Influencing Traits Before Birth

Shaun D. Pattinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351738941
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

This title was first published in 2002.In this informative and captivating book the author presents a moral critique of the laws governing the creation of designer babies. Alan Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency is used as the starting point for developing a framework, which is then used to critique the legal position in the EU countries (with particular reference to the UK), Canada and the USA. The conclusion the author reaches is that a proper moral response to the issues covered must take account of specified prima facie presumptions, to be applied by legitimately appointed regulatory bodies. The text assesses the adequacy of existing regulatory responses by reference to these presumptions. Also containing detailed appendices summarizing the legal position with regard to abortion and prenatal diagnosis, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, in vitro embryo research, cloning, and germ-line gene therapy in the countries mentioned above, this volume is an indispensable resource for both students and scholars with a keen interest in this highly contested field.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Few can avoid feeling sympathy for a child with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. Boys with this genetic condition are often mentally disabled and suffer extreme pain similar to that associated with gout. What is more disturbing is that its victims compulsively self-mutilate—often chewing off their lips, biting off their finger tips, or gouging out their eyes.¹ This condition surely invites our sympathy. It also raises difficult ethical (and regulatory) questions. Would it be wrong to use genetic technology to remove this condition from an unborn child? Would it be wrong to discard unimplanted embryos carrying the genetic mutation associated with this condition? Would it be wrong to abort a fetus if it carried this gene? Indeed, would it be wrong to test for it? If all a potential mother’s eggs carried this genetic mutation, would it be wrong for her to use a cloning technique to avoid it? If the mother could avoid the effects of this genetic mutation by taking certain drugs when pregnant, would she be doing wrong if she did?

At present, many of these questions are purely hypothetical,² but science does not stand still. It is now possible to test for numerous genetic conditions before birth or, where fertilisation takes place outside of the body, before implantation into the womb. It is, in theory, possible to create a genetically identical copy of a living human being. It might one day be possible to genetically modify an embryo either before it is implanted or as it develops in the womb. It might even become possible to influence the gestating child by changing the environment in the womb³ or by creating an artificial womb.

The techniques that I am alluding to are those offering prospective parents opportunities to design their babies or, more accurately, to influence their traits before they are born. This book is concerned with the regulation of these techniques, which for convenience I will call the “techniques of prenatal influence.”⁴ My task is to probe the moral legitimacy of parental desires in the context of attempts to regulate the techniques offering the potential to fulfil them—the techniques of prenatal influence.

1.1 Moral Questions

Before we can begin a moral critique of any sort we need a definition of morality. More precisely, we need to distinguish the moral from the non-moral.

The definition used in this book is multifaceted. I use the word “morality” (and related terms) to refer to prescriptive imperatives (requirements purporting to be action guiding and addressed at others) that are categorical (unconditionally binding irrespective of one’s inclinations or desires and taking precedence over all other imperatives), and other-regarding (requiring one to take account of the interests of persons other than oneself).

The purpose of this stipulation is not to legislate on linguistic usage or to establish any substantive conclusion, but to aid expression and communication. Nothing but brevity would be lost if the word “moral” was replaced by a phrase such as “categorical other-regarding imperative” or an elaborate list of its defining components.

Possessing a definition of morality⁵ we can now address what one theorist terms the three central questions of moral philosophy,

First, the authoritative question: Why should one be moral…?… Second, the distributive question: Whose interests other than his own should the agent favorably consider in action? … Third,… the substantive question: Of which interests should favorable account be taken? (Gewirth 1978, 3)

The “authoritative” question requests a rationally adequate justification for the claim that there are moral (as opposed to non-moral) requirements on action. The “distributive” question asks what the objects of moral concern are. It asks to whom or what we owe moral duties. The “substantive” question asks which interests (of those we have duties to) we are required to take account of.

These questions are interrelated, so that answering one goes a long way towards answering the other two. The next section will start with the authoritative question. The chapter will then go on to address less stringent ways of justifying one particular criterion of moral permissibility (in 1.3 below).

