume the modification of adult moral psychology would be impossible; every example that Persson and Savulescu offer to make the case that the modification of human moral psychology is possible involves research carried out with adults.21 Why must biomoral modification of human psychology wait on the contributions of generations to come? Since adults can assume risks in ways that children cannot, turning to adults as the agents of change would avoid all the moral problems that critics say attach to modifications (prenatal and otherwise) of children, such as undermining the 21
Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, pp. 118ff.
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presumption of moral equality and violations of standards of consent.22 Because the risks of Ultimate Harm are rooted in human choices across virtually every culture, one can make a plausible case that there is a shared responsibility of all adults to contain those risks, as against the responsibility falling on a group of children (who knows how many?) or a subset of adults (who knows how many?). In any case, focusing the analysis of biomoral modification on children obscures the role and moral responsibilities of adults now living in regard to Ultimate Harm. I will note that Persson and Savulescu did in 2008 float the idea of imposing moral enhancements on everyone, saying: ‘If safe moral enhancements are ever developed, there are strong reasons to believe that their use should be obligatory, like education or fluoride in the water, since those who should take them are least likely to be inclined to use them. That is, safe, effective moral enhancement would be compulsory.’23 Yet even this proposal is offered as a way of modifying hard-to-reach parties who might inflict great danger on those around them, rather than as a way of asserting a general duty shared by all. In any case, Persson and Savulescu did not return to or defend this notion of compulsory biomoral modifications for all, in Unfit for the Future, so I will not discuss it further.
THE EFFECTS OF BIOMORAL MODIFICATION Biomoral modification without effect is to no one’s advantage when it comes to facing down Ultimate Harm. Whoever the final candidates for biomoral modification turn out to be, children or adults, what can we expect by way of improved odds against the risks of Ultimate Harm? Persson and Savulescu do and do not put a lot of hope in the modification of human moral psychology to diminish the likelihood of Ultimate Harm. They simultaneously make the case that biomoral modification may help,24 that techniques of biomoral modification might never be discovered at all,25 that successful techniques of biomoral modification might not be applied in time,26 that other methods of moral enhancement might be just as successful as biomoral modification,27 and that even if techniques of biomoral modification were discovered and 22 J. Habermas. The Future of Human Nature. Cambridge: Polity Press; 2003. See also A. J. Karnein. A Theory of Unborn Life: From Abortion to Genetic Manipulation. New York: Oxford University Press; 2012. 23 I. Persson & J. Savulescu. The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity. J Applied Phil. 2008; 25: 162–175, 174. 24 Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 121. 25 Ibid: 121. 26 Ibid: 123. 27 Ibid: 11.
applied within a meaningful window of opportunity, they still might not succeed in forestalling Ultimate Harm.28 This extraordinary circumspection – which encompasses virtually every possible outcome – is more than justified relative to the merits of the proposal. For the sake of the argument, let me examine Persson and Savulescu’s proposal that parents carry out biomoral enhancement through interventions with some of their children. Persson and Savulescu recognize that the task here would be daunting, namely to modify moral psychology in a sufficient number of offspring to have any meaningful hope of warding off Ultimate Harm. They estimate that the ‘sufficient number’ of biomorally modified people necessary to achieve that effect would probably range in the hundreds of millions.29 Let’s follow this scenario from its beginnings. Assuming that the modifications are only optional, the first parents able to carry out these interventions will be people with some moral interest in doing so. How many of these parents might there be? I will venture a guess that this number would be small at first because of its novelty. The cost of the interventions would also factor in their use, as would concerns about safety and efficacy: Will the intervention deliver what is expected of it and without harm? Even if the costs of the modification were reasonable, even if the risks were negligible, and even if the outcomes were exactly as expected, some parents might remain altogether skeptical about the modifications if they interpreted the interventions as somehow putting their children at a comparative disadvantage. Would parents want to have the most empathetic and cooperative child on the block if social identity and access to social goods still depend on self-interest that is not – to put it tendentiously – diluted by compassion for others?30 What about the ‘free rider’ problem that surfaces elsewhere in trying to effect change across groups? Despite certain state requirements, some parents decline to immunize their children against measles, mumps, and rubella, all the while hoping that enough other parents immunize their children so that the ‘herd effect’ protects the unimmunized children.31 These unimmunized children face no risks whatsoever from immunization and yet enjoy the protective effects of living among others who have assumed the risks. Would some parents not also gamble that the world at large could be protected by those parents who choose biomoral modification for their children, while they may exempt their own children from 28
Ibid: 10, 123. Ibid: 121. 30 This concern upends the usual worry about conventional bioenhancement: that it will confer greater advantages in competing for social goods. See Buchanan, op. cit. note 3, pp. 102 ff. 31 S. P. Callandrillo. Vanishing vaccinations: why are so many Americans opting out of vaccinating their children? U Mich J L Reform 2004; 37: 353–440. 29
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any perceived costs (no matter how trivial) of the modification? To get past these problems, let’s now imagine that biomoral modification is theorized as obligatory in general. Even so, this obligation would presumably be only a prima facie duty, namely a duty only if it could be reasonably met by the parent. Here again, financial considerations could undercut the obligation to carry out the modification, and other extenuating circumstances might excuse some parents from carrying out the duty. Some parents might even mount religious and moral objections to the idea that modifying their children is a duty, and the law might even formalize a mechanism of exemption for them as it does in other cases of parental objection to state-mandated interventions.32 Even if there were a prima facie duty to intervene in the moral psychology of their children, binding on all as a matter of moral theory, the importance of reproductive liberty would still require the law to keep some distance from parents who have their own ideas about the traits that are best for a child of theirs.33 Any presumptive duty to modify one’s children would be, therefore, open to a considerable number of exceptions and challenges, especially in relation to harms that might not materialize even if the duty is observed or that might materialize even if the duty is not observed. These cautions notwithstanding, let’s suppose that some parents take the plunge and use biomoral interventions with their children. What effect might these children have? It is hard to see that by reason of the biomedical modification alone that these children would make much impact on existing social practices and trends. After all, some people with enhanced moral psychology already walk among us, yet the risks of Ultimate Harm still persist. The methods to produce biomorally modified people would be novel, but these people are not novel in kind, at least so far as their moral traits are concerned. Persson and Savulescu do not anywhere suggest that the moral traits they desire to see in such people should exceed in kind or degree the moral psychology of those people who already exhibit exemplary morality. They do not invoke, that is, post-human descendants for purposes of this discussion. They assume that the descendants in question will be reasonably like human beings as we exist now or at least they do not say otherwise. Biomorally modified children would exhibit therefore nothing new in kind relative to the moral psychology Persson and Savulescu are looking for. Not only that, but biomorally modified children would still have to take their place
