Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Human telos, on the other hand, is far more plastic and malleable.
Certainly there is a human biological nature, which is fairly straightfor-
ward. But the social nature of humans, unlike that of horses, is infinitely
variable, and our ratiocinative abilities lead us to highly diverse conclu-
sions and worldviews; as such, the use of the concept of telos in ethical
thinking orients us toward what we consider the best and highest in
the way humans define themselves. We now believe, contrary to both
Aristotle and the framers, that it is more rational and noble to treat
everyone equally, not according to an alleged natural hierarchy where
there are natural superiors and inferiors. Telos thus articulates an ideal
view of humans to aim at.
This, then, provides us with a way to judge the morality of genetically
modifying humans by the use of genetic engineering. We must first make
a distinction between genetic modifications that are at the “is” level of
telos and those at the “ought” level. By the “is” level, I mean those mod-
ifications that directly affect mainly the biology of the human telos. Here
I have in mind things like genetically engineering increased resistance to
cancer or infectious diseases. In my view, such modifications would have
little effect on our “ought” sense of telos since being more resistant to
certain diseases isn't likely to affect our rationality, sociality, moral
concern, and so forth.
On the other hand, consider genetically engineering people in a
Brave New World
sort of scenario, where people are engineered to be
acquiescent slaves of the state so that they don't resent enslavement
or miss freedom, say, because they have been engineered to produce
massive amounts of endogenous opiates. That clearly would affect our
“ought” sense of telos since it results in a radical change in what we
believe we ought to strive to be—namely, free agents fighting against a
repressive regime, not narcotized robots or John Stuart Mill's “satisfied
pigs.”
As in the case of genetically engineering chickens to be happy in con-
finement, we first of all have a raise the bridge, don't lower the river per-
spective, namely, that the repressive society should be changed to fit
humans, and not vice versa. But there is a dis-analogy between chickens
and people that points us toward a major difference between changing
animal and human telos. We do not accept
any
claim that asserts that
human society must be structured so that people are totally miserable