Thus, this chapter briefly presents a number of ways of justifying a particular criterion of moral permissibility. This criterion purports to be moral in the sense defined above (i.e., it is a categorical other-regarding imperative). It is a criterion of moral rights where the holders of the rights and the bearers of the correlative duties are agents, i.e., beings who have the ability to reflect on their chosen purposes. These rights are rights to the necessary conditions of pursuing purposes at all or with general chances of success.

1.2 The Dialectically Necessary Argument for Morality

The authoritative question is one of the most controversial in philosophy. Justifying morality is certainly made no easier by the definition of morality adopted above.

The moral theory on which I wish to rest my argument runs against the current trend of modern philosophy by claiming to establish a supreme principle of morality without reliance on any form of moral intuition, consensus, or contingency. Such talk of a “supreme principle of morality” certainly fits uneasily with widely accepted beliefs and the main body of moral philosophy. Nonetheless, this particular moral theory seeks to establish an imperative that is uniformly obligatory for all those capable of understanding its prescriptions. This is the moral theory of Alan Gewirth.

In his seminal book, Reason and Morality (1978), Gewirth argues that the supreme principle of morality is the Principle of Generic Consistency (hereafter the PGC). Gewirth’s theory draws out the self-reflective implications of being an agent, where an agent is a being that has the ability to pursue chosen purposes. Of course, contingencies such as lack of resolve or resources might hinder an agent’s ability to successfully achieve its purposes, but to be an agent it must have the capacity to pursue its purposes. This capacity need not be readily perceptible to others; a purely mental action (such as pondering a mathematical problem) can be just as much a purpose as a physical action (such as walking to the post office). This latter point is relevant to the determination of who, other than oneself, is an agent, which will be discussed in the next chapter.⁶

The most insightful aspect of Gewirth’s argument is its methodology. It adopts what Gewirth terms the “dialectically necessary method.” It is “dialectical” because it is conducted in the form of an internal dialogue, beginning with claims that are made within this first-person perspective. It is “necessary” because all the steps of the argument follow logically (hence necessarily) from premises that cannot be coherently rejected within this perspective.⁷

Thus, Gewirth argues from the claim of an agent to be an agent within the first-person perspective of that agent. The argument is easier to absorb if divided into three stages. The first stage, seeks to establish that an agent must attach necessary instrumental value to its having those conditions that are necessary for it to act at all or with general chances of success (i.e., the generic features of agency). The second stage, seeks to show that this commits the agent to claiming rights to the generic features (i.e., the generic rights). The third stage of the argument, seeks to establish that an agent must accept that all agents have the generic rights (i.e., Gewirth’s supreme principle of morality). I will present this argument first in skeletal form, before explaining in more detail how each step is derived.

It should be kept in mind that this book is primarily concerned with the application of the PGC (or any equivalent moral principle), rather than its defence.

1.2.1 Skeletal Outline of the Argument to the PGC⁸

Stage I

In claiming to be an agent I must (by definition) accept that

(1) “I act (or intend to act) for a purpose that I have freely chosen,”

which entails

(2) “My purpose is good.”

Since

(3) “There are generic features of agency,”

I must accept

(4) “My having the generic features is good for my achieving my purpose whatever that purpose is.” That is, “My having the generic features is (categorically instrumentally) good.”

Stage II

This entails,

(5) “I (categorically instrumentally) ought to pursue my having the generic features,”

which entails

(6) “Other agents categorically ought not to interfere with my having the generic features against my will, and ought to aid me to secure them when I cannot do so by my own unaided efforts if I so wish,”

which is to say,

(7) “I have both negative and positive rights to have the generic features.” In short, “I have the generic rights.”

Stage III

This entails (as can be shown by reductio ad absurdum),

(8) “I have the generic rights because I am an agent” which, by the logical principle of universalisability, entails

(9) “Every agent has the generic rights because it is an agent.” In short,

“All other agents have the generic rights.”

Thus,

(10) “All agents have the generic rights.” Thus, by the logical principle of universalisability,

(11) It is dialectically necessary for every agent to accept that all agents have the generic rights. This statement is referred to as the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC).