alongside the billions of unmodified people who perceive matters by conventional moral psychology. It is hard to see that biogenetic interventions that do their work one person at a time will make much of a dent in the reigning social and political trends of the day.34 Would biomoral modification make a difference if it went forward on a mass scale? As mentioned, Persson and Savulescu hypothesize that it might take hundreds of millions of people to effect the kinds of changes they are looking for. Assuming that biomoral modification involves interventions requiring at least a minimally functional healthcare system to carry out the task, these millions of people would most likely come from the most affluent countries. This disproportionate effect might not be a bad thing since many of the risks of Ultimate Harm also come from these same countries. The question at hand is, however, whether these hundreds of millions could bring about the kind of change Persson and Savulescu are looking for. Millions of people can alter a political and social landscape, assuming that they have the political will or power to do so, which is not always the case. For example, hundreds of millions of people already oppose nuclear weapons, at least in principle, to no effect equivalent to their objections. It is overly hopeful to think that biomoral modification would by itself alter that circumstance unless the affected people were politically effective in ways over and above their sheer numbers. At present, the momentum toward the risks in question may be hard to slow down. Not only that, but more and more countries and political groups continue to move toward WMD. Imagine the consequences if every nation – or terrorist group – which wanted them possessed the armaments now in the possession of the United States. Not only that, but most societies are moving in the direction of ever more consumption. Imagine the demands on the environment if all the people of the world were to live at the level of luxury available to the most affluent now. It is hard to imagine that this level of consumption would be sustainable for very long, so either methods of extracting more resources from the earth will have to come along, people will have to scale back their demands in line with a sustainable use of the environment, or the population will have to shrink drastically. Against deeply engrained psycho-political dispositions toward weapons and consumption, proponents of change have formidable challenges ahead of them, no matter how many millions of them there might be.
32
34 On the effect of individual genetic interventions, see N. Daniels. Can anyone really be talking about ethically modifying human nature? Human Enhancement. J. Savulescu, N. Bostrom, editors. New York: Oxford University Press; 2009: 25–42; and T. F. Murphy. The ethics of possible and impossible changes to human nature. Bioethics 2012; (26): 191–197.
For example, Illinois affords such an exemption for parents who object to immunizations and other medical treatments and examinations. See 105 Illinois Compiled Statutes 5/27–8. 33 Savulescu 2001, op. cit. note 18, p. 245. See also J. Savulescu. Deaf lesbians, ‘designer disability’, and the future of medicine. BMJ 2002; 325(7367): 771–773.
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To ensure some measure of effect against these odds, Persson and Savulescu gesture toward putting people with bioenhanced psychologies into positions of political influence. They say that ‘It is desirable that only beings who are morally enlightened, and adequately informed about the relevant facts, should be entrusted with such formidable technological powers as we now possess.’35 They leave unspecified exactly who will entrust these morally enlightened beings with control over formidable technological powers and how. In democracies, campaigns for office succeed and fail for all kinds of reasons unrelated to the moral psychology of the candidates. In non-democratic societies, the moral qualities of the political leaders can be altogether beside the point. Suppose we put aside any questions about who would entrust power to the morally most wise. Suppose we imagine that a society or two did entrust its morally enhanced citizens (some of them biomorally enhanced) to positions of influence, that these parties were wise in all the ways human beings can be morally wise, and that they agreed that techniques of moral enhancement (biomoral techniques among them) deserved as much research priority as consistent with other pressing needs. We must still ask whether biomorally modified persons are really better situated than others to succeed politically in constraining the dangers of WMD. They might well be more sensitive than others to these issues, but they will not for that reason alone have the political skills necessary to effect meaningful change. Another way to think about achieving some bulwark against Ultimate Harm is to imagine the biomorally modified not in terms of their sheer numbers or in as having formal political roles but as opinion leaders. After all, some prominent architects of social change do their work outside the strictures of government roles. If people with enhanced moral psychology functioned as opinion leaders, their actual numbers would not matter so much, only that they get their message across effectively. Yet even on this interpretation, it is not clear what effect to expect, since such opinion leaders are already at work inveighing against the risk factors for Ultimate Harm in ways that are useful and important even though they seem never to have sufficient effect.36 For example, Peter
Singer has challenged the effects of existing moral psychology, effects that enable us to exhibit an astonishing indifference to the pain and suffering of others.37 Would that opinion-leading critique be any more politically effective had Singer come by his views through biomoral modification? Is there anything about a biomorally modified psychology that enables better communication or political effectiveness regarding the urgency of these matters?
STATE INTERVENTION Over and above recommending biomoral modification for its perceived value, Persson and Savulescu pave the way for direct state intervention against the risks of Ultimate Harm, by endorsing far-reaching state surveillance over communications and practices that enable terrorist groups to obtain and use WMD.38 They note that people in general might assert a right of privacy against such surveillance, but they reject this defense. They say that while people have an interest in privacy as a psychological matter, that interest does not translate into a right to privacy when certain social effects are at stake, in this case preventing the use of WMD.39 Persson and Savulescu do not, however, explore the implications of this line of argumentation with respect to interventions involving moral psychology. If the state can increase its powers of surveillance in order to protect human lives, why could the state not extend its powers in ways that otherwise obstruct the harmful effects of our given moral psychology, in the name of essential social benefits, without necessarily intervening against that psychology directly? For purposes of the argument, let’s concede that people are generally ill-equipped as a matter of moral psychology to stave off Ultimate Harm. As one of its approaches to preventing Ultimate Harm under these circumstances, the state might do a variety of things: it could bar outright any practice that was environmentally unsustainable or it could bar outright the manufacture and possession of WMD.40 Why could not the state also require from each person some prima facie duty to help protect against Ultimate Harm as an offset to the
35
Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 2. Whatever moral weaknesses he might have had, we can consider Bertrand Russell as having an enhanced moral psychology in one respect: recognizing and working against the dangers of nuclear weapons. In 1955, Russell famously drew up a manifesto – signed by numerous scientific luminaries, including Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling – that asked among other things: ‘what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?’ (See S. I. Butcher. The origins of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. Pugwash History Series; 2005. At: www.pugwash.org/publications/phs/ history9.pdf.) As an answer to that question, the manifesto merely urged that nations resolve their differences by means other than a world war in which nuclear weapons would be used. Since 1955, six more 36
countries have joined the original three in possession of nuclear weapons, thereby increasing the level of risk of those nuclear weapons to humanity. Given the centrality of nuclear weapons to the way countries think about their identity and their national security, even the most influential opinion leaders would have to do a lot of work to redirect existing political currents. 37 P. Singer. One World: The Ethics of Globalization. New Haven: Yale University Press; 2004. 38 Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 56. 39 Ibid: 5. 40 These state actions might be politically difficult if not impossible, but I only want to consider their moral permissibility here.
