PHILOS 5 - MOD 8-10

Why did deaf parents Sharon and Candy want a deaf child?

1) considered deafness a cultural identity, not a disability;

2) wanted to share the wonderful aspects of the deaf community, a sense of belonging and connectedness with their children;

3) they wanted a child like themselves, felt whole as deaf people

What two reasons does Sandel give for why the autonomy objection fails?

1) Children don’t choose their genetic inheritance anyways, the alternative to a designed child is just the genetic lottery (not freedom)

2) The autonomy objection can’t explain our concerns about adults who enhance themselves (not all genetic observations affect future generations)

What is “hyperagency”?

• drive to mastery over human nature

• excessive human agency/ control (as opposed to drift to mechanism/ loss of agency)

• Promethean aspiration to remake nature, including human nature to serve our purposes

Name the two types of athletic excellence we admire: ________ (Pete Rose) and ________ (DiMaggio)

• Effort (Pete Rose) - grit, determination, striving

• Gift (Joe DiMaggio) - grace, talent, effortlessness

What's the difference between sport and spectacle?

sport: celebrates genuine human talent and gifts; tests the skills essential to the game

spectacle: uses artifice to exaggerate features & depreciates natural abilities, degrades the game

The Autonomy Objection (and Why It Fails) (Sandel Ch. 1)

Claim: Enhancement violates child's autonomy by choosing their traits in advance

Problem #1: Children don't choose their genes anyway - alternative is just genetic lottery Problem #2: Can't explain our concerns about adults enhancing themselves

The Fairness Objection (and Why It Fails) (Sandel Ch. 1)

Claim: Enhanced athletes have unfair advantages

Problem: Natural genetic inequalities already exist (ex. we don't ban tall basketball players)

Conclusion: If it's safe and accessible to all, fairness can't be the main issue

The “deeper” core problem of enhancement: (Sandel Ch. 1)

• Hyperagency — "Promethean aspiration to remake nature"

• Drive to mastery over human nature

• Loss of appreciation for giftedness

What is giftedness?

Giftedness is recognition that are talents & powers:

• not wholly our own doing

• not fully ours, despite efforts that might be made to develop them

• not everything in the world is open to any use we desire

Virtues it fosters:

• humility (not entirely self-made)

• responsibility (not wholly responsible for success/ failure)

• solidarity (shared vulnerability to the unbidden)

The two athletic ideals that we admire:

1) Effort (Pete Rose) - grit, determination, striving

2) Gift (Joe DiMaggio) - grace, natural talent, effortlessness

What is the REAL sin of enhancement

it isn’t necessarily a shortcut around effort but that it represents “high-tech striving” - ultimate expression of willfulness arrayed against our giftedness

• sees human capabilities (ex. intelligence, strength) as raw materials to be perfected according to our will

What makes enhancement corrupting? The Sport vs Spectacle Distinction

• does it honor or or distort “the excellences central to the game”?

• does it make the activity a truer test of the relevant skills or does it mock them?

Sandel's Response to Scalia’s views:

Justice Scalia argued: Rules of games are "entirely arbitrary"—just for amusement

Sandel’s Response:

• If the rules were truly arbitrary, we wouldn’t care about outcomes

• Sports would fade into being a mere spectacle

• We DO care - because rules honor specific virtues and talents worth admiring

What does William F. May mean by "openness to the unbidden"?

• restrains the impulse to mastery and control

• recognizes life as a gift rather than something we design

• accepts children as they come, not as objects of our will

• cultivates humility and enlarged human sympathies

being open to the unpredictable, accepting what we haven’t chosen or planned. appreciating the given rather than forcing everything to conform to our designs.

example: seen w/ parenthood because children’s qualities can be unpredictable and they can’t be wholly responsible for the kind of child they have.

Why does Sandel think healing a sick child is different from enhancing a healthy one?

healing:

• medicine has a purpose (telos) - restoring and preserving natural human functions, permits natural capacities to flourish

• medicine is bounded by the norm of health, not a boundless bid for mastery

• health is a constitutive element of human flourishing - is a core component that makes up or defines what it means to flourish rather than being a tool to achieve it

• Health is a bounded good—you can't be a "virtuoso at health"; there's a natural limit (health has a natural limit)

• unlike an arms race, pursuing health doesn’t create an endless arms race

enhancing:

• enhancement has no natural bound or purpose (telos)

• represents mastery and control rather than restoration

• treats children as products to be perfected

• converts health into another competitive advantage to be maximized

According to Sandel, what is the deepest moral objection to genetic enhancement?

