liberal eugenics & human nature : against habermas

H A S T I N G S C E N T E R R E P O R T 35November-December 2006

The view now often dubbed “liberal eugenics”holds that people should be able to choosegenetic enhancements for their offspring,

should these become safely available. This view is op-posed by what I will call the “human nature” objec-tion to genetic technology. This objection holds thathuman nature, or “what it is to be human,” is defin-able and natural (that is, has not been tampered orinterfered with, by, say, human technology). Thehuman nature objection also assumes that a clear linecan be drawn between what is natural and what isunnatural, and that this line marks a moral differ-

ence: whatever is unnatural is wrong, or at leastmorally suspect, and whatever is natural is morallyvaluable, perhaps intrinsically valuable. From this as-sumption comes the claim that human nature isfixed, to the extent that it should not be improvedupon.

Proponents of this objection, such as JürgenHabermas, George Annas, and Francis Fukuyama,conclude that genetic technology is intrinsicallywrong, since it threatens something intrinsically valu-able. Human nature thus requires protection. Annasurges the establishment of a “human species protec-tion” treaty, calling such technologies “crimes againsthumanity.”1 Habermas states his support for a “rightto a genetic inheritance immune from artificial inter-vention”—a right that has also been requested by the

Liberal EugenicsHuman Nature

Against Habermas

&

In the course of developing his arguments against making genetic enhancements to one’s children,

Habermas assumes that a clear line can be drawn between the natural and the manufactured. But given the

current state of medical science, this is precisely what we can no longer take for granted.

b y E L I Z A B E T H F E N T O N

Elizabeth Fenton, “Liberal Eugenics and Human Nature: AgainstHabermas,” Hastings Center Report 36, no. 6 (2006): 35-42.

36 H A S T I N G S C E N T E R R E P O R T November-December 2006

Parliamentary Assembly of the Euro-pean Council.2 Francis Fukuyama ar-gues for the establishment of a newregulatory agency with “a mandate toregulate biotechnology on groundsbroader than efficacy and safety” andwith “statutory authority over all re-search and development.”3

But human nature is not vulnera-ble to such threats. While “slipperyslope” arguments against liberal eu-genics are powerful and important,attempts to couch such arguments interms of the protection of an intrinsi-cally valuable human nature are mis-guided. Habermas and Annas, in par-ticular, are guilty of begging the ques-tion that science forces us to ask,namely, whether there are aspects ofbeing human that are or that ought tobe unchangeable. Both assume thatthere are such essential aspects and re-buke science for attempting to changewhat ought not to be changed. But toanswer the challenge from science, itis necessary to bracket this assump-tion, for whether there are such as-pects is precisely the question at issue.

This paper takes up Habermas’s ef-forts to develop the human natureobjection to liberal eugenics. I cri-tique four arguments deployed byHabermas: (1) that, as a threat tohuman dignity, liberal eugenics is athreat to the foundations of thehuman moral community; (2) thatliberal eugenics will fundamentallyalter relationships in the moral com-munity, since with it reproductionwill change from a natural process ofcreation to an artificial process ofmanufacture; (3) that manufacturewill undermine moral equality, andthereby human rights; and (4) thatliberal eugenics will undermine indi-vidual freedom and autonomy. Inshowing that there are significantproblems with Habermas’s positionon liberal eugenics, which is perhapsthe most complex and detailed ofthose mentioned here, I hope to showthat the human nature objection toliberal eugenics more broadly is weak-ened by these problems.