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Preventing Ultimate Harm as the Justification for Biomoral Modification workings of their own psychology? One might object to an imposed duty of this kind and say that people have a fundamental interest in the exercise of their moral psychology as is or in its enhancement only as they prefer. But this objection does not succeed because it is – according to Persson and Savulescu – that very moral psychology that puts humanity at risk. Consequently, the state might move to constrain the exercise of unenhanced moral psychology, as they say it would be entitled to do in constraining the exercise of any and all interests in privacy. It does not follow from this conceptual move that the state would have a right to intervene directly against the moral psychology of its people because achieving the desired outcome would not necessarily require that degree of intervention. If the state had a prima facie right to expect some measure of responsibility to constrain environmental degradation and WMD, its people people might work for agencies that help keep environmental toxins and WMD under control as a way of meeting their duty, whether they are biomorally modified or not.
CONCLUSIONS Persson and Savulescu acknowledge that as a matter of research, biomoral modification is in its infancy.41 They nevertheless argue in favor of high research priority for interventions that can produce a moral psychology that is more broadly empathetic, that exhibits a wider sense of responsibility, and that proves less susceptible to the siren songs of immediate gratification. They construe the benefits of these interventions primarily in terms of their potential role in staving off Ultimate Harm and certain social inequalities, but they also hedge their bets. They want it too many ways in their analysis: they hope biomoral modification will be an important tool in the struggle against Ultimate Harm, but they admit it might not materialize, that it might make no difference if it does materialize, and that other kinds of moral enhancement might be just as effective. This indeterminacy is due in part to the way in which Persson and Savulescu shift the terms by which most biogenetic modification is typically justified, from expected individual benefit to expected social benefit. Most advocates of biomodifications bearing on intelligence and resistance to disease see them – first and foremost – as beneficial for the affected parties. Any downstream effects, such as reduced healthcare costs for society at large, are not negligible, but neither are they the primary rationale for the interventions. By contrast, Persson and Savulescu argue in favor of modifying moral psychology, not because of its direct benefits for the 41
Ibid: 2, 10.
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affected parties but because the modifications better suit the interests of humanity as a whole. Any downstream effects for individuals – such as personal benefits of a more expansive empathy – would not be negligible, but neither are they the primary rationale for the interventions. The expected social benefits of the biomoral modifications will be harder to quantify, let alone guarantee, because their effect will be harder to predict with any degree of certainty. In any case, for reasons that are not clear, Persson and Savulescu look to children as the most suitable candidates for the biomoral modification they think necessary to secure protection against Ultimate Harm. But this selection is fraught with difficulties, especially since they only require that ‘some’ children be modified. They certainly do not offer any criteria for determining which parents should modify which children. Precisely because the expected benefits of the modification are framed in terms of broad social goals, parents might make a plausible case against modifying their children if other parents have no similar responsibility to shape their children in the name of a public good, however pressing the need. It is also to be remembered that Persson and Savulescu mostly want to make the case that biomoral modification is defensible as a matter of principle. They make this case by connecting the modifications to the solution (hopefully) of important social problems, none less pressing than the continued existence of worthwhile human life itself. Could one not make the case, however, that certain biomoral modifications of human psychology are permissible even if they have no important social benefits this way? After all, would it really be such a bad thing if parents modified their children to be more empathetic and more invested in long-term consequences of their actions? An in-principle defense of biomoral modification need not reach to broad social effects as its only justification. In any case, the focus on (some) children seems genuinely out of proportion to the risks of Ultimate Harm. Given the stakes, it seems that a more general duty applies, not just to some parents to modify some of their children, but to all adults whose collective actions generate the risks of Ultimate Harm in the first place. If techniques of biomoral modification – having the ends hoped-for by Persson and Savulescu – were available, why should adults in general not be obliged to use them on themselves or otherwise do some work to defuse the catastrophes looming ahead? Persson and Savulescu do envision the cost of protecting humanity as a whole as something to be borne by everyone in at least one way. That is, they permit the state to intervene against the general interests that people have in privacy, to the extent necessary to conduct surveillance that protects against WMD, no matter that people would
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prefer their privacy intact. But why should constraints against the exercise of moral psychology as given be limited only to this domain of public safety? If the state may intervene against privacy in the name of social protection, then why not also against the psychological consumerism that itself is a root cause of environmental degradation? Why not also against the manufacture and possession of the materials most important to WMDs? Within the confines of Persson and Savulescu’s moral logic, the responsibility for the human future should be shifted from some to all, with hopefully better prospects
of success in securing our own futures and those of our descendants. This is not to say that biomoral modification has no place in meeting this responsibility, but it is to say that the selective biomodification of some people in the next generations imposes only on some what seems to be a responsibility for everyone. Timothy F. Murphy is Professor of Philosophy in the Biomedical Sciences at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago and the author, most recently, of Ethics, Sexual Orientation, and Choices about Children. In the 2014–2015 academic year, he will be a Fellow at the UIC Institute for the Humanities.
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Bioethics ISSN 0269-9702 (print); 1467-8519 (online) Volume 29 Number 5 2015 pp 369–377
doi:10.1111/bioe.12108
PREVENTING ULTIMATE HARM AS THE JUSTIFICATION FOR BIOMORAL MODIFICATION TIMOTHY F. MURPHY
Keywords children, enhancement, environment, ethics, genetics, ultimate harm
ABSTRACT Most advocates of biogenetic modification hope to amplify existing human traits in humans in order to increase the value of such traits as intelligence and resistance to disease. These advocates defend such enhancements as beneficial for the affected parties. By contrast, some commentators recommend certain biogenetic modifications to serve social goals. As Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu see things, human moral psychology is deficient relative to the most important risks facing humanity as a whole, including the prospect of Ultimate Harm, the point at which worthwhile life is forever impossible on the planet. These risks can be mitigated, they say, by enhancing moral psychology in novel ways. Persson and Savulescu argue that some parents should modify the underlying biogenetics of their children’s moral psychology, if such measures were safe and effective, but they admit these interventions may not decouple humanity from Ultimate Harm. Neither are these modifications the only options, they concede, for addressing risks to humanity. Even with these concessions, saving humanity from itself is a fairly poor reason to modify the moral psychology of children. In most ways, adults would be better candidates, morally speaking, for modifications of psychology. Even then, there is no direct link between morally enhanced human beings and the hoped-for effect of better protection from Ultimate Harm. Asserting a general duty of all to contribute to the avoidance of Ultimate Harm is a better moral strategy than intervening in the moral psychology of some, even though meeting that duty may involve substantial interference with the free exercise of one’s interests.
