Abstract
Recent progress in biomedical research in the fields of stem cell technology and genome editing has entailed a revival of ethical concerns regarding the autonomy and authenticity of future persons who might be created by prospective novel means of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), e.g., on the basis of in vitro gametogenesis or germline interventions. In this regard, critical authors refer to the Habermasean concern that persons “made” by technological means instead of coming into existence in a “natural” way could be deprived of forming a self-concept of being autonomous and the authentic “authors of their life histories”. Since the recent birth of two genetically modified girls, these concerns have gained topicality. The notion of being the “author” of one’s life history appears to relate to the idea that we can—somehow and within certain limits—actively influence who we are. It is hard to see why this idea could not include the possibility of integrating the circumstances of one’s coming into existence—be they “artificial” or “natural”—in an authenticity-preserving way. Given that (future) persons are (will be) aware of these circumstances, they should be able to adapt their life histories accordingly. Assuming a relational structure of autonomy and authenticity in general, it appears plausible that no person’s life history and self-concept are constituted and maintained in an isolated and individualistic manner. Quite the contrary, (self-)ascriptions of autonomy and authenticity require adequate social relationships, in the first place. Based on this assumption, it can be supposed that deprivation of a confident self-concept and feeling of “objectification” by their “creators” in (future) persons conceived by means of novel ART would be due to flawed communicative relationships or prejudice rather than an actual lack of essentialist authenticity. The Habermasean concern can thus be regarded as revealing a structural social problem rather than one raised by biotechnology per se, and it can be smoothed out by Habermas’ own conceptual conditions for the development of personal identity, authenticity and autonomy.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. Regalado (2018) and https://apnews.com/4997bb7aa36c45449b488e19ac83e86d (accessed: 30 July 2020).
- 2.
Ibid. It has been questioned if the concerned prospective parents were really aware of what they were consenting to. Moreover, it has been criticised that manipulating the CCR5 gene with the aim of causing HIV resistance may have serious side effects and cause interdependencies like increased susceptibility to other infectious diseases. Generally, the danger of genetically manipulated innate immunity leading to “collective action problems” has been critically assessed previously; cf. Gyngell and Douglas (2015, 244 f.).
- 3.
In January 2019, Chinese authorities confirmed a second pregnancy resulting from the experiments.
- 4.
Admittedly, the notion of “designer babies” is not clearly defined; cf. Segers et al. (2019, 500): “There is relative consensus about the idea that the creation of designer babies involves genetic interventions in order to influence the traits of future offspring, but this is vague, and it can be rightly asked which interventions and which traits one is talking about.”
- 5.
Dzau et al. (2018, 1215).
- 6.
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/erste-genveraenderte-babys-china-genome-editing-crispr-cas,RAUwtIy (accessed: 26 July 2019; own translation).
- 7.
Ibid. (accessed: 26 July 2019; own translation).
- 8.
The community could in fact have been prepared, had some well-informed persons, e.g., He’s former doctoral adviser, at times blown the whistle on his experiments; cf. Lander et al. (2019, 166): “[S]cientists who were apparently aware of this work did not take adequate measures to stop it.” Interestingly, since He’s fall from grace, even staunch liberal and transhumanist advocates of genetic enhancement (e.g. Savulescu and Kahane 2009; Savulescu et al. 2015) climb down from arguing too optimistically in favour of germline interventions, all the more since it has become apparent that not only overenthusiastic scientific renegades like He might have a share in “playing God”, but also so far deemed rather innocuous DIY-biohackers; cf. Regalado (2019).
- 9.
Cf. Ledford (2015, 311): “No one so far has declared an interest in producing live babies with edited genomes, and initial experiments would suggest that it is not yet safe. But some suspect that it is only a matter of time”; Hildt (2016, 2): “[C]urrently, in view of the high risks and unresolved practical, societal and ethical issues involved, nobody would ever argue toward attempting human germline modifications that involve initiating a pregnancy. However, the move toward in vitro human germline interventions attempts to set the stage for future uses involving human reproduction.”
- 10.
Cf. Doudna and Charpentier (2014).
- 11.
Baltimore et al. (2015).
- 12.
Cf. Lanphier et al. (2015).
- 13.
Cf. Lander et al. (2019).
- 14.
- 15.
Cf., e.g., Savulescu et al. (2015, 477).
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
Hildt (2016, 1 f.).
- 19.
Ibid., 2; cf. also Kipke et al. (2017, 250): “The problem [with genome editing] lies in what becomes possible and probable with it: arbitrary interventions in the human germline, the irreversible transfer of alterations to future generations, serious shifts in the relation between generations, ethically dubious clinical experiments and the blurring of species borders. The rapid, even precipitous implementation of gene editing in Great Britain [the authors refer to the legalisation of mitochondrial transfer] for – up to now – experimental aims broaches at a single blow all the concerns that have been formulated regarding germline manipulation, eugenics and designer babies in the past decades” (own translation).
- 20.
- 21.
For example, a lot of criticism concerning arguments about hubris, playing God and human nature has been passed on the President’s Council on Bioethics (2003) report Beyond Therapy.
- 22.
Thomas Gutmann, philosopher of law, member and spokesman of the former Centre for Advanced Study in Bioethics at the University of Münster in Germany, once kidded in a public talk that there are “zombie arguments” in the bioethical debate—bad arguments which reappear regularly and cannot be “killed” because they are already “dead”. Until recently, the argument about designer babies appeared to be such a zombie argument.