What Liberal Eugenics Is and IsNot

Unlike the authoritarian eugenicsprograms envisioned in the early

twentieth century, a liberal eugenicswould not lead to genetic alterationsbeing imposed on whole populationsby way of state policies. The focus ofliberal eugenics is the individual, notthe nation, race, or class, and it givesprimacy to the individual’s own val-ues and conception of what consti-tutes a good life, not the values of thestate. The role of the state in a pro-gram of liberal eugenics is merely tofacilitate rather than to impose eu-genic choices, enabling parents’ par-ticular conceptions of the good life to“guide them in their selection of en-hancements for their children.”4

One charge often made of liberaleugenics is that it aims at posthumani-ty, at the creation of entities “whosebasic capacities so radically exceedthose of unaugmented humans as tobe best thought of as constituting anew kind of being.”5 But as NicholasAgar argues, liberal eugenics need notaim so high (or so low). Liberal eu-genics is eugenic to the extent that itadvocates parental freedom to choosesome characteristics of offspringbased on the parents’ values but limit-ed by the possibility of harm to theresulting children.

But while this may be modest incomparison to the goals of theposthumanists, it is still a radical ad-dition to the “standard” process ofhuman reproduction, and as such isquite rightly the subject of moralscrutiny and debate.

Human Nature under Threat

The arguments against liberal eu-genics given by George Annas,

Jürgen Habermas, and FrancisFukuyama differ significantly in theirdetails, but they have in common theclaim that liberal eugenics and otherradical genetic technologies such ascloning constitute a threat to hu-mankind. More particularly, it is athreat to something sacred in hu-

mankind, something we prize (orought to prize) beyond and beforeany of the benefits that science andtechnology purport to promise. AsFukuyama argues, regulations mustbe imposed on science in order to dis-criminate between developments that“further human flourishing,” andthose that “pose a threat to humandignity and well-being.”6 In otherwords, some developments are good,in a moral sense, and others are bador wrong, and therefore ought not tobe done. Science itself cannot deter-mine which developments fall intothese camps since, the argument goes,it deals in facts rather than values.Annas also calls for regulation of “thetechniques that could lead us to com-mit species suicide.”7

In each case of calling for increasedregulation, however, who and what isbeing protected must be clear—theremust be a reason for and goal of theregulation. Here the three authorsconverge on the single idea that, inthe case of genetic technology, hu-mans must be protected from tech-nology that could ultimately destroythem. This is not destruction in thesense in which nuclear weapons de-stroy whole cities and populations (bykilling them), but rather a more eso-teric notion of destruction. These au-thors are concerned that genetic tech-nologies, such as liberal eugenics andcloning, will destroy what it is to behuman as we know it. As Fukuyamaputs it, we might bring about “theend of the human species as such.”8

More dramatically, Annas calls theuse of such technologies a new formof “crimes against humanity,” arguingthat they threaten human nature, andthereby human dignity and humanrights.9

Like Annas and Fukuyama,Habermas argues in favor of the regu-lation of genetic technology. He ar-gues that we must uphold the “rightto a genetic inheritance immune fromartificial intervention.”10 But Haber-mas presents a complex and subtle ar-gument in favor of regulation becausehe explicates a precise notion of whatit is that the regulation seeks to pro-


tect. What concerns Habermas mostis not human nature and human dig-nity simpliciter, but rather two partic-ular aspects of being human: individ-ual freedom, and membership in amoral community.

Habermas recognizes that resis-tance to regulating science oftenstems from the view that science canactually promote individual freedomand autonomy by providing peoplewith the means to live longer, perhapshealthier, lives. Against this backdrop,the claim that human nature oughtnot to be tampered with is seen as“the vain attempt to set oneselfagainst the dominant tendency tofreedom of modern society.”11 If sci-ence gives us greater freedom and au-tonomy, then arguments in favor oflimits look like “a rather dubioussanctification” of human nature.Habermas is concerned not to sancti-fy or idolize human nature, but ratherto examine what that nature is andfind within it something that is in-consistent with the liberal eugenicsprogram as a whole. Like Annas andFukuyama, Habermas sees a threat ingenetic technology—a threat tosomething fundamental, perhapseven the threat of “the end of thehuman species as such.” But he isconcerned to explicate this threat notmerely in terms of fear of possibleconsequences, but rather in terms ofthe fact that the whole project of de-veloping this technology is somehowinternally inconsistent. Habermas ar-gues that to develop the technologywe must be able to see ourselves as“the authors of our own life histories,”as autonomous beings, but that thetechnology being developed under-mines this very feature of our human-ity.

