None of this is to suggest that research on human genetic engineering ought to be banned or restricted by law, unless it endangers research subjects. For one, gene therapy targeting various diseases could alleviate much human suffering. If it can make significant inroads against Alzheimer's, for instance, then millions will be saved from the cruelest loss of individuality and identity. This is a potential that biotechnology foes brush aside in a high-handed manner that borders on offensive. Columnist George Will mocks the "desiccated utilitarianism" which holds that "if something reduces an individual's suffering or improves an individual's well-being, it should be done." Going much further, in a Slate exchange last year, GreenMagazine.com editor Ken Kurson derided the human genome project as "a despicable profit grab based on a demonstrably false premise (that there are too few people, and that people should live longer)."
But those who argue the other side sometimes have their own blind spots: In their optimism, they tend to forget that even beneficial changes can have a downside and that life can confront us with tragic paradox. Moreover, opposition to government bans on morally problematic uses of biotechnology should not foreclose a vigorous debate about moral issues -- or a voluntary decision by scientists not to go down certain paths. The abdication of moral judgment invites intrusive laws. There should be, at least, a stigma against any genetic alteration that amounts to monkeying around with the self.
It may well be, of course, that science may well never gain the knowledge and skill required to truly engineer the soul -- that, as University of Delaware particle physicist Stephen Barr writes in First Things, the interaction of various genes that may produce a particular trait is too complex ever to master. Perhaps genetic manipulation will at most increase the chances that a child will possess a desired characteristic, and fears about the "abolition of humanity" will prove groundless. But then, those who stress the perils of the unfettered pursuit of knowledge may have something of a last laugh. The grounds for optimism, after all, are in the hope that there are limits to this Promethean quest.
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