As some commentators see things, improvements to human welfare hinge on genetic modifications to enhance the capacities human beings already have, such as capacities to resist disease and capacities to learn. These bioenhancements are theorized primarily in terms of their benefit to the affected individual. For example, Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler have argued that prenatal genetic modifications should favor the ‘best interests’ of children.1 Toward this
end, they imagine two categories of interventions: interventions that undo opportunity-limiting conditions and interventions that enhance general-purpose capacities. They mean by the latter term ‘capabilities that are broadly valuable across a wide array of life plans.’2 For analysts like these, the moral acceptability of genetic interventions in children turns on the value of those interventions for the affected children.3 In fact, some commentators invoke the individual child’s well-being as the basis
1 A. Buchanan, D. W. Brock, N. Daniels & D. Wikler. From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2000.
2
Ibid: 174. A. Buchanan. Better than Human: The Promise and Perils of Enhancing Ourselves. New York: Oxford University Press; 2011. 3
Address for correspondence: Prof. Timothy F. Murphy, Dept. of Medical Education m/c 591, 808 S. Wood St., University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, Chicago IL, 60618. USA. Email: [email protected] Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Preventing Ultimate Harm as the Justification for Biomoral Modification for arguing that some interventions of this kind can be obligatory.4 By contrast, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu open the door to biogenetic modifications whose primary benefit accrues to society rather than to the individual. They describe human beings as lacking the moral psychology necessary to cope with the most profound threats to the continued existence of humanity, the two most important being weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and environmental degradation.5 Persson and Savulescu are persuaded that we must bring moral psychology under the influence of human design – and soon – in order to avoid Ultimate Harm, the point at which worthwhile life is forever impossible on this planet.6 They say that the very emergence of the possibility of Ultimate Harm demonstrates the inadequacy of our moral psychology, as does our unwillingness to engage it in proportion to its danger and proximity. While other biogenetic enhancements of human capacities might be attractive for the benefits they confer on individuals, Persson and Savulescu argue for modifications whose benefits accrue to humanity as a whole: ‘moral enhancement is necessary if human civilization is to have a reasonable chance of surviving not merely the present century, but also the following centuries.’7 They find good prospects for some of that enhancement in the modification of human psychology. The prospect of Ultimate Harm is not the only worry that drives Persson and Savulescu’s advocacy of biogenetic modification. They describe certain moral features of contemporary life as also objectionable enough to justify the modification of human moral psychology. For example, they think that maldistribution of wealth is also an effect of human moral psychology as it has shaped global economics.8 Even if there were no risks of Ultimate Harm ahead, they think grounds exist to intervene against human moral psychology as it helps form and perpetuate staggering economic inequality.9 While this line of analysis is interesting in its own right, I analyze here only the modification of human moral psychology as justified by Persson and Savulescu in relation to the risks of Ultimate Harm. I will note, however, that opening the door to moral modifications to address social problems necessarily raises the question of the criteria to distinguish between problems that are legitimate grounds for biogenetic modification and problems to be addressed
4 J. Savulescu. New breeds of humans: the moral obligation to enhance. Repro Biomed Online 2005; 10(1): 36–39. 5 I. Persson & J. Savulescu. Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement. New York: Oxford University Press; 2012. 6 Ibid: 46. 7 Ibid: 133. 8 Ibid: 128. 9 Ibid: 10.
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in other ways. The two examples that Persson and Savulescu offer as justifying biogenetic modification are very different from one another. Ultimate Harm would ruin life for human beings as a class. Economic inequality affects everyone, but not in the same way; humans as a class could tolerate economic inequality across the indefinite future. If a social problem like economic inequality would justify interventions against human psychology, then how far down the ladder of social problems could one go with the same kind of interventions? What, after all, are the qualifying criteria and the limiting criteria? Would problems of racism or sexism also quality? These are important questions, but my concern here is to analyze only the question of whether the risks of Ultimate Harm justify modifications of human psychology. As Persson and Savulescu see things, our given moral psychology tips us toward unrecoverable catastrophes.10 They do allow that human beings might be able to avoid Ultimate Harm despite our given moral psychology, but they are not optimistic. For example, they note that we could eliminate a lot of disease and starvation around the world at present, but we do not do so to good effect or with urgency equal to the gravity of the matter.11 We behave in ways that – far from constraining threats – only put humanity at ever-greater at risk.12 The most profound threats to the environment are, furthermore, not posed by marginal numbers of people. Every society only ever consumes more and more goods at the expense of the earth’s resources, leaving more and more environmental degradation behind. If threats to the environment were not enough, some nation states around the globe – and terrorist groups alongside them – do what they can to possess WMD, which in their own way menace the very future of humanity. Against the backdrop of these threats, Persson and Savulescu do acknowledge the importance of traditional means of moral modification through education and social suasion, but they simultaneously make a case for bioenhancement of human moral psychology. By contrast to that term, I will generally refer to the interventions they have in mind as biomoral modification, leaving open the question of whether the modification actually amounts to an enhancement.13 Persson and Savulescu do not think it is impossible for human beings to contain the grave threats at hand from within the framework of our existing moral psychology; in fact, they even allow that biomoral modification may not be any more effective than traditional means of moral enhancement. Even so, they argue that biomoral enhancement is permissible in principle, even if it is not itself the solution to the 10 11 12 13
Ibid: 1. Ibid: 103. Ibid: 2. Buchanan, op. cit. note 3, p. 6.