1.2.2 The Argument to the PGC Explained

Since an agent is, by definition, a being that has the capacity to act for freely⁹ chosen purposes, it must perceive any purpose that it pursues (or intends to pursue) as “good,” in the sense of worth pursuing. This is simply because it is analytically true that a being who acts (or intends to act) for a freely chosen purpose must attach sufficient value to its purpose to motivate it to pursue that purpose, i.e., it must proactively value its purpose.

Since an agent must proactively value its purpose, it must attach at least instrumental value to anything that is necessary for it to achieve that purpose. This follows from the agent reasoning according to principles that it must accept in order to be an agent. These include the principle that those freely pursuing an end must be prepared to pursue the means necessary for achieving that end. Thus, an agent must (if it is to avoid self-contradiction) attach at least instrumental value to those conditions that are necessary for it to act at all or with general chances of success. These conditions for sake of brevity are collectively referred to as the “generic features of agency.”

If the agent is to avoid denying what has just been established—that it must attach (categorical instrumental proactive) value to its having the generic features—it must claim that it (categorically instrumentally) ought to pursue and defend its possession of the generic features.

Since an agent needs to have the generic features in order to pursue and defend its possession of the generic features, an agent must be against interference with its possession of the generic features against its will. For the same reason, an agent must also be in favour of others helping it to secure possession of the generic features, when it wishes to have such help and is unable to secure them without help. Thus, the agent must claim that other agents categorically ought not to interfere with its having the generic features against its will, and ought to aid it to secure them when it cannot do so by its own unaided efforts, if it so wishes.

This claim can be rephrased in terms of claim-rights as interpreted by the will/choice theory of rights.¹⁰ Thus, it is dialectically necessary for an agent to claim that it has negative and positive rights to have the generic features. Collectively these rights can be referred to as the “generic rights.” The specific content of which will be analysed in the next chapter.

So far, it has been shown that it is dialectically necessary for an agent to claim the generic rights for itself. At this point the argument is not other-regarding, i.e. it does not require the agent to take into account the interests of other agents. The next step then is to move from this self-regarding (albeit other-referring) claim to an other-regarding claim.

To do this Gewirth looks towards the “logical principle of universalisability,” which he states as

if some predicate P belongs to some subject S because S has the property Q (where the ‘because’ is that of sufficient reason or condition), then P must also belong to all other subjects S₁, S₂ …, S_n that have Q. If one denies this implication in the case of some subject, such as S₁, that has Q, then one contradicts oneself. For in saying that P belongs to S because S has Q, one is saying that having Q is a sufficient condition of having P; but in denying this in the case of S₁, one is saying that having Q is not a sufficient condition of having P. (Gewirth 1978, 105)

This principle is purely logical. Properly regarded it is no more than an explanation of what the word “because” means when it is used to import the concept of sufficient reason. All it claims is that if having Q is a sufficient reason for the claim that the subject S has P, then any subject (Sn) that has property Q will also have P.

However, before Gewirth can apply the principle of universalisability he must first establish that an agent must regard the fact that it is an agent as the sufficient reason for its claim that it has th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Moral Status: The Objects of Moral Concern
• Chapter 3 Prenatal Influence of Traits: Questioning the Present, Possible, and Probable
• Chapter 4 Regulation of Genetic and Reproductive Techniques I: Prenatal Genetic Testing and Embryo-Fetal Research1
• Chapter 5 Regulation of Genetic and Reproductive Techniques II: Cloning and Prenatal Gene Therapy1
• Chapter 6 Prenatal Influence of Traits: Legitimate Goal?
• Chapter 7 Conclusion
• Appendix 1 The Legality of Prenatal Diagnosis (PND) and Abortion
• Appendix 2 The Legality of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)
• Appendix 3 The Legality of In Vitro Embryo Research
• Appendix 4 The Legality of Cloning
• Appendix 5 The Legality of Germ-line Gene Therapy
• Bibliography
• Person Index
• Subject Index