Diversity and Editing Our Children’s Genes

I have recently been reading ‘Should you edit your children’s gene?’ by Erika Check Hayden in nature . Hayden is not concerned with editing genes, which might enhance a child’s cognitive abilities or physical prowess, but rather with editing genes for specific diseases or conditions. Such editing might be achieved by using CRISPR to edit embryos. In this posting I want to consider two related arguments, both based on diversity, which Hayden outlines against adopting such a policy. In my discussion I will assume without any argument that these diseases and conditions harm those who experience them to some degree, even if this degree is small. Some might object to this assumption, for instance some deaf people do not see their deafness as a disability and some deaf parents would even prefer to have deaf children.

Until recently disabled people were often treated badly but changing attitudes, at least in the Western World, has improved their lives. It might be argued that these changing attitudes has not only benefitted disabled people but have also benefitted all of us by creating a more caring society. At some time in life disability is likely to directly affect most people because we are prone to experience sickness, accidents and age-related decline. Let us accept without argument that a more caring society which cares for the disabled benefits us all. It might then be argued if we try to eliminate various disabilities we might inadvertently damage all by creating a less caring society.

The above argument seems to depend on the premise that a more diverse society is a more caring society. I want to challenge this premise. Let us imagine we now start using CRISPR to edit embryos. The motive to do so is a caring one, we want to reduce disability, which I have assumed above harms those disabled to some degree. Let us now imagine that by 2050 we have eliminated many current disabilities and that by doing so have created a less diverse society. At this point someone suggests that in order to create a more diverse society that we now use CRISPR, or some future technology, to create some disabled embryos. The purpose of doing so would be to create more diversity and hence caring by deliberately creating disabled children. Let us assume that these disabled children would of course still have meaningful lives they wanted to live. A similar society is satirised by Kurt Vonnegut in his short story ‘Harrison Bergeron’. It seems to me that any future society would find such a course of action totally abhorrent. It would seem that such a society’s policy of rejecting using CRISPR to produce disabled children is in total opposition to the policy of a society which rejects using CRISPR to reduce disability. Why should some future society find such a policy abhorrent? I would suggest it would do so because it cares about harming its members. It follows any future society which rejects such a policy would a caring one even if it was slightly less diverse.

At this point an objector might accept that whilst such a society would remain a caring one it might also be a less caring one than one which contained greater diversity. He then might suggest we should care about increasing caring. A consequentialist account of caring, more caring is better. Unfortunately for my objector the above seems to commit him to the abhorrent conclusion that in some circumstances it would be right to use CRISPR, or some future technology, to create some disabled embryos subject to the proviso that any resultant children would be able to live meaningful lives they wanted to live, in order to increase diversity and hence increase caring. My objector is using the term ‘’caring in two different ways. Firstly, ‘caring’ means something is important it matters to him, secondly the ‘caring’ that is important to him means sympathy or empathy. I will now argue it makes no sense to attempt to ‘care about’, in the first sense, maximising ‘caring about, in the second sense. Let us examine what ‘caring’ in the second sense involves. It must involve some empathic concern for others. If someone ‘cares about’, in the first sense, increasing caring, in the second sense, then he is not exhibiting this empathic concern if he is prepared to alter some perfectly healthy embryos to produce disabled children. By ‘caring about’ in the first sense, ‘caring about’, in the second sense, he is failing to ‘care about’, in the second sense. He believes something is important but doesn’t act as if it is important. Such a course of action is nonsensical.

Let us accept if we edit our children’s genes that we might create a less diverse society but that doing so doesn’t harm society in general by making it an uncaring one. I now want to address a second but related argument again based on diversity against editing our children’s genes. It might be argued even if a less diverse society doesn’t harm all of us it nonetheless might care less those who remain disabled. A society with less disabled people in it might care less for disabled people because it is less able to cope with their needs. Such a society might fail to cope adequately with their needs for two reasons. Firstly, such a society might allocate less resources to the needs of the disabled and secondly it might fail to understand these needs as well a more diverse one. Let us examine the first of these reasons. Prima facie a society with a lower proportion of disabled people in it should have more resources to devote to the disabled people than a similar one with a greater proportion. It might be accepted that such a society has greater resources but argued it might still be less responsive to the disabled’s needs. It might be less responsive because the lower number of disabled people means their voice carries less weight. I find this argument unconvincing. Let us accept in such a society the disabled can still express their needs. Let us also accept that such a society remains a caring one. I can see no reason why such a society should be unresponsive to the expressed needs of the disabled. Now let us examine whether a society with less disabled people in it would be less able to understand their needs. I accept that it is possible that such a society might understand the lives of the disabled less well than a society which contains a greater proportion of disabled people with a stronger voice. However, understanding the lives of the disabled is not the same as responding their needs. In any advanced society if the needs of the disabled can be expressed they can be acted on. If such a society remains a caring one then the expressed needs of the disabled should be acted on. It is also possible that in the future automation might mean members of such a society have more time to try to understand those who are disabled even if the number of those disabled forms a lower proportion of that society. It follows even if members of such a society don’t fully understand the lives of the disabled as members of a more diverse society that there is time for dialogue to better understand these needs.

I have argued any argument against editing our genes based on disability benefitting our society due to increased diversity is unsound. Accepting my argument of course does not mean we should edit our children’s genes as there may be other stronger arguments against so doing.