I feel that this project would be unethical to undertake, and I will try to explain why I get that reading.
It’s not that I think using genetic engineering on children is categorically wrong. Mutations occur in every new human, and adding in some that seem likely to come in handy later is something one can make an argument for. A person’s genome is the toolbox their body has to deal with the world, and it might be right to stock it with more tools.
But I think it is wrong to instrumentalize children in this way. If you go through many rounds of editing, each creating something you could have grown up into a child but didn’t, then hollow out another thing you could have grown up into a child but didn’t and put your preferred potential child in its shell, and then grow up that child, you end up with a child whose purpose is to fulfill the parameters of their human designers. And in service of this purpose a lot of obviously valuable stuff has already been sacreficed. It is wrong to put anyone in such a position, let alone one’s own child. The tremendous effort involved in trying to fit the child to the design parameters betrays a lack of belief in the child’s inherent value as themselves, and they will be able to tell. The heavy hand of their designers will hang over them their whole life as they decide, say, whether to pursue graduate school, or whether they really prefer to be an actor, or a bicycle mechanic. Like an overbearing parent in every cell.
And that’s assuming you did a good job, and they ended up with a mind shaped mostly in the way you imagine, after you grabbed it and stretched it out along one axis in high-dimensional mind space.
And the framing here, that “superbabies” is a category of people who would be generally better to have around, is incompatible with the value of equality. Yes, it’s a better experience for you if your genetics set you up for success in the environment you find yourself in. Yes, I wish I lived on a planet with more effective people than my current conspecifics.
But no “super” people can exist in an ethical system where people are of equal intrinsic worth. A superbaby and a regular baby are both worth unity. For that matter, a hearing baby and a Deaf baby are both worth unity. Confering a genetic immunity to HIV on a child might help them out, but it does not, for example, license them to win the trolly problem. A person with HIV and a person without are both worth unity. These are fundamental results in disability studies. People who act otherwise pose an obvious danger to obvious constituencies, ranging from “people who may break their spine” to “people who wear glasses”.
For required sci fi reading on this topic, I would recommend Meru by S.B. Divya. It’s written to explore the principle that there are no bad genes, only genes badly adapted to their environments, and our heroine is an aspiring apprentice baby designer with sickle cell. While it’s a challenging position to take, I’m not sure it’s a bad guiding principle for somebody made of genes.
I think many people in academia more or less share your viewpoint.
Obviously genetic engineering does add SOME additional risk of people coming to see human children like commodities, but in my view it’s massively outweighed by the potential benefits.
you end up with a child whose purpose is to fulfill the parameters of their human designers
I think whether or not people (and especially parents) view their children this way depends much more on cultural values and much less on technology.
There are already some parents who have very specific goals in mind for their children and work obsessively to realize them. This doesn’t always work that well, and I’m not sure it will work that well even with genetic engineering.
Sure we will EVENTUALLY be able to shape personality better with gene editing (though I would note we don’t really have the ability to do so currently), but human beings are very complicated. Gene editing is a fairly crude tool for shaping human behavior. You can twist the knobs for dozens of human traits, but I think anyone trying to predetermine their child’s future is going to be disappointed.
The tremendous effort involved in trying to fit the child to the design parameters betrays a lack of belief in the child’s inherent value as themselves, and they will be able to tell.
The thing about this argument is you could easily apply it to other interventions like medicines or education. “The tremendous effort involved in trying to fit the child to the design parameters through tutoring and a specialized education program betrays a lack of belief in the child’s inherent value as themselves, and they will be able to tell.”
Does working hard to give your child the best shot of a healthy, happy and productive life show a lack of true affection for them? I think it shows the exact opposite; you loved them so much that you were willing to go to extra lengths to give them the best life you could. I think this is no different than parents moving to America to give their child a chance at economic opportunity, or parents working extra shifts to send their children to a better school.
But no “super” people can exist in an ethical system where people are of equal intrinsic worth.
The term “super” is not a description of the relative moral worth of these future children. It is a description of their capabilities and prospects for a healthy life.
Good genes enable human productivity and happiness. They don’t determine moral worth. That exists independent of ability.
Confering a genetic immunity to HIV on a child might help them out, but it does not, for example, license them to win the trolly problem.
Agreed. I don’t get the sense we have any disagreement about the moral worth of people being tied to their genetics.
