I will first ask you, Nathan, whether you would maintain these objections against biological alterations to a person made after their birth(by their consent, obviously). Obviously post-birth alteration have less potential then pre-birth ones, but you may be surprised at how radical their capacity to change people will turn out to be.
Oh, you misunderstand me, obviously it's not the substance at the moment of the action taken upon it that's 'alive' as such. The problem is the fact that it's done with a view towards deciding what characteristics a person will have, from their mother's womb.
Their are two obvious problems with this argument:
1)I tries to apply morality retrospectively("you sinned against me before I even existed" is inherently oxymoronic)
2)It does so from the perspective of a hypothetical alternative reality in which the individual wasn't genetically engineered.
Then surely you consider other parental attempts to determine their child's personality as equally heinous? For example inducting them into a religion before they're old enough to consent, homeschooling them with an eye towards encouraging certain personality traits, discouraging them from taking drugs...
No I'm not trolling you- you claimed your problem was with the intent rather then with the act. Therefore the fact genetic engineering is relatively more likely to succeed shouldn't matter, nor should the substance of what is being aimed at... if we're talking
purely in terms of intent then their is no difference between a parent trying and failing to engineer a child's personality through conventional means so that they'll be smart, on the one hand, and a parent successfully engineering a child's personality through genetic means so they'll be smart, on the other.
Firstly this is already true to an even more extreme extent then you realize... if determining a child's genes is a violation of their freedom then what the hell does creating them in the first place qualify as? You have no guarantee the child will want to exist. And, if it has a conscience, opting out by suicide later on won't necessarily be an option because the child might feel guilty about hurting it's family and friends with such a suicide.
Secondly I find it amusing that nobody is concerned about this when it happens through nurture, even in the era decades past when nurture was considered the be all and end all. That bullsh**t about changing a babies personality by having them listen to Mozart for example... it doesn't work, but if it did work how would it be less immoral then genetic engineering?
Thirdly, how is this necessarily more immoral then letting random chance wreak it's wrath?
Fourthly I think you're overestimating the power of genes... identical twins are identical in genetic terms, yet still have choices and tend to turn out somewhat different.
No, I construct mediocrity as imperfection.
I have physical and mental disabilities as well. The experience of living with them coupled with my realization of how disappointed my parents were(they did try to conceal it, but it's not something that can really be concealed) is the primary genesis of my opinion on this matter.
What about a surviving humanity? The fact is that, seeing how technology is advancing and exponentially increasing the quantity of damage that can be wreaked by terrorism, we have only three choices:
1)Genetic engineering to purge those mental tendencies that facilitate an act of terrorism
2)A police state that makes North Korea look libertarian
3)Extinction.
And genetic engineering would reduce the amount of cruelty in the world. For example, by eliminating sociopaths.
By definition a disability is something that limits your capacity to live as you desire(society has constructed that as being "relative to the norm", so for example the inability of humans to fly is not considered a disability... personally I disagree and think our inability to fly should be considered by definition a disability, but whatever).
My definition of positive is that which increases the capacity of people to live as they desire, and negative as that which decreases it. Letting a disability manifest itself even though it could have been averted decreases the capacity of that person to live as they desire, ergo immoral.