Habermas’s conclusion is that weshould “moralize human nature.” Hisgoal is not to protect human naturefrom a vague and nebulous threat,but to achieve active self-reflection asa species: once the species reflects onwhat makes it possible to live as we donow—the freedom and autonomy todevelop our own life histories—it willunderstand that radical genetic tech-

nologies are inconsistent with thisbasic aspect of being human, and itwill therefore reject them. Moralizinghuman nature is not a function oflisting what ought and ought not tobe done to humans and protectingthem from the latter; rather, it is aform of self-understanding—humannature is a way of being, and whenthat way of being gives rise to tech-nology that threatens it, there is a fun-damental problem that calls for legalmeans of protection. These means donot embody mere “vague antimod-ernistic opposition” or fear, but ratherthe results of “modernity having be-

come reflective.” Moralizing humannature thus seeks to protect, nothuman nature as such, but “the condi-tions under which the practical self-understanding of modernity may bepreserved.”12

Ethical Self-Understanding ofthe Human Species

There are two main strands toHabermas’s argument against lib-

eral eugenics. First, he argues that aproper understanding of human dig-nity will show that humans come toshare in it when they become mem-bers of a moral community—of acommunity of agents who accept andapply intersubjectively agreed-to rulesof living together. As a threat tohuman dignity, liberal eugenics is athreat to the foundations of the moralcommunity. The second strand to the

argument is the claim that genetictechnologies used in the way envi-sioned in a liberal eugenics wouldfundamentally alter the relationshipsof the moral community, sincethrough them reproduction changesfrom a natural process of creation toan unnatural, artificial process ofmanufacture. Offspring are thus relat-ed to their parents as products to pro-ducers, and so are never able to enterinto a relationship of moral equalitywith them. Since recognition ofmoral equality is the backbone of themoral community and human rights,any process that prevents this recogni-

tion will undermine the foundationsof the moral community.

A third central point is implicit inthese two strands. Habermas arguesthat liberal eugenics undermines thefreedom and autonomy that each in-dividual ought to have to be the au-thor of his or her own life. When par-ents interfere with the genome oftheir offspring-to-be, they brand thatchild with an identity or a develop-mental trajectory that the child cannever escape or alter. Because geneticalterations are for life, a child whosegenome is to some extent the result ofparental selection and preference willnever fully be capable of achieving au-thorship of his or her own life. Haber-mas’s argument, then, is a full devel-opment of the claim that genetictechnology is a threat to somethingsacred in humanity—not merely athreat to an amorphous notion of

Habermas argues that to develop the

technology we must be able to see

ourselves as “the authors of our own life

histories,” as autonomous beings, but

that the technology being developed

undermines this very feature of

our humanity.


human dignity, but a threat to thewhole form of life that that notionencompasses, namely, the form of lifebased on morality and individualfreedom.

This argument is seductive in itscomplexity and detail, but it sharesthe basic form of the human natureobjection. While explicitly not sancti-fying or idolizing human nature,Habermas nonetheless attempts to es-tablish that human nature is intrinsi-cally valuable and therefore ought notto be tampered with. Even when therelevant aspects of human nature areexamined in great detail, the conclu-sion remains: the moral status ofhuman nature as something invio-lable is under threat and must be pro-tected.

