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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Genetic interventions that narrow but do not eliminate a child's future options are morally permissible.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Joel Feinberg's 'right to an open future' holds that children have enforceable interests in preserving a range of life options until autonomous self-determination is possible.
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    • 2.A genetic intervention that narrows options acts before consent is possible, making it categorically distinct from reversible environmental shaping like education or religious upbringing.
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    • 3.Unlike cultural transmission, genetic modification is irreversible and operates at the constitutional level of the person, foreclosing future autonomous revision of one's own traits.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Habermas argues in 'The Future of Human Nature' that prenatal genetic programming violates the symmetry of relations required for genuine moral equality between persons.
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    • 2.When a parent encodes a preference into a child's genome, the child cannot retrospectively reject or renegotiate that self-defining feature, structurally subordinating their autonomy to another's will.
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    • 3.This asymmetry is not merely quantitative—a matter of degree of narrowing—but qualitative, corrupting the very self-understanding required for the child to author a coherent life narrative.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Parental love almost always prevails regardless of the traits a child has.
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    • 2.A future that is narrowed but still allows the child to choose how her life goes remains sufficiently open.
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    • 3.Parents already shape children's futures through values, education, and religion without moral objection.
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