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The principle of procreative beneficence and its implications for genetic engineering

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Abstract

Molecular genetic engineering technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 have made the accurate and safe genetic engineering of human embryos possible. Further advances in genomics have isolated genes that predict qualities and traits associated with intelligence. Given these advances, prospective parents could use these biotechnologies to genetically engineer future children for genes that enhance their intelligence. While Julian Savulescu’s Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PPB) argues for the moral obligation of prospective parents to use in-vitro fertilization and preimplantation genetic diagnosis to make eugenic selections of embryos for intelligence, the PPB could imply obligations to genetically engineer selected embryos for intelligence as well. I argue that the PPB implies an additional moral obligation for prospective parents to genetically engineer the embryonic germline identity of selected embryos for genes that predict intelligence. Objections to my argument for the PPB’s extension are also discussed.

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Notes

  1. One might add that suicide reduces pleasure because the process of committing suicide can be painful. However, this is not necessarily the case and especially in cases of intelligent people committing suicide, there is reason to doubt that the process of suicide would be painful for them. This is because an intelligent person would more effectively select, plan and execute their preferred method of suicide to minimize the pain of the procedure.

  2. I take the attainment of ‘peace (broadly defined)’ as an objective that people would generally want to pursue.

  3. To clarify, peace (broadly defined) could mean the absence of war. As in, the belligerents sued for peace to end the war that they were fighting. The absence of peace in this context would then mean the continuation or initiation of war.

  4. Which in this context can be understood as world peace.

  5. Assuming world peace is a desire that the intelligent person is committed to fulfilling.

  6. If one counts a relationship as a friendship.

  7. I make no claim that I have provided an exhaustive definition of beauty, I have only defined one aspect of beauty, that of elegance. Any reference I make to beauty is with respect to elegance unless otherwise stated.

  8. Specifically, the objective list of medical principalism.

  9. A view that the authors do not challenge in any event. However, it is worth confirming that intelligence would enhance one’s ability to effectively single out opportunities to form social relations and would promote the perpetuation of those relationships by enhancing one’s perceptiveness in ensuring that those that they are social engaged with feel maximally fulfilled in said relationships.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to Prof. Christopher Simon Wareham for his patient and diligent supervision of my MSc dissertation, a dissertation which I proudly passed cum laude, upon which this publication is based.

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  1. University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Luvuyo Gantsho

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Gantsho, L. The principle of procreative beneficence and its implications for genetic engineering. Theor Med Bioeth 43, 307–328 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-022-09585-0

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