title: Preventing ultimate harm as the justification for biomoral modification.
abstract: Most advocates of biogenetic modification hope to amplify existing human traits in humans in order to increase the value of such traits as intelligence and resistance to disease. These advocates defend such enhancements as beneficial for the affected parties. By contrast, some commentators recommend certain biogenetic modifications to serve social goals. As Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu see things, human moral psychology is deficient relative to the most important risks facing humanity as a whole, including the prospect of Ultimate Harm, the point at which worthwhile life is forever impossible on the planet. These risks can be mitigated, they say, by enhancing moral psychology in novel ways. Persson and Savulescu argue that some parents should modify the underlying biogenetics of their children's moral psychology, if such measures were safe and effective, but they admit these interventions may not decouple humanity from Ultimate Harm. Neither are these modifications the only options, they concede, for addressing risks to humanity. Even with these concessions, saving humanity from itself is a fairly poor reason to modify the moral psychology of children. In most ways, adults would be better candidates, morally speaking, for modifications of psychology. Even then, there is no direct link between morally enhanced human beings and the hoped-for effect of better protection from Ultimate Harm. Asserting a general duty of all to contribute to the avoidance of Ultimate Harm is a better moral strategy than intervening in the moral psychology of some, even though meeting that duty may involve substantial interference with the free exercise of one's interests.
authors.forename: Timothy F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Murphy
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D024861:Genetic Enhancement / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D019369:Life; D009014:Morals; D010290:Parents; D012941:Social Responsibility; D012945:Social Values
keywords: children; enhancement; environment; ethics; genetics; ultimate harm