What kinds of people should we create?
The advent of genetic engineering will give people the power to design the members of the succeeding generation, and thus will render practical the issue how such a power ought to be exercised. Here I address that issue in a general way. I point out that the aim of making future people better adapted to the modern social environment is implicitly circular, since the natures of the peoples themselves will determine the nature of the social environment. I claim that the human property the enhancement of which would do most to enrich experience is intelligence; accordingly increased intelligence should be a primary aim of genetic designers. The tendency to feel pain should be attenuated, as positive motivation is substituted for negative (to some extent). People should be designed so as to be motivated more by reason than by any non-rational drives (though rational motivation may still involve pleasure and pain). The sex drive, having outlived its usefulness, will probably be replaced by some other source of pleasure. As a side effect of these changes in people, the arts and social sciences will be transformed beyond recognition.
Hudson
J
J
Department of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115. jhudson@niu.edu
D005818:Genetic Engineering; D024861:Genetic Enhancement; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008136:Longevity; D010684:Philosophy; D010990:Pleasure-Pain Principle; D019529:Sexuality; D012922:Social Change; D012941:Social Responsibility