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problems at hand, and even if its perfection does not come in time to forestall Ultimate Harm.14 In their proposal, Persson and Savulescu identify limitations of human moral psychology and propose to ‘correct these limitations, by traditional or new scientific means’.15 We could continue to rely on traditional methods to raise moral consciousness relative to the most important threats facing humanity, but in spite of the allowance Persson and Savulescu make for that option, they are suspicious that existing methods of moral enhancement can be sufficient. They see biomoral modification as an important tool for putting human moral psychology on a footing equal to the threats of Ultimate Harm. In general, Persson and Savulescu hope that biomoral modification will deepen empathy and a sense of responsibility for others now living, those yet to live, and for non-human animals. They hope as well that biomoral modification will broaden people’s sense of responsibility for the effects of their acts and omissions.16 People with a modified moral psychology will, they think, find it easier to make choices that undercut the prospects of Ultimate Harm. This moral defense of biomoral modification succeeds on one count, since nothing about the moral psychology that Persson and Savulescu envision confers any inherent disadvantage on the affected parties and perhaps no extrinsic disadvantage either. No one would necessarily suffer simply by being more empathetic, for example, and that increased empathy would not necessarily put anyone at a social disadvantage either. The defense of biomoral interventions in relation to protection against Ultimate Harm is less successful, however, since a direct effect of modified moral psychology and a humanity better protected against Ultimate Harm is hard to demonstrate. No direct line connects the philosophical defense of biomoral modification to the hoped-for political effect. Biomoral enhancements could succeed in the fight against Ultimate Harm only under the most auspicious circumstances. In 14
Persson and Savulescu, op cit. note 5, pp. 3, 11. Persson and Savulescu join a discussion about global harm that is already underway on a number of fronts. For example, some economists recommend various kinds of taxation and regulatory schemes in order to slow global warming. (See P. Krugman. Gambling with Civilization. New York Review of Books. 2013; Nov. 7: 14,26,19.) Others have proposed direct kinds of climate engineering. (See C. Hamilton. Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering. New York: Yale University Press; 2013.) Persson and Savulescu do not compare the merits of their proposal with those of other proposals bearing on the same threats; and in a sense they do not need to, because they are only making a case in favor of biomoral modification as a matter of principle. Then again, any estimated value of biomoral modification will eventually have to be measured against the comparative benefits of all proposals on the table. While I will not offer that comparative analysis here, I will point out the practical indeterminacies that attach to biomoral modification, since so much of their expected utility hangs on their foreseeable effects. 15 Ibid: 133. 16 Ibid: 108, 109.
the day-to-day swirl of global politics, it is unclear how these modifications could make themselves felt in any significant way. Saving humanity from itself turns out to be, therefore, a fairly poor reason to modify human moral psychology, at least on the terms Persson and Savulescu set forth. An undercurrent in their analysis does raise one possibility – a generalized duty on the part of all to work against Ultimate Harm – that might be more useful in the task, yet Persson and Savulescu do not develop the implications of their own analysis this way, as I will show.
MODIFYING THE MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF CHILDREN In most of Unfit for the Future, Persson and Savulescu discuss biomoral modification only in general terms, as part of an argument to show its permissibility in principle or, to put it another way, to dispute arguments against it. In the course of this analysis, they do not generally specify exactly who the candidates for modification should be. In one singular instance, however, they identify children as the subjects of modification, saying ‘some children should be subjected to moral bioenhancements, just as they are now subjected to traditional moral education.’17 As it stands, this proposal to modify children raises more questions than it answers. How would specific parents know if they had an obligation to modify their children, and of their children which ones? What marks a particular child as a candidate for modification? Beyond the question of identifying the candidates for modifications we must ask what expectations of success are realistic in staving off Ultimate Harm if only some but not all children are biomorally modified? No matter how these questions would be answered, this characterization of biomoral modification as obligatory for only some children only is odd, coming as it does from one of the leading advocates – Savulescu – of the biogenetic enhancement of children. On his own and with Guy Kahane, Savulescu has championed the duty of parents to enhance their children – when and where they can – through various kinds of prenatal interventions.18 If biomoral modification really is an enhancement, would it not be desirable – in an aspirational sense – for all children? Would not all parents as such have a prima facie duty to enhance their children this way? Or is there something about this would-be enhancement that does not 17
Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 113; emphasis added. J. Savulescu & G. Kahane. The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. Bioethics 2009; 23: 274–290. See J. Savulescu. Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best possible children. Bioethics 2001; 15: 414–426. See also J. Savulescu. New breeds of humans: the moral obligation to enhance. Repro Biomed Online 2005; 10(1): 36–39. 18
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Preventing Ultimate Harm as the Justification for Biomoral Modification confer on children the prospects for the best possible lives, relative to the lives that possible children might have? Perhaps the hesitation to propose this modification as a duty for all parents has to do with its intended beneficiaries, others and not the children themselves. Savulescu’s stock-in-trade advocacy of prenatal interventions generally depends on conferring benefits on children, enriching their experiences, giving them the best prospects for the best possible lives. But there is precious little in Unfit for the Future to think of biomoral modification on those terms. In other words, the welfare directly at stake is social rather than individual and not therefore about treating disease, preventing disease, protecting well-being, and enhancing the well-being of children, which are the justifications that Savulescu typically deploys in favor of modifying the genetic endowment given by chance at conception.19 Persson and Savulescu do attribute one benefit to children themselves from this kind of modification; they say the modification will inoculate people against becoming criminals! Biomodification early in children’s lives or even prenatally would therefore have a protective effect against the punishment and social effects that come with that status.20 That effect might come to pass if the modifications function to increase pro-social behavior, but it would not spell the end to all crime since violations of the law vary in their causes. For example, some people intentionally and publicly violate laws as a way of protesting against them. In making that kind of choice, biomorally modified parties might have to balance the benefits of violating the law (to protest an apparent injustice) and the risks of violating the law (punishment and social stigma). Let’s hope that biomoral modification would not render people too socially docile to stand up in favor of civil disobedience when necessary. Except for this singular example, however, Persson and Savulescu do not otherwise argue that biomoral modifications are of direct benefit to the children. Despite the lack of direct benefit of biomoral modification for the affected children themselves, would it be implausible to expand the requirement of modification from some children to all children? to assert a general duty for all parents to modify their children’s moral psychology? What, if anything, stands in the way of asserting a prima facie duty to modify the moral psychology of all children? Why should the costs (whatever they are) of those efforts be borne only by some families? Since all people stand to benefit from the effects of constraining the risks of nuclear war and environmental degradation, why would it not be reasonable to ask all families to shoulder some measure of the costs of humanity’s continuing existence and prosperity? 19 20
Savulescu, 2005, op. cit. note 18, p. 39. Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 113.