Human dignity and the moralcommunity. Habermas’s argumenthas the two central strands. First, heargues that dignity is not a propertythat humans possess, but a state intowhich they enter on becoming mem-bers of a moral community that in-volves addressing “intersubjectivelyaccepted rules and orders to one an-other.”13 Habermas connects humandignity with the notion of inviolabili-ty, but not in the traditional way. Tra-ditionally, dignity is something thatall humans possess simply in virtue ofbeing human, and the last human onearth, completely alone, would pos-sess an inviolable dignity despite hisinability to share his humanness withanother human. But for Habermasthe social context is critical to our un-derstanding of what dignity and invi-olability mean. They are features ofhumanity that attain significanceonly when an individual is involvedin “interpersonal relations of mutualrespect, in the egalitarian dealingsamong persons.”14

The significance of this analysis isthat it enables the threat posed by ge-netic technology to be understoodmore concretely and coherently. If ge-netic technology threatens humandignity, Habermas argues, then whatit really threatens is the foundation ofthe moral community in which indi-viduals’ relationships to each other are

governed by intersubjectively accept-ed rules. If genetic technologies createindividuals who, because of the man-ner of their creation, are unable everto attain a position of moral equalitywith others in the community, thenthe use of these technologies under-mines the foundations of the moralcommunity, and this community isthe proper location of and outlet forhuman nature.

On this view, human dignity isnot possessed by embryos, since theyare incapable of the ethical self-reflection, the recognition of others inthe moral community as equals, andthe recognition of oneself as free thatdefines the state of human dignity.One advantage of this view, as high-lighted by Paul Lauritzen, is that itdisconnects the debate about themoral rightness or wrongness of ge-netic technology from that about themoral status of embryos and links itinstead to the debate about humannature, about what it means to behuman.15 Habermas argues that re-gardless of the moral status of em-bryos, genetic engineering is wrongbecause it offends against human na-ture; it is inconsistent with the stateof human dignity to consider otherhuman beings (at any stage of devel-opment) as instruments to be used ormanipulated by others.

Manufacture versus creation. Sec-ond, Habermas argues that our self-understanding as species members isalso constituted by an understandingof the difference between what ismade or manufactured and whatcomes to be by nature—that is, thedifference between the artificial andthe natural. He argues that our inter-actions with the natural environmentare governed by an understanding ofthe different claims of subjectivityand mere objects; the latter are opento forms of manipulation that are un-acceptable for the former. This is aform of empathy, of one subject rec-ognizing another. He argues that thedistinction between what is naturaland artificial, between subject andobject, is therefore self-evident to hu-mans as subjects, and he seems to

conclude that it is thereby part ofhuman nature. But genetic technolo-gies threaten this distinction becausethey enable manipulation of one sub-ject by another and thereby blur theline between what is grown (the nat-ural) and what is made (the artificial).Genetic technology intervenes in anatural process of growth and istherefore fundamentally differentfrom the manipulation of passive ma-terial. When one subject confrontsand alters another, it creates a dramat-ic imbalance of power. Humans areno longer just masters of technology,but masters of technology and of oneanother.

There are two significant prob-lems, Habermas claims, which ariseout of this dramatic imbalance ofpower. First, it creates a communityin which individuals do not recognizeone another as moral equals, whichundermines the moral communityand the human rights that are predi-cated on this equality. Second, it se-verely limits the freedom of the indi-viduals subjected to it. While liberaleugenics claims to be an extension ofthe liberal ideal of individual freedomand autonomy, Habermas argues thatin fact the use of the technology iscontrary to it. The locus of freedomthat concerns advocates of liberal eu-genics is the parent, the reproducer,when the proper locus of freedom toconsider is the child, the offspring ofthe process, for it is there that themore significant curtailment of free-dom will occur. Children who are the“products” of genetic enhancementare unable, later in life, to take “a re-visionist stand” toward the expecta-tions, demands, or developmentalgoals of their parents. Those goalshave been built right into that childas part of the manufacturing process;they “have the peculiar status of aone-sided and unchallengeable expec-tation.”16 A child whose characteris-tics are the result of chance ratherthan choice is, even granting the pos-sibility of overbearing parents, freeeventually to reject the parents’ pref-erences. That freedom is missing ifthose preferences are hardwired into


the child’s genome, if the child ismanufactured rather than created bynature.

This curtailment of a child’s free-dom is what ultimately prevents par-ent and child from ever recognizingone another as moral equals, for nochild that is manufactured in this waycan ever confront its parents as amoral equal. The imbalance of powerin the relationship is transformed intoan asymmetry in the moral commu-nity.