It’s written to explore the principle that there are no bad genes, only genes badly adapted to their environments, and our heroine is an aspiring apprentice baby designer with sickle cell. While it’s a challenging position to take, I’m not sure it’s a bad guiding principle for somebody made of genes.
I think we need to separate judgment of genes from judgment of the people who have them. You are not your genes. Sure they shape you and influence your experience of the world, but I think a lot of these kinds of books make the mistake of starting with the mistaken premise that our worth IS determined by our genes, and then ask how we can still be equal.
I think the premise is just wrong. It’s like saying that you are your trauma, or you are your leg injury. People are much deeper than their experiences or their predispositions, even if all those things have a strong influence on their behavior.
A person with HIV and a person without are both worth unity. These are fundamental results in disability studies.
Where are these studies that have results which are object-level ethical claims…? This seems not just improbable, but outright incoherent. Do you have any links to studies like this?
I think a pretty core lesson from this concern is that communication to parents is very important. Parents should understand:
What the traits do and don’t mean that they are selecting for, including plausible consequences.
What uncertainties exist in the PGSes that are being used (generally lots of uncertainty), e.g. are they accidentally tracking something else as well, or might they perform less well than expected.
How much variation is still being left up to chance or environment; pointing out important things that aren’t being tracked.
That overall the methods will have uncertain outcomes.
How to raise kids well regardless of their genomic foundation (i.e. cultural tech for parenting so your kids flourish).
That, at least in the scheme of genetic variation, the nudges applied by germline genomic engineering are a drop in the bucket.
And the framing here, that “superbabies” is a category of people who would be generally better to have around, is incompatible with the value of equality.
I agree with this and commented this on a draft. It’s not a good way of thinking of germline engineered kids, and inaccurately implies there’s some gradation and some single direction of desirability or superiority.
But no “super” people can exist in an ethical system where people are of equal intrinsic worth. A superbaby and a regular baby are both worth unity.
All this said though.… I think you’re going really wrong here. The benefits are just enormous. And while I hold the positions above, I don’t think they can justify you imposing on me and my child the requirement to have a chance to be deaf or HIV or sickle cell.
I feel that this project would be unethical to undertake, and I will try to explain why I get that reading.
It’s not that I think using genetic engineering on children is categorically wrong. Mutations occur in every new human, and adding in some that seem likely to come in handy later is something one can make an argument for. A person’s genome is the toolbox their body has to deal with the world, and it might be right to stock it with more tools.
But I think it is wrong to instrumentalize children in this way. If you go through many rounds of editing, each creating something you could have grown up into a child but didn’t, then hollow out another thing you could have grown up into a child but didn’t and put your preferred potential child in its shell, and then grow up that child, you end up with a child whose purpose is to fulfill the parameters of their human designers. And in service of this purpose a lot of obviously valuable stuff has already been sacreficed. It is wrong to put anyone in such a position, let alone one’s own child. The tremendous effort involved in trying to fit the child to the design parameters betrays a lack of belief in the child’s inherent value as themselves, and they will be able to tell. The heavy hand of their designers will hang over them their whole life as they decide, say, whether to pursue graduate school, or whether they really prefer to be an actor, or a bicycle mechanic. Like an overbearing parent in every cell.
And that’s assuming you did a good job, and they ended up with a mind shaped mostly in the way you imagine, after you grabbed it and stretched it out along one axis in high-dimensional mind space.
And the framing here, that “superbabies” is a category of people who would be generally better to have around, is incompatible with the value of equality. Yes, it’s a better experience for you if your genetics set you up for success in the environment you find yourself in. Yes, I wish I lived on a planet with more effective people than my current conspecifics.
But no “super” people can exist in an ethical system where people are of equal intrinsic worth. A superbaby and a regular baby are both worth unity. For that matter, a hearing baby and a Deaf baby are both worth unity. Confering a genetic immunity to HIV on a child might help them out, but it does not, for example, license them to win the trolly problem. A person with HIV and a person without are both worth unity. These are fundamental results in disability studies. People who act otherwise pose an obvious danger to obvious constituencies, ranging from “people who may break their spine” to “people who wear glasses”.
For required sci fi reading on this topic, I would recommend Meru by S.B. Divya. It’s written to explore the principle that there are no bad genes, only genes badly adapted to their environments, and our heroine is an aspiring apprentice baby designer with sickle cell. While it’s a challenging position to take, I’m not sure it’s a bad guiding principle for somebody made of genes.