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Furthermore, if parents are ordinarily obliged to intervene in ways that give their children the best prospects for the best possible lives, one could make a reasonable case that modifications to their moral psychology are no less than other traits subject to that obligation. A life ahead without the risks of Ultimate Harm seems to me a better life than the alternative. This is not to say that every parent must modify their children’s moral psychology, but it is to say that every parent who does not should probably have to show cause to be excused from that duty. One might also make a reasonable case that the prospect of a best possible life – on Savulescu’s own terms – is a life open to the rewards that inhere in increased empathy, a more expansive sense of responsibility, and less psychological interest in immediate gains. It may be that some measures for assessing the value of different lives are incommensurable, but why assume in advance that a modification that increases, for example, empathy for others is less valuable than a modification that increases intelligence by some fraction? Or why assume that a modification that increases attention to long-term interests is less a component of a valuable life than a modification that increases resistance to certain infections?
THE BIOMORAL MODIFICATION OF ADULTS In their focus on children, Persson and Savulescu overlook a more morally suitable candidate for biomoral modification. Unrecoverable environmental degradation and mass death from nuclear weapons are possible in the lifetime of anyone now living. Adults contribute in their own way – through acts and omissions – to the risks of that harm, with degrees of responsibility without parallel in children. If an effective intervention to enhance moral psychology became available, why not ask adults to step forward and shoulder their share of responsibility for averting Ultimate Harm? As long as the discussion involves only hypothetical interventions, I see no reason to exclude living adults from the analysis. There is certainly no reason to assume the modification of adult moral psychology would be impossible; every example that Persson and Savulescu offer to make the case that the modification of human moral psychology is possible involves research carried out with adults.21 Why must biomoral modification of human psychology wait on the contributions of generations to come? Since adults can assume risks in ways that children cannot, turning to adults as the agents of change would avoid all the moral problems that critics say attach to modifications (prenatal and otherwise) of children, such as undermining the 21
Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, pp. 118ff.
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presumption of moral equality and violations of standards of consent.22 Because the risks of Ultimate Harm are rooted in human choices across virtually every culture, one can make a plausible case that there is a shared responsibility of all adults to contain those risks, as against the responsibility falling on a group of children (who knows how many?) or a subset of adults (who knows how many?). In any case, focusing the analysis of biomoral modification on children obscures the role and moral responsibilities of adults now living in regard to Ultimate Harm. I will note that Persson and Savulescu did in 2008 float the idea of imposing moral enhancements on everyone, saying: ‘If safe moral enhancements are ever developed, there are strong reasons to believe that their use should be obligatory, like education or fluoride in the water, since those who should take them are least likely to be inclined to use them. That is, safe, effective moral enhancement would be compulsory.’23 Yet even this proposal is offered as a way of modifying hard-to-reach parties who might inflict great danger on those around them, rather than as a way of asserting a general duty shared by all. In any case, Persson and Savulescu did not return to or defend this notion of compulsory biomoral modifications for all, in Unfit for the Future, so I will not discuss it further.
THE EFFECTS OF BIOMORAL MODIFICATION Biomoral modification without effect is to no one’s advantage when it comes to facing down Ultimate Harm. Whoever the final candidates for biomoral modification turn out to be, children or adults, what can we expect by way of improved odds against the risks of Ultimate Harm? Persson and Savulescu do and do not put a lot of hope in the modification of human moral psychology to diminish the likelihood of Ultimate Harm. They simultaneously make the case that biomoral modification may help,24 that techniques of biomoral modification might never be discovered at all,25 that successful techniques of biomoral modification might not be applied in time,26 that other methods of moral enhancement might be just as successful as biomoral modification,27 and that even if techniques of biomoral modification were discovered and 22 J. Habermas. The Future of Human Nature. Cambridge: Polity Press; 2003. See also A. J. Karnein. A Theory of Unborn Life: From Abortion to Genetic Manipulation. New York: Oxford University Press; 2012. 23 I. Persson & J. Savulescu. The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity. J Applied Phil. 2008; 25: 162–175, 174. 24 Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 121. 25 Ibid: 121. 26 Ibid: 123. 27 Ibid: 11.
applied within a meaningful window of opportunity, they still might not succeed in forestalling Ultimate Harm.28 This extraordinary circumspection – which encompasses virtually every possible outcome – is more than justified relative to the merits of the proposal. For the sake of the argument, let me examine Persson and Savulescu’s proposal that parents carry out biomoral enhancement through interventions with some of their children. Persson and Savulescu recognize that the task here would be daunting, namely to modify moral psychology in a sufficient number of offspring to have any meaningful hope of warding off Ultimate Harm. They estimate that the ‘sufficient number’ of biomorally modified people necessary to achieve that effect would probably range in the hundreds of millions.29 Let’s follow this scenario from its beginnings. Assuming that the modifications are only optional, the first parents able to carry out these interventions will be people with some moral interest in doing so. How many of these parents might there be? I will venture a guess that this number would be small at first because of its novelty. The cost of the interventions would also factor in their use, as would concerns about safety and efficacy: Will the intervention deliver what is expected of it and without harm? Even if the costs of the modification were reasonable, even if the risks were negligible, and even if the outcomes were exactly as expected, some parents might remain altogether skeptical about the modifications if they interpreted the interventions as somehow putting their children at a comparative disadvantage. Would parents want to have the most empathetic and cooperative child on the block if social identity and access to social goods still depend on self-interest that is not – to put it tendentiously – diluted by compassion for others?30 What about the ‘free rider’ problem that surfaces elsewhere in trying to effect change across groups? Despite certain state requirements, some parents decline to immunize their children against measles, mumps, and rubella, all the while hoping that enough other parents immunize their children so that the ‘herd effect’ protects the unimmunized children.31 These unimmunized children face no risks whatsoever from immunization and yet enjoy the protective effects of living among others who have assumed the risks. Would some parents not also gamble that the world at large could be protected by those parents who choose biomoral modification for their children, while they may exempt their own children from 28
Ibid: 10, 123. Ibid: 121. 30 This concern upends the usual worry about conventional bioenhancement: that it will confer greater advantages in competing for social goods. See Buchanan, op. cit. note 3, pp. 102 ff. 31 S. P. Callandrillo. Vanishing vaccinations: why are so many Americans opting out of vaccinating their children? U Mich J L Reform 2004; 37: 353–440. 29