“Natural Trajectory”

One significant problem withHabermas’s argument, and with

the human nature objection moregenerally, concerns the tendency toview human nature as something de-finable and fixed. While Paul Lau-ritzen seems right to want to movethe debate over genetic technologybeyond the debate over the moral sta-tus of embryos, his characterizationof the new focus of the debate seemsmistaken. In response to Gilbert Mei-lander’s claim that what it means tohave a (human) life is to follow a“natural pattern,” a “natural trajecto-ry,” or develop a “natural history,”Lauritzen claims that the questionraised by technology that couldchange a life’s “natural” path is“whether or not such a change shouldbe resisted.”17 But this question, im-portant as it is, mistakenly acceptsMeilander’s assumption that it is pos-sible to define categorically what it isto have a human life. The develop-ment of genetic technologies thatradically alter what we may considerfundamental characteristics of ahuman life challenges this assump-tion. This technology forces us toconsider the possibility that “what itis to be human” is not somethingfixed or stable, but rather somethingchangeable. In entering this debatewe cannot take human nature as al-ready defined, for whether it can beso defined is precisely the question.

On examining the possibilities sci-ence is offering, it seems that we can-not be certain that human life as it is

currently lived simply is the way itought to be. To deny that there is afixed human nature is not simultane-ously to deny the existence of “natur-al human capacities” that are the con-ditions of important features of hu-manity. For even if it is granted thatthere are certain natural features ofhumans that are found universally, itdoes not follow that these capacitiesare fixed, nor that they exhaust the

inventory of “truly human” character-istics, nor that they cannot be im-proved upon, nor that they should beelevated to a moral status that entitlesthem to protection.

A second criticism concernsHabermas’s analysis of human digni-ty. What Habermas calls the “ethicalself-understanding of the humanspecies” that is essential to humandignity is simply the ethical or moralside of human nature, which heclaims we cannot escape: “The per-ceived, and dreaded, advances of ge-netic engineering affect the very con-cept we have of ourselves as culturalmembers of the species of ‘humani-ty’—to which there seems to be no al-ternative.”18 Even if we agree withHabermas that human dignity is bestunderstood in terms of a state associ-ated with membership in the inter-subjective moral community, we candeny that there is a moral dimension

to any definition of what it is to behuman that follows from this view.The ethical self-understanding of thehuman species will always be a func-tion of how the human species is con-stituted and how it operates at anyparticular time. We should not seek to protect our current self-understanding as a species as if it issomehow privileged. We should notassume that there is no alternative to

the current concept of what it is to behuman.

Third, Habermas’s concern thatliberal eugenics fundamentally altersthe nature of human relationships isoverblown. As Habermas sees it, thechildren that result from the use ofsuch genetic technology will see theirparents as designers and producerswith undue control over their av-enues of possible development, pre-venting them from relating to theirparents as moral equals. But the parent-child relationship is inherentlyone of inequality; even without ex-plicitly choosing a child’s characteris-tics or traits, a parent has considerablecontrol over the development of thatchild and the range of options opento her for future development. More-over, such inequalities or asymmetriesin relationships abound within thehuman moral community. It is pre-cisely the point of human rights doc-

Even if it is granted that there are

certain natural features of humans that

are found universally, it does not follow

that these capacities are fixed, nor that

they exhaust the inventory of “truly

human” characteristics, nor that they

cannot be improved upon, nor that they

should be elevated to a moral status that

entitles them to protection.


trine that the notion of human digni-ty embodied in human rights tran-scends these asymmetries eventhough the asymmetries are nevereliminated.