The human disposition enhancement expresses and promotes:

• The hubris of designing parents

• The drive to master the mystery of birth

• An anxious excess of mastery and dominion

• A disposition that misses the sense of life as gift

Consequences:

• disfigures the parent-child relationship

• represents mastery and control rather than restoration

• treats children as products to be perfected

• converts health into another competitive advantage to be perfected

What are the two aspects of parental love identified by May, and what happens when they get out of balance?

Two aspects of parental love:

1. Accepting Love: Affirms the being of the child—accepting them as they are

2. Transforming Love: Seeks the well-being of the child—cultivating their talents and helping them flourish

When out of balance:

• accepting love without transforming love → slides into indulgence and finally neglect (too passive, failing to guide and cultivate the child)

• transforming love without accepting love → badgers and finally rejects (too demanding, never satisfied, treating the child as a project rather than a person)

the problem today: parents are prone to transforming love seeing their children as projects to perfect rather than gifts to behold

How does hyperparenting connect to the genetic enhancement debate, according to Sandel?

Connection: Those who defend genetic enhancement argue it's no different from other ways parents help children (expensive schools, tutors, SAT prep, etc.).

Sandel's response: They're right that genetic enhancement IS similar in spirit to modern heavily-managed, high-pressure child-rearing practices.

• however, this similarity does not vindicate genetic enhancement, rather revealing a problem with hyper parenting

Problems with Hyperparenting

• Represents an anxious excess of mastery and dominion

• Misses the sense of life as gift

• Draws disturbingly close to eugenics

Moral Lesson:

• both genetic enhancement & hyper parenting reflect the same problem disposition

• both involve trying to perfect and master rather than parent and behold

• The fact that we accept hyperparenting doesn't justify genetic enhancement

• Rather, the similarity should make us question hyperparenting practices we've normalized

• Both express a "Promethean" impulse to perfect nature rather than accepting the given

The ethic of giftedness. The central idea:

central moral idea: appreciating children as gifts means accepting them as they come not as objects of our design or products of our will or as instruments of our ambition

• we choose friends and spouses based on qualities that we find attractive

• we do NOT choose our children - their qualities are unpredictable

• parents can’t be wholly responsible for the kind of children they have

• parenthood teaches “openness to to the unbidden” (William F. May)

Core Moral Objection to Enhancement

The deepest problem with genetic enhancement is NOT the perfection it seeks, but the human disposition it expresses and promotes.

• the issue is not that parents usurp the child’s autonomy since the child couldn’t choose their genes anyway

the issue is:

• the hubris of designing parents

• drive to master the mystery of birth

• disposition disfigures the parent-child relationshio

• deprives parents of humility and the enlarged sympathies that openness to the unbidden cultivates

Healing vs. Enhancing - The Medical Distinction

Medicine has a telos (purpose): restoring and preserving natural human functions that constitute health

• Healing permits natural capacities to flourish

• It does NOT represent a boundless bid for mastery

• Medicine is guided by the norm of health

Rejecting Savulescu's Instrumental View of Health

Savulescu's argument:

• Health is only "instrumentally valuable" - a resource for doing what we want

• This rejects the healing/enhancing distinction

• Parents are "morally obliged to genetically modify their children"

• Should manipulate memory, temperament, patience, empathy, humor, optimism

Sandel's response:

• Health is NOT just instrumental - it's a constitutive element of human flourishing

• Health is a bounded good, not something to maximize

• No one aspires to be a "virtuoso at health"

• Unlike competitive traits, health doesn't trigger an escalating arms race

• 1920s eugenics "fittest family" contests show the folly of treating health as maximizable

Two Aspects of Parental Love

William F. May identifies two necessary aspects:

• Accepting Love: Affirms the being of the child as they are

• Transforming Love: Seeks the well-being and development of the child

The balance:

• Accepting love alone → indulgence and neglect

• Transforming love alone → badgering and rejection

• Parents MUST cultivate their children and help develop talents

• BUT modern parents tend to get carried away with transforming love

Parallel: Science also involves both beholding the given world AND molding/transforming it

The Central Question - Enhancement vs. Education

The challenge: If parents can help children through expensive schools, tutors, tennis camp, piano lessons, SAT prep, etc., why can't they use genetic technologies (if safe) to enhance intelligence, musical ability, or athletic skill?

