Professor Julian Savulescu said that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a “moral obligation” as it makes them grow up into “ethically better children”.
And no, he isn’t talking about genetic defects, either.
He’s talking about personality traits:
“Indeed, when it comes to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children.
“They are, after all, less likely to harm themselves and others.”
I guess Prof Savulescu is a ‘Nature’ man, who sets no store in ‘nurture’ whatsoever?
He said that unlike the eugenics movements, which fell out of favour when it was adopted by the N*, the system would be voluntary and allow parents to choose the characteristics of their children.
Oh, sure. They are always voluntary, these sorts of things.
When they start….
H/T: Blindcyclists via Twitter
Unless he’s planning on screening out greed and the potential for unscrupulous business practice too, one assumes that those affluent enough to afford such a service aren’t likely to be passing on many inherited antisocial behaviour traits.
Extrapolation eventually brings us to an aesthetically inclined pacifist class living blissfully free from competitive hostility or anger, while the underclass continue to proliferate with their capacity for violence unchecked.
Anyone else thinking of H G Wells…?
Will the screening identify people like him?
Then it might have a use indeed….
If we put this post together with Longrider’s on porn and mine after it on ethics, then a picture certainly emerges.
Prof of what disicipline?
I suspect he is NOT a medic or a geneticist?
So much for diversity.
Oh, they are all for diversity, so long as everyone only looks different. They have to THINK the same.