Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Yet one can question the assumption that life moves forward to a dif-
ferent tomorrow. There are certainly events that take place in one's life,
or more comprehensively, in history, that are unrepeatable in their speci-
ficity due to the causal contribution of particular human agency. But it
is still the case that those events take place within the bookmarks of birth
and death, and those events are performed by agents who learned,
struggled, succeeded, or failed as human beings. Those events take place
within the cycle of life that grounds and contextualizes the human indi-
vidual. Generation and corruption are the unavoidable metaphysical and
ontological ground of human life.
When we consider the genetic manipulation of the body, a central
element in our thinking will be how we think about the future. Are we
making it different because it is and will be our opportunity (perhaps
even our birthright) to influence how it will be different? Or are we
making it different by warping the cycle so that when we look at the
struggles of future generations, they will still course on the center of
birth, struggle, and death, yet wobble with the added burden of self-
inflicted wounds?
Personhood and the Argument against Genetic Enhancement
For my argument, I would define personhood as the entelechy of the
body, Aristotle's sense of soul. Personhood thus calls for an openness to
what I, or any human being, will become by the living that I do. The
serendipitous ways I will respond to my biologically, socially, and tem-
porally grounded opportunities reveal my person. When another pro-
hibitively limits the range of my responses, on the basis of their intention
or a larger social design, my personhood is diminished or even destroyed.
By contrast, John Rawls's analysis of justice as fairness suggests a dif-
ferent approach to this question.
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That people become ill seems unfair.
That they suffer deformities or dysfunctions due to nature seems unfair.
In Rawls's famous phrase, they have lost the natural lottery, and that is
not right. Given that genetic enhancement purports to mold the human
genome into something more suitable to our sense of appropriateness
and fairness, the problematic concern is not human nature but rather an
equitable social response to unfairness. In Rawls's view, at least with
regard to those issues that bear on the distribution of goods, the society
