In this short
book, Habermas, one of the world’s most eminent philosophers, turns his
attention to the question of the permissibility of the genetic engineering of
human beings. He is concerned with whether societies have the right stringently
to regulate genetic engineering, or whether it ought to be left to individual
choice and (therefore) to the market. Habermas, along with many other people,
believes that genetic engineering ought to be regulated, with only those
interventions that prevent very serious congenital defects allowed. But he is
also a liberal, of sorts, who denies that people have the right to impose their
comprehensive worldviews upon each other. Reconciling these two positions is
his project here.

Habermas
distinguishes between what he calls morality, which is the ‘thin’ system of
rules which regulates everyone’s interactions with one another, and ethics,
which is the comprehensive worldview and notion of the good which individuals
might accept (whether this is a theological view, metaphysical liberalism,
Aristotelianism, or whatever). Morality is universal, and therefore rightly
enforced by the state. But ethics is personal, and the state must be neutral
between rival ethical worldviews.

Presumably, though
Habermas doesn’t say, morality is based upon the harm principle dear to
liberals: we are free to act (more or less) as we please, so long as we do not
harm one another. This leaves Habermas with a problem, since it is far from
clear that the genetic engineering he finds objectionable, such as the genetic
enhancement of children by their parents, inflicts harm upon others. He solves
this problem by suggesting that there is what he calls ‘a species ethics’, the
ethical self-understanding of all rational beings just in so far as they are
language-using agents. It is the species ethics that is under threat from
biotechnology.

Though the
development this idea receives here is idiosyncratic, reflecting Habermas’s
intellectual background, the basic position will be familiar to many
English-speaking readers who have followed the debates concerning biotechnology
in the United States and the United Kingdom. Essentially, the idea is that
‘human dignity’, which is the quality in virtue of which we are each entitled
to equal treatment, is threatened when human life becomes an artifact, rather
than the product of natural processes. When we intervene into the development
of a foetus to prevent extremely serious disabilities, we can assume the future
person’s consent, since no one can rationally withhold consent for the
treatment of disabilities that render life extremely short and painful. Since
we rightly assume consent, when we intervene in this manner, we treat the
potential human being as future person, a participant in ongoing dialogue. But
we cannot assume consent when we enhance a genome, since it is quite rational
to reject enhancements. Thus, when we engage in genetic enhancements, we treat
the foetus, and the future person, as a mere object.

As the enhanced
person grows up, she will regard herself as in part someone else’s project. Her
individuality and her freedom will be diminished by the fact that her abilities
have been chosen for her by others. She shares the authorship of her life with
others. Thus, genetic enhancement threatens the fundamental relations of human
beings with one another, and for that reason the state ought to prevent it.

This kind of
argument seems open to the accusation that it based on a fundamental misunderstanding
of the role of the genome in shaping organisms. Though Habermas uses the phrase
‘genetic programming’ throughout this work, the genome is not a program. It is
a developmental resource, one among many. It shapes the organism, but only in
concert with the other resources, and the environment. The resulting phenotype
is the result of the interaction of many factors, among them the genome. For
this reason, it seems misguided to focus on the genome. Parents shape their
offspring in many ways already, most of them unavoidable. They impart
worldviews, aspirations, and, to a large extent, character. Why object to
genetic intervention, when it is no more powerful than these socializing
forces? Habermas is aware of this objection, and denies that it is appropriate.
But his arguments against it are confused. He holds, first, that we are free to
revise or reject our socialization, but not our genetic enhancement, since the
former is less profound than the latter. But this is false. Socialization quite
literally shapes the brain of the growing infant. Second, Habermas argues that
whether or not genetic enhancement actually is more powerful and constraining
than socialization, it is pernicious because socialization is addressed to a
second person, whereas enhancement treats the embryo as an object. But this
seems doubly false. It is false, first of all, that treating an embryo as an
object leads to treating the resulting person as an object, or that the person
who was so treated must inevitably feel demeaned by it, and it is false,
secondly, that socialization is addressed toward a second person. It begins
from birth, and it is inevitably imposed upon an uncomprehending infant.

It might
nevertheless be that certain kinds of intervention are objectionable (assuming that
they will ever be technological possibilities). Those interventions that
constrain the child’s life plan, by fitting her only for certain careers or
ways of life, might infringe her right to an open future. This view also faces
an objection from current social practices: we currently allow parents to, say,
impose a regime of intensive tennis practice upon their very young children, a
regime designed to produce professional tennis players, but which is certain to
leave the child ill-equipped to do anything else. Here, Habermas bites the
bullet: if genetic interventions are objectionable because they infringe the
right to an open future, then so are these practices.

This kind of
constraining intervention aside, however, Habermas gives us no — coherent —
reason to reject genetic enhancement. It is not even true that we can
distinguish between prevention and enhancement on the basis of assumed consent,
since it seems as rational to consent to enhancement of all-purpose capacities
— intelligence, memory, strength, and the like — as it does to consent to the
prevention of disabilities (Habermas does address this point, but he does so
unconvincingly). Habermas is to be credited with offering arguments for his
anti-engineering stance, where so many others have offered nothing more than
appeal to sentiment. Nevertheless, this latest attempt to articulate the
widely-felt revulsion at the genetic engineering of human beings does little to
advance the question.

© 2003 Neil Levy

Dr Neil
Levy is a fellow of the Centre
for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Charles
Sturt University, Australia. He is the author of two mongraphs and over a
dozen articles and book chapters on Continental philosophy, ethics and
political philosophy. He is currently writing a book on moral relativism.

Categories: Ethics, Genetics, Philosophical