Rationality and the genetic challenge : making people better? / Matti Häyry.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-260) and index.

Should we make people healthier, smarter, and longer-lived if genetic and medical advances enable us to do so? The author asks this question in the context of genetic testing and selection, cloning and stem cell research, gene therapies and enhancements. The ethical questions explored include parental responsibility, the use of people as means, the role of hope and fear in risk assessment, and the dignity and meaning of life. Taking as a starting point the arguments presented by Jonathan Glover, John Harris, Ronald M. Green, Jürgen Habermas, Michael J. Sandel, and Leon R. Kass, who defend a particular normative view as the only rational or moral answer, the author argues that many coherent rationalities and moralities exist in the field, and that to claim otherwise is mistaken. Features include: The book introduces only one main ethical consideration with the introduction of a new scientific or medical practice, allowing the reader to gain a thorough picture of the practice and of the nuances of the ethical argument; Each chapter begins with a one-sentence summary of its contents, giving the reader an orientation to the text ahead; Summaries bring all the ethical considerations together, helping the reader see what has been claimed in the book and how these claims have been supported; Separate introductions for genetic practices and philosophical considerations help the reader keep the different dimensions analytically separated. -- Provided by publisher.

1. Seven ways of making people better : The genetic challenge ; The best babies ; Deaf embryos ; Saviour siblings ; Reproductive cloning ; Enbryonic stem cells ; Gene therapies ; Considerable life extension ; The questions -- 2. Rational approaches to the genetic challenge : Six authors, three approaches ; Rational tangibility: Glover and Harris ; Moral transcendence: Kass and Sandel ; Everybody's acceptance: Habermas and Green ; Why none of the approaches is the one ; A nonconfrontational notion of rationality ; Equilibria, equipoises, and polite bystanders ; Plan for the rest of the book -- 3. The best babies and parental responsibility : From infanticide to embryo selection and beyond ; Parental responsibility as seen by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Mill ; Disregard and givenness ; Knowledge and moderation ; Procreative beneficence as a duty ; Arithmetical rationality ; Assumed parental roles ; Moral limits ; Parental rationalities -- 4. Deaf embryos, morality, and the law : Deafness as a test case ; Techniques and their uses ; Case, options, and stands ; Moral case for the 'medical view' ; Moral case for the 'social view' ; Case for legal permissiveness ; The instability of the situation ; Moral case for the 'medical view' reconsidered ; Moral case for the 'social view' reconsidered ; Towards a nondirective compromise ; The nondirective compromise ; Contested rationalities -- 5. Saviour siblings and treating people as a means : Facts and regulations ; The logic of the case ; What could justify invasive procedures? ; Why would noninvasive procedures be a problem? ; Rational consent and genetic privacy ; Means, mere means, and outcomes ; Means, individuals, and values ; Green's three readings of Kant ; Ends and means: two different principles? ; Saving rationalities.

6. Reproductive cloning and designing human beings : An almost universal condemnation ; Distinctions and politics ; The case for cautious progress ; Arguments for the absolute prohibition ; Lack of limits and defective individuals ; Asexual reproduction and distorted families ; Project of mastery and misshapen communities ; Loss of mystery and perverted societies ; Forsaken self-understanding and a confused species ; Design for a transhuman world ; Cloning rationalities -- 7. Embryonic stem cells, vulnerability, and sanctity : What, why, and how regulated? ; Alternatives and conjectures ; Connections with ethical challenges ; Would women be unnecessarily used? ; Would women be unfairly used? ; Would women be wrongfully used? ; The destruction of embryos is always wrong ; The destruction of embryos is never wrong ; The destruction of embryos is sometimes wrong ; Embryonic rationalities -- 8. Gene therapies, hopes, and fears : Trials and errors ; Somatic and germ-line interventions ; Therapies and enhancements ; Construing benefits and harms ; Defining values ; Technological optimism and pessimism ; Technological determinism and voluntarism ; Precaution, fear, and hope ; Therapeutic rationalities -- 9. Considerable life extension and the meaning of life : Mortality and ageing ; Towards considerable longevity ; Identity beyond considerable longevity ; How morality benefits individuals ; How freedom to choose benefits individuals ; From individual immortality to social transcendence ; Natural morality and the meaning of life ; Immortal rationalities -- 10. Taking the genetic challenge rationally : From challenges to solutions ; Basic tenets and their interpretations ; Arguments that cut both ways ; Arguments for and against ; What is required of a complete case? ; Measuring the challenge ; Sensing the challenge ; Negotiating the challenge ; The methods of genethics ; Taking the genetic challenge nonconfrontationally.

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