Furthermore, if clones and othergenetically modified humans werestill to possess the subjectivity re-quired to negate the status quo—aminimal subjectivity neither cloningnor genetic modification threatens toremove—then there is no reason whythey could not address their creatorsas moral equals. Habermas’s claimthat genetic engineering creates a newasymmetrical relationship is too weakto support the claim that the manu-facturing element of genetic engineer-ing violates human dignity or humannature. Since such unequal relation-ships already exist, and since humanshave found ways to overcomethem—by defining universal humanrights, for example—the manufactur-ing element cannot be denouncedsolely because it can help create thisform of relationship.19

Line-Drawing

Underlying the manufacturing ar-gument against genetic technol-

ogy is the notion of a continuum be-tween what is natural and what is ar-tificial. The difficulty of securing thisdistinction is a fourth problem forHabermas. If everything that humansdo is by definition artificial, then notonly will genetic engineering be un-natural, but so too will house-building, childrearing, buying, sell-ing, cooking, and a host of other ar-guably natural activities. Of course, adistinction needs to be made be-tween, say, becoming pregnant andgiving birth without the aid of anytechnology and, at the other end ofthe spectrum, creating the genome ofa child-to-be by splicing selectedgenes together, but drawing a sharpline on this spectrum is impossible.Advocates of the human nature ob-jection to genetic technology are con-cerned to draw a sharp line, and theydraw that line at liberal eugenics andhuman cloning—what lies beyond

this line is an immoral intrusion onnatural processes.

But what is really at issue here isnot where the line is drawn betweenwhat is natural and what is artificial,for the line will always be blurred.What matters are the moral implica-tions that are drawn from this distinc-tion. The implication drawn in thearguments against liberal eugenics isthat what is manufactured is morallyinferior to what is natural, that natur-al processes in certain areas of humanlife ought to be protected from theencroachments of unnatural humanscience. But there is nothing intrinsicto the natural/unnatural distinctionto warrant this claim. The natural isnot intrinsically good, the unnaturalnot intrinsically bad—the very fact ofa continuum between these extremesillustrates this. No matter where theline is drawn between the natural andthe manufactured, the moral right-ness or wrongness of an activity willhave to be grounded in somethingother than where it falls on this spec-trum.

A fifth criticism of the argumentfor protecting an intrinsically valuablehuman nature is that a contradictionlies at the heart of Habermas’s claimthat genetic engineering inhibits theautonomy and freedom of the chil-dren born from such technology.Kurt Bayertz has argued persuasivelythat the concept of human naturethat gave rise to the notions of indi-vidual autonomy and freedom is verydifferent from the fixed, stablehuman nature that the argumentagainst liberal eugenics seeks to pro-tect.20 Bayertz argues that the liberalnotion of individual freedom arosefrom a view of external (nonhuman)nature as factual—that is, as nonin-trinsically valuable, implying nomoral claims about its status, andhuman nature as “open and norma-tively noncommittal.”21 Individualfreedom, then, is rooted in the notionthat neither nature in general, norhuman nature in particular, is intrin-sically valuable—that is, that neithercarries, prima facie, moral commit-ments. Human nature, on this view,

does not demand protection simplyin virtue of what it is. If we revert to aview of human nature as closed andfixed, and as protected by strong nor-mative status, then the consequencewould be “drastic restrictions to thehuman being’s scope of behavior inevery area of activity,” contrary toHabermas’s desire for the protectionof individual freedoms. The realthreat, then, is the threat to freedomposed by the desire to moralize thestatus of human nature and demandits protection. To do so may be to sti-fle the creativity of the autonomousagent; this is precisely what Haber-mas is concerned will occur shouldliberal eugenics be permitted.

