Week 8

Sandel begins The Case Against Perfection with the assumption that some element of unpredictability is all it takes for a decision to feel moral. He is correct in identifying that the autonomy objection isn't a persuasive grounds to make arguments about the morality of genetic engineering. For Sandel the moral question is raised by the sense that genetic enhancement goes beyond what one could consider medical purposes, he appeals the reader to reflect on a moral tradition no longer employed by many individuals. Sandel's critique isn't rigorous, for instance when examining hypothetical therapies that would extend the memory span of the elderly he glosses over another remedial therapy, Viagra. The problem for Sandel is that the aspiration to better ourselves is a commitment to an unhealthy relationship with ourselves, one that threatens human dignity.

"To grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world- questions about the moral status of nature, and about the proper stance of human beings toward the given world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make them unavoidable." 

Sandel makes the same case as Alasdair MacIntyre does in After Virtue: that is, the lack of a classical moral tradition inhibits the ability for one to act morally and discuss morality in any meaningful way. Either argument on either side of the debate may be logically valid, 'the respective concepts they use are incommensurable, so there is no apparent rational way to decide in favor of one argument over the other.' Sandel argument can only be successful if it convinces the majority- currently, this seems unlikely given that the practice of philosophy is a marginalized vocation with no real influence upon society.
    Sandel continues in the second chapter:

"One aspect of our humanity that might be threatened by enhancement and genetic engineering is our capacity to act freely, for ourselves, by our own efforts, and to consider ourselves responsible - worthy of praise or blame - for the things we do and for the way we are." 

I feel strongly that the opposite is true- that technologies of enhancement and engineering are fundamentally ones of self expression. Sandel draws a correspondence of this freedom to self reliance, what exactly, "by our own efforts" means for Sandel is lost on this reader. For Sandel, enhancement decreases our admiration for achievement, but ironically it is responsible for engendering spectacle in the same cultures. Further, Sandel asserts that enhancement threatens human agency, because it is a 'wholly mechanistic understanding of human action at odds with human freedom and moral responsibility.' People don't look at those who rely on enhancements to function with the view that doing so diminishes their agency: the opposite is true.  Being able to compete at the professional level in sports is related to ones health and genetics, those who lack these or the time to train will not have the agency required to perform at the same level. To assume that the only virtue of a sport or physical activity is to compete relegates these activities to a spectacle, performed for the vast majority that don't have the required agency. Sandel is drawn to many stoic ideals:

"Let Nature deal with matter, which is her own, as she pleases; let us be cheerful and brave in the face of everything, reflecting that it is nothing of our own that perishes." - De Provid. v.8

"Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire." - Epictetus iv.1.175

Sandel expends a great amount of energy on the topic of physical enhancements in sports, which is a marginal issue when considering the question of physical enhancement in general.

"Parental love is not contingent on the talents and attributes the child happens to have."

Chapter three presents an argument against designer babies. First, Sandel assumes a normative ideal of parenthood- one not necessarily shared/practiced by the majority of cultures. As I alluded to in the first part of this blog post, for better or for worse emotivism is the context that moral discussions are had now. We can't even regulate tobacco or alcohol use during pregnancy, we can only stigmatize it. Sandel hasn't a chance to stigmatize designer babies to a degree sufficient to stymie the practice either internationally or domestically. It would be quixotic to engage Sandel's argument further, the rest of which is a ad hominem attack of genetic enhancement as the new eugenics.