I think many people in academia more or less share your viewpoint.
Obviously genetic engineering does add SOME additional risk of people coming to see human children like commodities, but in my view it’s massively outweighed by the potential benefits.
I think whether or not people (and especially parents) view their children this way depends much more on cultural values and much less on technology.
There are already some parents who have very specific goals in mind for their children and work obsessively to realize them. This doesn’t always work that well, and I’m not sure it will work that well even with genetic engineering.
Sure we will EVENTUALLY be able to shape personality better with gene editing (though I would note we don’t really have the ability to do so currently), but human beings are very complicated. Gene editing is a fairly crude tool for shaping human behavior. You can twist the knobs for dozens of human traits, but I think anyone trying to predetermine their child’s future is going to be disappointed.
The thing about this argument is you could easily apply it to other interventions like medicines or education. “The tremendous effort involved in trying to fit the child to the design parameters through tutoring and a specialized education program betrays a lack of belief in the child’s inherent value as themselves, and they will be able to tell.”
Does working hard to give your child the best shot of a healthy, happy and productive life show a lack of true affection for them? I think it shows the exact opposite; you loved them so much that you were willing to go to extra lengths to give them the best life you could. I think this is no different than parents moving to America to give their child a chance at economic opportunity, or parents working extra shifts to send their children to a better school.
The term “super” is not a description of the relative moral worth of these future children. It is a description of their capabilities and prospects for a healthy life.
Good genes enable human productivity and happiness. They don’t determine moral worth. That exists independent of ability.
Agreed. I don’t get the sense we have any disagreement about the moral worth of people being tied to their genetics.
I think we need to separate judgment of genes from judgment of the people who have them. You are not your genes. Sure they shape you and influence your experience of the world, but I think a lot of these kinds of books make the mistake of starting with the mistaken premise that our worth IS determined by our genes, and then ask how we can still be equal.
I think the premise is just wrong. It’s like saying that you are your trauma, or you are your leg injury. People are much deeper than their experiences or their predispositions, even if all those things have a strong influence on their behavior.
Where are these studies that have results which are object-level ethical claims…? This seems not just improbable, but outright incoherent. Do you have any links to studies like this?
I agree with this as a significant thing to keep in mind, and have written about it here: https://berkeleygenomics.org/articles/Potential_perils_of_germline_genomic_engineering.html#objectification
I think a pretty core lesson from this concern is that communication to parents is very important. Parents should understand:
What the traits do and don’t mean that they are selecting for, including plausible consequences.
What uncertainties exist in the PGSes that are being used (generally lots of uncertainty), e.g. are they accidentally tracking something else as well, or might they perform less well than expected.
How much variation is still being left up to chance or environment; pointing out important things that aren’t being tracked.
That overall the methods will have uncertain outcomes.
How to raise kids well regardless of their genomic foundation (i.e. cultural tech for parenting so your kids flourish).
That, at least in the scheme of genetic variation, the nudges applied by germline genomic engineering are a drop in the bucket.
I agree with this and commented this on a draft. It’s not a good way of thinking of germline engineered kids, and inaccurately implies there’s some gradation and some single direction of desirability or superiority.
I agree with this and agree it’s pretty crucial, and possibly threatened by germline engineering, and possibly threatened by thinking of them as “super”. I’ve written about this a bit here: https://berkeleygenomics.org/articles/Potential_perils_of_germline_genomic_engineering.html#loss-of-human-dignity
Right, also true. And we (society) should be oriented around not abandoning people who become less typical because of germline engineering. https://berkeleygenomics.org/articles/Potential_perils_of_germline_genomic_engineering.html#centrifugal-force-on-marginalized-people https://berkeleygenomics.org/articles/Potential_perils_of_germline_genomic_engineering.html#erasure-of-some-kinds-of-people
Also, I think that, although some may find it immoral, and clearly it has substantial negative first-order consequences, deaf people should be allowed to choose for their children to be deaf. This falls under propagative liberty (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DfrSZaf3JC8vJdbZL/how-to-make-superbabies?commentId=ZeranH3yDBGWNxZ7h).
All this said though.… I think you’re going really wrong here. The benefits are just enormous. And while I hold the positions above, I don’t think they can justify you imposing on me and my child the requirement to have a chance to be deaf or HIV or sickle cell.
Not providing a child with the ability to think as deeply and as far as possible is also unethical.