From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri May 03 2002 - 11:01:55 MDT
On Thu, 2 May 2002, Brian Atkins wrote:
> Subject: Fukuyama: The Fall of the Libertarians
> Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 17:19:40 -0400
> http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,4287,SB1020295939549459480,00.html
> But the genetic stamp is indelible, and would be handed down
> not just to one's children but to all of one's subsequent descendants.
Ah ha, not so. This presumes that one will not be able to apply genetic
reprogramming to oneself or ones offspring.
> But it is the first step in a series of technologies that may lead to
> genetic engineering of humans.
So?
> Research cloning of embryos to extract stem cells may show great medical
> promise, but it too involves the deliberate creation of something
> unquestionably human, even if that something doesn't have the moral status
> of an infant.
How is a single cell, or a collection of cells "human"? If the genetic
material is the basis for humanity, then an individual with trisomy-21
or any of the various variants in X/Y chromosome number should be considered
non-human. Given the fact that one could completely rearrange the
genetic material on the chromosomes and produce something that was
completely functionally as human as any of us yet completely
incapable of breeding with "natural" humans suggests to me that
"humanity" is in how one behaves and not the organization of genetic
material that produces that behavior.
> The liberalism of the Founding Fathers was built on natural rights.
And I can think of no more natural right than to allow one to improve
oneself. Of course one can discuss whether it is correct to apply
such technologies to ones offspring without informed consent. But
given projected abilities that such children should have to remake
themselves, such that no parental decisions are "permanent", this
seems to be a minor point.
> We are at the beginning of a new phase of history where technology will
> give us power to create people born booted and spurred, and where animals
> that are today born with saddles on their backs could be given human
> characteristics.
But there is little point for doing so. Humans are far less efficient
machines than those we can envision building with molecular nanotechnology.
> To say, with the libertarians, that individual freedom
> should encompass the freedom to redesign those natures on which our very
> system of rights is based, is not to appeal to anything in the American
> political tradition.
If the ability to improve oneself does not exist in American political
tradition, then either the tradition should be changed or a political
system that allows it should be developed.
Robert
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