A Not-So-New Eugenics: Harris and Savulescu on Human Enhancement
- A Not-So-New Eugenics:Harris and Savulescu on Human Enhancement
Robert Sparrow is Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University. His current research interests include the ethics of human enhancement, multiculturalism, and new reproductive technologies, all subjects on which he has written extensively.
Notes
1. N. Agar, "Whereto Transhumanism? The Literature Reaches a Critical Mass," Hastings Center Report 37, no. 3 (2007): 12-7.
2. G. Stock, Redesigning Humans: Choosing Our Children's Genes (London: Profile Books, 2003); L.M. Silver, Remaking Eden: Cloning, Genetic Engineering and the Future of Human Kind (London: Phoenix, 1999); N. Bostrom, "Human Genetic Enhancements: A Transhumanist Perspective," The Journal of Value Inquiry 37, no. 4 (2003): 493-506; R.M. Green, Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 2007); J. Glover, Choosing Children: Genes, Disability, and Design (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); and N. Agar, Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).
3. Agar, Liberal Eugenics, 3-16; A. Buchanan, "Choosing Who Will Be Disabled: Genetic Intervention and the Morality of Inclusion," Social Philosophy and Policy 13, no. 1 (1996): 18-46, at 18-9; D. Wikler, "Can We Learn from Eugenics?" Journal of Medical Ethics 25, no. 2 (1999): 183-94.
4. J. Harris, Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007).
5. The cover illustration of the hardcopy edition of this book — a muscled male arm, dressed in what appears to be Superman's blue costume, with the rising sun behind it — suggests that Harris is not unduly concerned about the historical resonances of his philosophical programme.
6. J. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Reasons Not to Have Disabled Children," in The Sorting Society, eds. L. Skene and J. Thomson (Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); J. Savulescu, "In Defence of Procreative Beneficence," Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (2007): 284-8; J. Savulescu, "Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Enhancement of Human Beings," in The Oxford Handbook on Bioethics, ed. B. Steinbock (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2006), 516-35; J. Savulescu, "New Breeds of Humans: The Moral Obligation to Enhance," Ethics, Law and Moral Philosophy of Reproductive Biomedicine 1, no. 1 (2005): 36-9; J. Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children," Bioethics 15, no. 5 (2001): 413-26.
7. S. Grose, "Why We Should Cuddle Up to Designer Babies," Canberra Times, June 22, 2005; A. Denton, Enough Rope, Episode 187, September 29, 2008, ABC TV (Australia), transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s2374638.htm; M. Metherell, "Bring on the Super Humans," Sydney Morning Herald, June 9, 2005; J. Miles, "How Far Would You Go for the Perfect Baby? How Far Should Society Go in Allowing Genetic Manipulation to Produce Happier, Healthier and Physically Pleasing People?" Townsville Bulletin, June 18, 2005, 67; J. Maley, "We Could Radically Change the Nature of Human Beings (Interview with Professor Julian Savulescu)," The Sun Herald, August 10, 2008; "The Ideas Interview: Julian Savulescu," The Guardian, October 10, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/oct/10/genetics.research/print; J. Savulescu, National Australia Bank Address to National Press Club, June 8, 2005, Barton, Canberra, Australia, http://www.asmr.org.au/MRW/NPCTRSC05.pdf.
8. J. Harris, "The Survival Lottery," in Bioethics: An Anthology, second ed., eds. H. Kuhse and P. Singer (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2006); J. Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality: Ethics and the Genetic Revolution (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1998), 223-5; J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (London and New York: Routledge, 1985), 21-2; Savulescu, "Procreative Beneficence: Reasons Not to Have Disabled Children," 51-3. In a 2009 article that appeared after this paper was submitted for publication, Savulescu and Kahane admit that the principle of procreative beneficence is a "maximising" principle but deny that it need rest on consequentialist foundations or that it is incompatible with deontological or virtue ethical approaches to morality; J. Savulescu and G. Kahane "The Moral Obligation to Create Children with the Best Chance of the Best Life...