Two competing analogies:

• Enhancement defenders: Genetic engineering is like education/training (good)

• Enhancement critics: Genetic engineering is like eugenics (bad) - reminiscent of forced sterilization and improving the gene pool

Sandel's answer: Enhancement defenders are partially right - genetic engineering IS similar in spirit to modern heavily-managed, high-pressure child-rearing.

BUT: This similarity does NOT vindicate genetic enhancement. Instead, it reveals a problem with hyperparenting itself.

Examples of Hyper Parenting in Sports

• Richard Williams planned Venus and Serena's tennis careers before birth

• Earl Woods gave Tiger a golf club in his playpen

• "No kid puts themselves into a sport this way... If you don't plan it, it's not going to happen"

• Youth leagues establish parent-free zones, silent weekends

• 70% of young athletes now suffer overuse injuries (up from 10% twenty-five years ago)

• 16-year-old pitchers getting Tommy John surgery

Examples of Hyper Parenting w/ College Admissions

• Parents writing college applications

• Calling admissions offices

• Helping write term papers

• Staying overnight in dorm rooms

• Calling to request their child be awakened

• MIT dean: "Parents of college students are out of control"

Examples of Hyper Parenting with SAT Preparation

• Test prep is now a $2.5 billion industry

• Kaplan revenues increased 225% from 1992-2001

• Parents seek fake learning disability diagnoses for extra time ($2,400 evaluations)

• "Diagnosis-shopping" for accommodations

Examples of Hyper Parenting with Elite Admissions Consulting

• IvyWise: $32,995 for two-year "platinum package"

• "I don't guide applications, I guide lives"

• IvyWise Kids for preschool admissions to "Baby Ivies"

• More than 10% of college freshmen used paid counselors (up from 1% in 1990)

Ritalin and the Performance Enhancement Parallel Statistics

• 5-6% of American children (4-5 million) prescribed Ritalin/stimulants

• Ritalin production increased 1,700% over 15 years

• Adderall production rose 3,000%

• $1 billion/year market

• Prescriptions for 2-4 year olds nearly tripled (1991-1995)

The dual usage of Ritailin

• Medical: treatment for ADHD

• Non-medical: enhancement for healthy students seeking a competitive advantage on SAT/ exams

The Demand for Performance and Perfection

The deeper problem: The demand for performance and perfection in competitive society animates the impulse to rail against the given.

This demand is the deepest source of the moral trouble with enhancement.

How many Americans were forcibly sterilized under eugenic laws?

• More than 60,000 Americans

• 29 states adopted forced sterilization laws

What's the moral difference between eugenic sperm bank vs. consumer sperm bank?

• There is NO moral difference!!

• both make children into products of deliberate design

• Whether the aim is to improve humanity's "germ plasm" (eugenic) or to cater to consumer preferences (market-driven), both practices are eugenic

example:

• The Repository for Germinal Choice had explicit eugenic mission; California Cryobank is consumer-driven but has equally exacting standards

Does liberal eugenics avoid state compulsion? Y/N

• NO

• Liberal eugenics claims to be noncoercive, but actually leads to state compulsion

• If enhancement is like education (an "all-purpose means") and parents have a duty to promote children's well-being, then the state can require genetic enhancement just as it requires education

What are the three things we lose if we dissolve giftedness?

• Humility (openness to the unbidden; restrains hubris)

• Responsibility (appropriate responsibility, not explosion of blame)

• Solidarity (shared vulnerability to contingency; basis for sharing with less fortunate)

According to Sandel, what is the "deepest form of disempowerment"?

• "Changing our nature to fit the world, rather than the other way around"

• Using genetic engineering to make ourselves fit a competitive society instead of creating better social and political arrangements

• This distracts us from critically reflecting on the world and deadens the impulse to social and political improvement