A final criticism concerns the ar-gument, arising out of the human na-ture objection, in favor of regulatinggenetic technology, whether via a“human species protection treaty,” anew human right, or a regulatoryagency with statutory powers. Each ofthese forms of regulation is proposedboth as necessary for the survival ofthe human species and as subject toapproval via a democratic process.Annas emphasizes the point thatsince the use of genetic technology af-fects the species as a whole, thespecies as a whole ought to decidehow and when it is acceptable to useit: “no individual scientist (or corpo-ration or country) has the social ormoral warrant to endanger humanity,including altering humans in waysthat might endanger the species.”22

The moral warrant can come only viathe democratic process, “a worldwidediscussion and debate, followed by avote in an institution representativeof the world’s population.” Similarly,Fukuyama argues that only the polit-ical, not the scientific, community isauthorized “to control the pace andscope of technological development . . . the political community must de-cide which ends to pursue.”23

The problem with this argumentis clear: Annas and Fukuyama areboth explicit in their claim that ge-netic engineering is intrinsicallywrong, and yet they claim that thereal decision about whether it ought


to be engaged in must be determinedby democratic vote. But if an activityis intrinsically wrong, then no demo-cratic process will make it otherwise,so why do Annas and Fukuyamaclaim that the species itself must beleft to decide when they believe thatthe decision to ban the technology isinescapable? Part of the answer to thisquestion comes from misplaced con-fidence: these authors assume that thespecies as a whole will recognize theintrinsic wrongness of genetic engi-neering and vote appropriately. Butthe contradiction here is blatant,freely expressed by Annas: “My ownview is that the boundary line that re-ally matters is set by the species itself,and that species-endangering activi-ties should be outlawed.”24 But whatif the species as a whole votes to makefull use of genetic technology? Whatif the “right to a genetic inheritanceimmune from artificial interference”is rejected in favor of a “right to en-hance one’s genome”?

The confidence displayed by theseauthors in the attitudes of the votingpublic is misguided, particularly inlight of the view that moral commonsense may consider human nature“valuable, but in no way . . . sacro-sanct and inviolable.”25 Even if, asHabermas argues, genetic engineeringis inconsistent with our current formof life as autonomous agents, authorsof our own lives, this inconsistencydoes not prove that a ban on all suchtechnology will be universally agreedto, particularly if that technologypromises attractive outcomes, such asimproved resistance to disease orgreater memory power. The fact thatall three authors are compelled to ges-ture toward the role of the votingpublic in determining whether suchtechnology should be used illustratesthe weakness of the claim that genet-ic engineering is intrinsically wrongor contrary to nature.

Freedom to Evolve

The human nature objection toliberal eugenics and the argu-

ments in favor of significant regula-

tion of the use of genetic engineeringtechnology attempt to put flesh onthe bones of the claim that the use ofsuch technology is intrinsicallywrong. The central thesis of the ob-jection is that genetic engineeringthreatens something intrinsicallyvaluable—human nature—and sincea fixed, stable human nature is essen-tial to the notion of human dignityand its legal counterpart—humanrights—this threat extends to thewhole meaning of what it is to be

human. Habermas’s argument againstliberal eugenics is the most rigorousof the three discussed here, claimingthat genetic engineering is inconsis-tent with the form of life that givesrise to it, a form of life that centers onindividual freedom and the role ofthe human moral community. Butthe principal objection to Habermas’sargument is the same as the objectionto its less abstract cousins, namely,that it assumes that human nature, orthe form of human life, is fixed, andthat a normative claim about the sta-tus of that nature follows. As I haveargued, genetic engineering chal-lenges but does not violate the notionof a fixed human nature. Advances ingenetic technology make possible dif-ferent conditions for “what it meansto be human”; science is revealingthat human nature is not fixed andsingular. Moreover, the argumentsagainst liberal eugenics assume that acoherent distinction is possible be-tween what is natural and what is

manufactured, and that the distinc-tion reflects a moral difference. Butthis distinction cannot coherently bemade: the difference between what isnatural and what is unnatural is oneof gradation; it is a continuummarked at each end by extremes.Where one decides to draw the linecannot then reflect any intrinsic dif-ference, and therefore cannot reflectan intrinsic moral difference betweenwhat is natural and what is manufac-tured. The attempt to reject liberal

eugenics on the ground that its un-naturalness renders it morally unac-ceptable fails.