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any perceived costs (no matter how trivial) of the modification? To get past these problems, let’s now imagine that biomoral modification is theorized as obligatory in general. Even so, this obligation would presumably be only a prima facie duty, namely a duty only if it could be reasonably met by the parent. Here again, financial considerations could undercut the obligation to carry out the modification, and other extenuating circumstances might excuse some parents from carrying out the duty. Some parents might even mount religious and moral objections to the idea that modifying their children is a duty, and the law might even formalize a mechanism of exemption for them as it does in other cases of parental objection to state-mandated interventions.32 Even if there were a prima facie duty to intervene in the moral psychology of their children, binding on all as a matter of moral theory, the importance of reproductive liberty would still require the law to keep some distance from parents who have their own ideas about the traits that are best for a child of theirs.33 Any presumptive duty to modify one’s children would be, therefore, open to a considerable number of exceptions and challenges, especially in relation to harms that might not materialize even if the duty is observed or that might materialize even if the duty is not observed. These cautions notwithstanding, let’s suppose that some parents take the plunge and use biomoral interventions with their children. What effect might these children have? It is hard to see that by reason of the biomedical modification alone that these children would make much impact on existing social practices and trends. After all, some people with enhanced moral psychology already walk among us, yet the risks of Ultimate Harm still persist. The methods to produce biomorally modified people would be novel, but these people are not novel in kind, at least so far as their moral traits are concerned. Persson and Savulescu do not anywhere suggest that the moral traits they desire to see in such people should exceed in kind or degree the moral psychology of those people who already exhibit exemplary morality. They do not invoke, that is, post-human descendants for purposes of this discussion. They assume that the descendants in question will be reasonably like human beings as we exist now or at least they do not say otherwise. Biomorally modified children would exhibit therefore nothing new in kind relative to the moral psychology Persson and Savulescu are looking for. Not only that, but biomorally modified children would still have to take their place
alongside the billions of unmodified people who perceive matters by conventional moral psychology. It is hard to see that biogenetic interventions that do their work one person at a time will make much of a dent in the reigning social and political trends of the day.34 Would biomoral modification make a difference if it went forward on a mass scale? As mentioned, Persson and Savulescu hypothesize that it might take hundreds of millions of people to effect the kinds of changes they are looking for. Assuming that biomoral modification involves interventions requiring at least a minimally functional healthcare system to carry out the task, these millions of people would most likely come from the most affluent countries. This disproportionate effect might not be a bad thing since many of the risks of Ultimate Harm also come from these same countries. The question at hand is, however, whether these hundreds of millions could bring about the kind of change Persson and Savulescu are looking for. Millions of people can alter a political and social landscape, assuming that they have the political will or power to do so, which is not always the case. For example, hundreds of millions of people already oppose nuclear weapons, at least in principle, to no effect equivalent to their objections. It is overly hopeful to think that biomoral modification would by itself alter that circumstance unless the affected people were politically effective in ways over and above their sheer numbers. At present, the momentum toward the risks in question may be hard to slow down. Not only that, but more and more countries and political groups continue to move toward WMD. Imagine the consequences if every nation – or terrorist group – which wanted them possessed the armaments now in the possession of the United States. Not only that, but most societies are moving in the direction of ever more consumption. Imagine the demands on the environment if all the people of the world were to live at the level of luxury available to the most affluent now. It is hard to imagine that this level of consumption would be sustainable for very long, so either methods of extracting more resources from the earth will have to come along, people will have to scale back their demands in line with a sustainable use of the environment, or the population will have to shrink drastically. Against deeply engrained psycho-political dispositions toward weapons and consumption, proponents of change have formidable challenges ahead of them, no matter how many millions of them there might be.
32
34 On the effect of individual genetic interventions, see N. Daniels. Can anyone really be talking about ethically modifying human nature? Human Enhancement. J. Savulescu, N. Bostrom, editors. New York: Oxford University Press; 2009: 25–42; and T. F. Murphy. The ethics of possible and impossible changes to human nature. Bioethics 2012; (26): 191–197.
For example, Illinois affords such an exemption for parents who object to immunizations and other medical treatments and examinations. See 105 Illinois Compiled Statutes 5/27–8. 33 Savulescu 2001, op. cit. note 18, p. 245. See also J. Savulescu. Deaf lesbians, ‘designer disability’, and the future of medicine. BMJ 2002; 325(7367): 771–773.
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To ensure some measure of effect against these odds, Persson and Savulescu gesture toward putting people with bioenhanced psychologies into positions of political influence. They say that ‘It is desirable that only beings who are morally enlightened, and adequately informed about the relevant facts, should be entrusted with such formidable technological powers as we now possess.’35 They leave unspecified exactly who will entrust these morally enlightened beings with control over formidable technological powers and how. In democracies, campaigns for office succeed and fail for all kinds of reasons unrelated to the moral psychology of the candidates. In non-democratic societies, the moral qualities of the political leaders can be altogether beside the point. Suppose we put aside any questions about who would entrust power to the morally most wise. Suppose we imagine that a society or two did entrust its morally enhanced citizens (some of them biomorally enhanced) to positions of influence, that these parties were wise in all the ways human beings can be morally wise, and that they agreed that techniques of moral enhancement (biomoral techniques among them) deserved as much research priority as consistent with other pressing needs. We must still ask whether biomorally modified persons are really better situated than others to succeed politically in constraining the dangers of WMD. They might well be more sensitive than others to these issues, but they will not for that reason alone have the political skills necessary to effect meaningful change. Another way to think about achieving some bulwark against Ultimate Harm is to imagine the biomorally modified not in terms of their sheer numbers or in as having formal political roles but as opinion leaders. After all, some prominent architects of social change do their work outside the strictures of government roles. If people with enhanced moral psychology functioned as opinion leaders, their actual numbers would not matter so much, only that they get their message across effectively. Yet even on this interpretation, it is not clear what effect to expect, since such opinion leaders are already at work inveighing against the risk factors for Ultimate Harm in ways that are useful and important even though they seem never to have sufficient effect.36 For example, Peter
Singer has challenged the effects of existing moral psychology, effects that enable us to exhibit an astonishing indifference to the pain and suffering of others.37 Would that opinion-leading critique be any more politically effective had Singer come by his views through biomoral modification? Is there anything about a biomorally modified psychology that enables better communication or political effectiveness regarding the urgency of these matters?
