Imagine a future where people order up their children’s eye color, height, IQ, and skin color the way they choose appliances for their kitchen. People order not just books and games on Amazon but baby boys and girls who are, as Newsweek put it recently, “genetically optimized.” Participants in an upcoming debate will tackle the question “Is Designing Babies Unethical—or a Moral Imperative?” The Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant made moral imperatives a central topic in ethical discourse. How would Kant answer the soon-to-be debated question?
In his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant taught that the first formulation of the categorical (moral) imperative is “I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” Kant held that lying violates this categorical imperative. If everyone were to lie, then no one would believe anyone. But if no one believed anyone, then lying would be pointless, since a lie would fool no one. Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative is “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” Murderers make their victims merely a means to their end of covering up their crime or venting their rage. A case can be made that designing babies violates both formulations of the categorical imperative.
What would happen if everyone were to order up their idealized baby Barbie or baby Ken? Well, people want to optimize their children so that they will have advantages. If your kid grows to be 6 foot 4 inches tall, he’ll have an advantage in making the high school basketball team, especially if you also order up quickness and dexterity. If you order up a child who is conscientious, intelligent, and curious, she’ll have a better shot at getting into your dream university.
But, of course, if everyone were to make designer babies, then these advantages would evaporate. Everyone’s child would be tall, intelligent, and conscientious. If everyone made designer babies, then making designer babies would be pointless.
Obviously, not everyone could make designer babies—only the rich and privileged, which would further extend their family’s advantage over the poor and marginalized. Designer babies are a form of eugenics that exacerbates inequality. And, as Michael Sandel points out, “Eugenics was discredited by the Nazis [and] by forced sterilization laws that were enacted by the majority of American states in the 1920s and 1930s.”
When parents relate to their children as products, both children and parents lose.
Would Kant oppose eugenics? Relevant to this question is the second formulation of the categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end in itself.” William E. May argued, “Human babies are not to be treated as products inferior to their producers and subject to quality controls; they are persons equal in dignity to their parents.” No human being is a thing with a price; every human being is a person with dignity. But to create and design human beings as if they were products is to treat such human beings as if they were things whose value depends upon whether they meet factory specifications. I can already hear the complaints lodged at Designer Baby, Inc.: “I told you I wanted a 6 foot 4 child with blond hair and blue eyes, but this one is only 6 foot 1 with brown hair and brown eyes. He didn’t even make the soccer team! I want my money back.” When parents relate to their children as products, both children and parents lose. The children lose the unconditional love that good parents provide for their kids, whether they are tall or short, intellectually gifted or learning disabled, beautiful or homely. Parents lose when they view their children as factory-designed products rather than as gifts graciously accepted. As Sandel noted, “To appreciate children as gifts is to accept them as they come, not as products of our design or instruments of our ambition.”
To treat humanity as an end in itself and never use humanity simply as a means also justifies bans on experimentation on human beings without their consent. Even if others might benefit from experiments conducted on you, the Nuremberg trials established that it is unethical to turn you into a lab subject without getting your informed consent. But making designer babies is experimenting on human beings without their consent. How many children will experience design flaws? What problems will they suffer? Will designer children be like Dolly the cloned sheep, who suffered lung cancer, arthritis, and premature death? We simply do not know. The only way to find out is to experiment on innocent human beings. Human beings who have not consented should not be subjected to laboratory experiments to gratify the desires of parents wanting designer babies and companies wanting profits.
Is designing babies a moral imperative? When it comes to giving a moral green light to the eugenic optimizing of babies, Kant can’t.