A further objection, elaborated byHabermas, that the manufacturing el-ement of liberal eugenics fundamen-tally alters relationships in the moralcommunity, also fails. Not only is itunclear that liberal eugenics is a caseof manufacture, but it is also unclearthat the resulting moral inequality be-tween parents and children that con-cerns Habermas is anything new, orthat it will rock the foundations ofthe moral community. The argumentthat the manufacturing process willcurtail essential freedom is also vul-nerable to the claim that liberal eu-genics may not represent a case ofmanufacture, and as Bayertz pointsout, it is inconsistent with the view ofhuman nature as fixed and unalter-able.

The failure of the human natureobjection is not intended as evidencein favor of liberal eugenics; it merely

Individual freedom is rooted in the

notion that neither nature in general, nor

human nature in particular, is intrinsically

valuable—that neither carries, prima

facie, moral commitments. Human

nature does not demand protection

simply by virtue of what it is.


highlights the fact that, if liberal eu-genics is morally wrong, it will bewrong on grounds other than its sup-posed unnaturalness. Human natureis not fixed, and it does not havestrong normative status. As genetictechnology progresses, so too doeshumanity—it changes, the speciesevolves, the conditions for “what it isto be human” alter. This is not todeny that at any particular time hu-manity will be distinguished from itsenvironment on account of sharedcharacteristics, nor is it to deny thatsome of those characteristics areuniquely human or morally signifi-cant. But it is to deny that any strongnormative claims follow from thepresence or absence of those charac-teristics—that they ought to be pro-tected or granted intrinsic value. Forwhatever they are, they are open tochange and improvement; to denythis is to deny humanity its mostcherished freedom—the freedom toevolve.

Acknowledgments

I am thankful to John Arras for hishelpful comments and criticisms.

References

1. G.J. Annas, American Bioethics: Cross-ing Human Rights and Health Law Bound-aries (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford UniversityPress, 2005), 41.

2. J. Habermas, The Future of HumanNature (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press,2003), 27.

3. F. Fukuyama, “How to Regulate Sci-ence,” The Public Interest (Winter 2002): 3-22.

4. N. Agar, Liberal Eugenics (Oxford,U.K.: Blackwell, 2004), 5.

5. Ibid., 16.6. Fukuyama, “How to Regulate Sci-

ence,” 4.7. Annas, American Bioethics, 56; empha-

sis added.8. Fukuyama, “How to Regulate Sci-

ence,” 4; emphasis added.9. Annas, American Bioethics, 37.10. Habermas, The Future of Human Na-

ture, 27.11. Ibid., 25.12. Ibid., 26.13. Ibid., 33.14. Ibid., 33.15. Paul Lauritzen, “Stem Cells, Biotech-

nology, and Human Rights: Implicationsfor a Posthuman Nature,” Hastings CenterReport 35, no. 2 (2005): 25-33.

16. Habermas, The Future of Human Na-ture, 51.

17. Lauritzen, “Stem Cells,” 27.18. Habermas, The Future of Human Na-

ture, 40.19. It is important to note that human

rights are not being wrongfully invoked inthis criticism. For while human rights areoften assumed to flow from the notion of afixed and stable human nature, they do notdo so necessarily; and, more importantly,their foundation in universally sharedhuman characteristics does not imply thatthose characteristics have a strong norma-tive status. Asymmetries and inequalities inhuman relationships can be overcome byhuman rights without those rights beingviewed as a reflection of the moral status ofa fixed human nature. What it is to behuman may be alterable or malleable, oreven indefinable, but the implication thatfollows is not that human rights are impos-sible, or impossibly weak, but rather thattheir content and range will also not befixed.

20. K. Bayertz, “Human Nature: HowNormative Might It Be?” Journal of Medi-cine and Philosophy 28, no. 2 (2003): 131-50.

21. Ibid., 146.22. Annas, American Bioethics, 40.23. Fukuyama, “How to Regulate Sci-

ence,” 7.24. Annas, American Bioethics, 40.25. Bayertz, “Human Nature,” 144.

liberal eugenics & human nature : against habermas

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