- 23.
Habermas (2003). The original German version, Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik?, was first published in 2001 and reprinted in 2002; an extended version was published in 2005. Interestingly, Habermas states explicitly that he is not concerned about germline interventions in his essay (cf. Habermas 2003, 117, endnote 2). Nonetheless, the Habermasean argument has attracted attention again in the recent debate on genome editing and germline interventions.
- 24.
Pugh (2015, 145).
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
Cf. ibid., 146 f.
- 27.
Ibid., 146.
- 28.
For an extensive discussion of different approaches of authenticity, see Guignon (2004).
- 29.
Pugh (2015, 147).
- 30.
Ibid., 146.
- 31.
Ibid., 149.
- 32.
Ibid., 146.
- 33.
Habermas (2003, 59).
- 34.
Cf. ibid.: “It is only by referring to this difference between nature and culture, between beginnings not at our disposal, and the plasticity of historical practices that the acting subject may proceed to the self-ascriptions without which he could not perceive himself as the initiator of his actions and aspirations.”
- 35.
Pugh (2015, 147).
- 36.
Ibid. (original emphasis).
- 37.
Ibid., 147.
- 38.
Tömmel (2020) (the references in the quotes refer to the extended German version of Habermas’ essay).
- 39.
Ibid., 181.
- 40.
Ibid., 183.
- 41.
- 42.
Tömmel (2020, 181).
- 43.
Ibid., 182 (original emphasis).
- 44.
Cf. Kipke et al. (2017, 251 f.): “The assumption that one will stick to this kind of [fundamental] research is naive” (own translation).
- 45.
Ibid., 250 (original emphasis; own translation).
- 46.
Recently, the Russian scientist Denis Rebrikov has announced to prepare genome editing experiments with the aim of preventing inherited deafness.
- 47.
Segers et al. (2019, 501).
- 48.
Tömmel (2020, 181 f.) emphasises the same point: “While negative eugenics prevent ‘highly generalized evils’ such as fatal diseases, positive eugenics select or ‘enhance’ certain traits according to the subjective preferences of the embryo’s parents[.] […] Thus, not reproductive medicine in general but selecting or manipulating the embryonic genome without any serious indication would be a clear distortion of power between parents and children.”
- 49.
Of course, this distinction has been frequently criticised for relying on vague and contested concepts of health, disease and normality, respectively; Habermas (2003, 51) defends the contested differentiation: “However hard it may be to distinguish in the individual case between therapeutic interventions—the prevention of evils—and enhancing interventions, the regulative idea that governs the intended delimitation is simple.”
- 50.
Pugh (2015, 148).
- 51.
Cf. Regalado (2018): “Still, removing the CCR5 gene to create HIV resistance may not present a particularly strong reason to alter a baby’s heredity. There are easier, less expensive ways to prevent HIV infection. Also, editing embryos during an IVF procedure would be costly, high-tech, and likely to remain inaccessible in many poor regions of the world where HIV is rampant.”
- 52.
Pugh (2015, 149) (original emphasis).
- 53.
Pugh (2015, 148) (own emphasis); cf. also ibid., 146 f.: “In appealing to the concept of natality, Habermas is able [to] account for the possibility of autonomy despite the forces of socialization, since he claims that our natality allows us to identify the ‘self’ as it existed prior to the forces of socialization.”
- 54.
Ibid. (own emphasis).
- 55.
Habermas (2003, 59).
- 56.
Cf. Quante (2018, Chap. 2). Quante plausibly differentiates four meanings of the concept “personal identity” that should not be confounded: synchronic identity (being one person at a given point in time), diachronic identity or persistence (numerical identity over time), personhood (the moral status of being a person), and personality (the individual characteristic of personhood).
- 57.
Habermas (2003, 59).
- 58.
The reference to Kant may, however, be misleading insofar as, for Habermas, even subjectivity is a product of social interrelations: “Subjectivity, being what makes the human body a soul-possessing receptacle of the spirit, is itself constituted through intersubjective relations to others” (Habermas 2003, 34).
- 59.
Quante (2018, 29 f.).
- 60.
Habermas (2003, 35).
- 61.
Ibid., 42.
- 62.
Cf. ibid., 25.
- 63.
Tömmel (2020, 183).
- 64.
Guignon (2004, 161) (original emphasis); cf. also ibid., 163: “So authenticity is a personal undertaking insofar as it entails personal integrity and responsibility for self. But it also has a social dimension insofar as it brings with it a sense of belongingness and indebtedness to the wider social context that makes it possible.”
- 65.
I guess there is nothing more to it since Habermas himself concedes that “[q]uite literally, this essay is an attempt, seeking to attain more transparence for a rather mixed-up set of intuitions” (Habermas 2003, 22; original emphasis); cf. also ibid., 42: “Knowledge of one’s own genome being programmed might prove to be disruptive, I suspect, for our assumption that we exist as a body or, so to speak, ‘are’ our body” (own emphasis).
- 66.
Habermas (2003, 13).
- 67.
Notably, humans share both biological contingency and 98.7% of their genes with chimpanzees; still, chimpanzees are not unanimously regarded to be members of the moral community.
- 68.
Habermas (2003, 35).
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Beck, B. (2020). The ART of Authenticity. In: Kühler, M., Mitrović, V.L. (eds) Theories of the Self and Autonomy in Medical Ethics. The International Library of Bioethics, vol 83. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56703-3_6
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