STATE INTERVENTION Over and above recommending biomoral modification for its perceived value, Persson and Savulescu pave the way for direct state intervention against the risks of Ultimate Harm, by endorsing far-reaching state surveillance over communications and practices that enable terrorist groups to obtain and use WMD.38 They note that people in general might assert a right of privacy against such surveillance, but they reject this defense. They say that while people have an interest in privacy as a psychological matter, that interest does not translate into a right to privacy when certain social effects are at stake, in this case preventing the use of WMD.39 Persson and Savulescu do not, however, explore the implications of this line of argumentation with respect to interventions involving moral psychology. If the state can increase its powers of surveillance in order to protect human lives, why could the state not extend its powers in ways that otherwise obstruct the harmful effects of our given moral psychology, in the name of essential social benefits, without necessarily intervening against that psychology directly? For purposes of the argument, let’s concede that people are generally ill-equipped as a matter of moral psychology to stave off Ultimate Harm. As one of its approaches to preventing Ultimate Harm under these circumstances, the state might do a variety of things: it could bar outright any practice that was environmentally unsustainable or it could bar outright the manufacture and possession of WMD.40 Why could not the state also require from each person some prima facie duty to help protect against Ultimate Harm as an offset to the
35
Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 2. Whatever moral weaknesses he might have had, we can consider Bertrand Russell as having an enhanced moral psychology in one respect: recognizing and working against the dangers of nuclear weapons. In 1955, Russell famously drew up a manifesto – signed by numerous scientific luminaries, including Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling – that asked among other things: ‘what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?’ (See S. I. Butcher. The origins of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. Pugwash History Series; 2005. At: www.pugwash.org/publications/phs/ history9.pdf.) As an answer to that question, the manifesto merely urged that nations resolve their differences by means other than a world war in which nuclear weapons would be used. Since 1955, six more 36
countries have joined the original three in possession of nuclear weapons, thereby increasing the level of risk of those nuclear weapons to humanity. Given the centrality of nuclear weapons to the way countries think about their identity and their national security, even the most influential opinion leaders would have to do a lot of work to redirect existing political currents. 37 P. Singer. One World: The Ethics of Globalization. New Haven: Yale University Press; 2004. 38 Persson and Savulescu, op. cit. note 5, p. 56. 39 Ibid: 5. 40 These state actions might be politically difficult if not impossible, but I only want to consider their moral permissibility here.
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Preventing Ultimate Harm as the Justification for Biomoral Modification workings of their own psychology? One might object to an imposed duty of this kind and say that people have a fundamental interest in the exercise of their moral psychology as is or in its enhancement only as they prefer. But this objection does not succeed because it is – according to Persson and Savulescu – that very moral psychology that puts humanity at risk. Consequently, the state might move to constrain the exercise of unenhanced moral psychology, as they say it would be entitled to do in constraining the exercise of any and all interests in privacy. It does not follow from this conceptual move that the state would have a right to intervene directly against the moral psychology of its people because achieving the desired outcome would not necessarily require that degree of intervention. If the state had a prima facie right to expect some measure of responsibility to constrain environmental degradation and WMD, its people people might work for agencies that help keep environmental toxins and WMD under control as a way of meeting their duty, whether they are biomorally modified or not.
CONCLUSIONS Persson and Savulescu acknowledge that as a matter of research, biomoral modification is in its infancy.41 They nevertheless argue in favor of high research priority for interventions that can produce a moral psychology that is more broadly empathetic, that exhibits a wider sense of responsibility, and that proves less susceptible to the siren songs of immediate gratification. They construe the benefits of these interventions primarily in terms of their potential role in staving off Ultimate Harm and certain social inequalities, but they also hedge their bets. They want it too many ways in their analysis: they hope biomoral modification will be an important tool in the struggle against Ultimate Harm, but they admit it might not materialize, that it might make no difference if it does materialize, and that other kinds of moral enhancement might be just as effective. This indeterminacy is due in part to the way in which Persson and Savulescu shift the terms by which most biogenetic modification is typically justified, from expected individual benefit to expected social benefit. Most advocates of biomodifications bearing on intelligence and resistance to disease see them – first and foremost – as beneficial for the affected parties. Any downstream effects, such as reduced healthcare costs for society at large, are not negligible, but neither are they the primary rationale for the interventions. By contrast, Persson and Savulescu argue in favor of modifying moral psychology, not because of its direct benefits for the 41
Ibid: 2, 10.
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affected parties but because the modifications better suit the interests of humanity as a whole. Any downstream effects for individuals – such as personal benefits of a more expansive empathy – would not be negligible, but neither are they the primary rationale for the interventions. The expected social benefits of the biomoral modifications will be harder to quantify, let alone guarantee, because their effect will be harder to predict with any degree of certainty. In any case, for reasons that are not clear, Persson and Savulescu look to children as the most suitable candidates for the biomoral modification they think necessary to secure protection against Ultimate Harm. But this selection is fraught with difficulties, especially since they only require that ‘some’ children be modified. They certainly do not offer any criteria for determining which parents should modify which children. Precisely because the expected benefits of the modification are framed in terms of broad social goals, parents might make a plausible case against modifying their children if other parents have no similar responsibility to shape their children in the name of a public good, however pressing the need. It is also to be remembered that Persson and Savulescu mostly want to make the case that biomoral modification is defensible as a matter of principle. They make this case by connecting the modifications to the solution (hopefully) of important social problems, none less pressing than the continued existence of worthwhile human life itself. Could one not make the case, however, that certain biomoral modifications of human psychology are permissible even if they have no important social benefits this way? After all, would it really be such a bad thing if parents modified their children to be more empathetic and more invested in long-term consequences of their actions? An in-principle defense of biomoral modification need not reach to broad social effects as its only justification. In any case, the focus on (some) children seems genuinely out of proportion to the risks of Ultimate Harm. Given the stakes, it seems that a more general duty applies, not just to some parents to modify some of their children, but to all adults whose collective actions generate the risks of Ultimate Harm in the first place. If techniques of biomoral modification – having the ends hoped-for by Persson and Savulescu – were available, why should adults in general not be obliged to use them on themselves or otherwise do some work to defuse the catastrophes looming ahead? Persson and Savulescu do envision the cost of protecting humanity as a whole as something to be borne by everyone in at least one way. That is, they permit the state to intervene against the general interests that people have in privacy, to the extent necessary to conduct surveillance that protects against WMD, no matter that people would
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prefer their privacy intact. But why should constraints against the exercise of moral psychology as given be limited only to this domain of public safety? If the state may intervene against privacy in the name of social protection, then why not also against the psychological consumerism that itself is a root cause of environmental degradation? Why not also against the manufacture and possession of the materials most important to WMDs? Within the confines of Persson and Savulescu’s moral logic, the responsibility for the human future should be shifted from some to all, with hopefully better prospects
of success in securing our own futures and those of our descendants. This is not to say that biomoral modification has no place in meeting this responsibility, but it is to say that the selective biomodification of some people in the next generations imposes only on some what seems to be a responsibility for everyone. Timothy F. Murphy is Professor of Philosophy in the Biomedical Sciences at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago and the author, most recently, of Ethics, Sexual Orientation, and Choices about Children. In the 2014–2015 academic year, he will be a Fellow at the UIC Institute for the Humanities.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
