Dissonance
This quarter I took a moral philosophy class called Contemporary Moral Issues, and we spent the quarter discussing health care, juvenile punishment, and genetic engineering. It’s crazy enough to make you want to give up. It goes far beyond the conservative/liberal debates against abortion, affirmative action, gun control, etc. It’s not a matter of scrutinizing the constitution or appealing to some precedent; we’re having to deal with the moral implications, in light of society’s severely skewed conception of morality. Particularly for genetic engineering*, scientific progress and technological advancements are moving faster than our moral understanding. One of the most difficult lines to draw, if such a line is even makes a difference, is the distinction between treatment and enhancement. Treatment technologies used to correct genetic defects prenatally detected could conceivably be used to enhance genetic makeup, allowing parents to choose gender and height, among other traits. Simply allowing treatments (such as those for reversing effects of cognitive deterioration from Alzheimer’s or muscular deterioration from old age) to be widely available and accessible to the public seems morally permissible, but the consequences seem to send humanity down a slippery slope of denouncing natural gifts and embracing superficial ones.
Can you come up with a legitimate reason as to why that might be a problem? I certainly couldn’t. I mean, we could argue that it just seems natural for us to want to appreciate what’s natural, right? But is that just a social value we’ve been conditioned to identify with? That what’s natural is good and what’s engineered or altered is bad? I mean, I know some people are cautious about “playing God”, but every time we take painkillers, get surgery, take antibiotics, get vaccinations, etc., we’re playing God all the same. So that doesn’t seem to rule out genetic engineering. And the socioeconomic gap it would create (or widen, I would say)? Well social inequities will result from any public good being left to the free market, but that’s no reason to reject genetic engineering; inequities can be fixed with proper redistribution and regulation.
One philosopher, Michael Sandel, appeals to the three elements he believes constitutes our moral landscape – responsibility, humility, and solidarity. He argues that by permitting genetic engineering technologies, we would be increasing human responsibility, in that life would no longer be seen as a gift and appreciated as such because parents would play a significant role in determining what their child is like. (But don’t parents already have that sort of power or influence? Parents send their kids to school, hire tutors, fuel their talents, help them reach their potential.) Furthermore, as our responsibility increases, our humility dwindles. We derive our humility from acknowledging the aspects of life that are beyond our control and humbling ourselves to accept the good with the bad. The more that enters our scope of control, the more that responsibility increases, and the more that humility decreases. And finally, we owe our sense of community, or solidarity, to humility. For those who contribute a great deal to social progress, they do it with the recognition that people’s advantages and disadvantages are largely due to chance, due to factors beyond their control. So with our advantages is a feeling of mutual indebtedness, because some people did not win the life, or genetic, lottery the way others did and we contribute to society, actively or passively, to balance it all out (we fight prejudices and compensate victims of natural mishaps).
Finally, an appeal to morality. This outlines the apprehension that we can’t quite explain. We feel morally conflicted in allowing genetic engineering but we can’t quite figure out why, right? Well, Sandel wants to reconcile those feelings for you. He suggests that humanity retains its “openness to the unbidden. It invites us to abide the unexpected, to live with dissonance, to rein in the impulse to control.” Openness to the unbidden, I get; leave life to chance so we can appreciate it more. But telling me to rein in the impulse to control? Control my impulse to control? I feel trapped…
Here’s where Ronald Dworkin comes in. While I completely agree with Sandel’s conception of morality, I don’t think that the solution should be to stop moving in that direction altogether. Dworkin argues that allowing genetic engineering and blurring the chance/choice distinction could potentially send us into a moral free-fall where morality would be irrelevant. The fear is not that genetic engineering is wrong, it is that we would completely lose sense of right and wrong. And while the idea of comprehensive genetic engineering, or even human cloning, seems highly unlikely to Dworkin, the public’s reaction against it may be an impediment to other sorts of genuine scientific or medical advancements. Therefore, the threat should be addressed. It is necessary to identify what constitutes our moral framework and allow them to guide our decisions. Dworkin’s understanding of morality is based on his principles of Ethical Individualism:
(1) Objective Importance:
- It is objectively important that human life, once begun, succeed rather than fail.
- It is objectively important that the potential of that life be realized rather than wasted.
- This is objectively important for each human life.
(2) Each person has a special responsibility to his/her own life., therefore a right to make fundamental decisions that would define, for him or herself, what a successful life would be.
We can’t keep ourselves from moving forward. All that would be gained from walking away from the moral challenges we’ve encountered is ignorance. The potential benefits of these scientific advancements far outweigh the reasons to prohibit them. but we can make a conscious effort to revise our moral framework and redefine our values. Instead of banning genetic engineering technologies, we should make reactive policies to fix the negative consequences. Resulting troublesome social trends should be met with increased regulation to restore balance. Basically, we just roll with the punches!
We play with fire and take the consequences, because the alternative is cowardice in the face of the unknown.
Dworkin’s right. We do what we do until we realize it’s not working. Then we fix it. It’s not our impulse to control, Sandel — it’s progress.
And that was my two cents! Honestly, this wasn’t even the most interesting topic of the quarter; it was just the only one I could actually wrap my mind around [hat tip to Dworkin].
I find something dangerous in the idea that we have to live up to our potential, for usually when I hear, the words, “you are not living up to your potential” it is because I am thought, by another, to be wasting it, my potential, my “God” given gifts, my “natural” talents. Why should another lay claim to what they can not develop without me? Why should society lay claim to me and use me in ways they think are to my advantage or to their advantage. Today more than ever legitimate authority is the most ridiculous thought, because the only thing that authorizes us, to do what we do, is us. We are our own authority. Ok. And yet if we are to define what we think is success (as you state, Dworkin’s states), then there is no need to develop anything we do not wish to develop… so, why not enact the rule of least harm or to do no harm? Furthermore, just because you can do something do not me you should or have to. True, laws or rule, whatever have you, cannot stop people from doing what they are doing, this is a feeble attempt at control. Perhaps education, and empathy which we naturally have before school teaches us to be competing agents, who look to another when deciding what we should intervene with. There are studies that show that 6yr-olds know that when some is getting beaten up, that they should intervene, but the older the child get the more they look to peers and authorities to see whether they should involve themselves, this is where we start to rationalize away that which we feel and know is wrong. Furthermore, when is the last time the law stopped a murder from occurring? And yet war is not murder? Weird, right? It is but we chose to define it differently, we choose to rationalize away what we know to be true, for another truth, one that allows us to do, that which we already were planning to do, or have done. Your say, ” We play with fire and take the consequences, because the alternative is cowardice in the face of the unknown. Dworkin’s right. We do what we do until we realize it’s not working. Then we fix it. It’s not our impulse to control, Sandel — it’s progress.” Somethings cannot be fixed! Somethings are irreversible. And if you agree with this, then progress, which brings with it new problems, can not be seen as a mere solution, but a change that is only different and not necessarily better. Have you ever read Mary Schelling’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus? How about Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt? Any way, that is my “2 cents.”