Reprogenetics and the ‘Parents Have Always Done It’ Argument

Malmqvist, Erik,1980-Linköpings universitet,Hälsa och samhälle,Filosofiska fakulteten (författare)

In debates about the ethics of so-called reprogenetic technologies one often comes across the following line of reasoning. Parents have always shaped their children’s characteristics through rearing and education; such shaping is morally acceptable or even required; choosing children’s characteristics by means of reprogenetic technologies is just like shaping these characteristics through rearing and education; hence reprogenetic child shaping should also be considered morally acceptable or required. This argument suffers from several weaknesses. Above all, it rests on a mistaken analogy. Reprogenetic child shaping is in fact not at all like rearing and education. The difference between the two practices, and the moral salience of that difference, can be brought out with the help of two related approaches insufficiently explored in contemporary bioethics: hermeneutics and Aristotelian practical philosophy.

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