Michael Sandel in “The case Against Perfection” talks about benefits and drawbacks in genetic engineering, designer children, and bionic athletes. The benefit is that improving technological advancement, we will be able to treat and prevent many diseases that are prevalent today. The downside is that exponential growth of technologies will allow us to manipulate our own nature, to enhance our cognitive abilities, physical strength, and choose genetic traits of our children to make ourselves “better than well” (Sandel, 2004). Sandel argues that Genetic engineering offers us the power to master our nature, but that kind of power & choice threatens our ability to appreciate life as a gift, and erode human agency by allowing us to serve our purposes
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Although he would approve some modification of plants that are going extinct to main diversity and bring them to a certain healthy threshold, just like he proposes in human diseases. Sandel would not approve to modify plants to withstand pesticides and some of the harsh weather conditions. That would qualify to improve their abilities above the normal threshold. I don’t agree with Sandel because his argument about a role of God can be used to hinder any technological innovation because anything we do will affect the nature some way or the other. Modifying plants to withstand harsh chemicals and weather conditions are one of the main benefits of GMO. That is one the main solutions to maintain our future food supply regardless of climate change, growing population and unforeseen natural disaster. Lack of diversity is a major issue in GMO and Sandel talks about that in sex selection part of the paper. Sandel offers a solution to stop parents from selecting the gender of their child by not allowing them to screen or pick a gender for the first and second child but can screen for a third child. The same logic can be used to maintain diversity with Genetically Modified Foods. We can regulate the percentage of crops farmers are allowed to plant that are genetically modified and require them to plant the proportional number of organic food as well. This allows the farmer to maintain …show more content…
In several places throughout the paper, he mentions this notion that We can’t tinker with nature because that’s God role. He says that “one of the blessings of seeing ourselves as creatures of nature, God, or fortune is that we are not wholly responsible for the way we are” (Sandel 17). To support his thesis, he talks about the concept of insurance and sharing the risk between everyone. Although his argument was persuasive, we can argue the other side just as well. Blaming God for our actions can also set a precedent for all the ill behavior that Humans do to one another. We wouldn’t accept murderer to say I am not responsible for this murder, it’s God’s fault for making me the way I am. By Genetically modifying Food we are not disobeying God’s will but are merely making it better. Improving the status quo is a reasonable way to approach genetic advancement. It’s not morally wrong to want better future for our children, to want better health, and better Food even if we have to enhance some of the traits genetically. Just like you can’t stop the flow of river but only guide it, we won’t be able to stop genetic innovation, but we can set forth some guidelines that can make Genetic enhancements fair, responsible and still maintain our
Although he would approve some modification of plants that are going extinct to main diversity and bring them to a certain healthy threshold, just like he proposes in human diseases. Sandel would not approve to modify plants to withstand pesticides and some of the harsh weather conditions. That would qualify to improve their abilities above the normal threshold. I don’t agree with Sandel because his argument about a role of God can be used to hinder any technological innovation because anything we do will affect the nature some way or the other. Modifying plants to withstand harsh chemicals and weather conditions are one of the main benefits of GMO. That is one the main solutions to maintain our future food supply regardless of climate change, growing population and unforeseen natural disaster. Lack of diversity is a major issue in GMO and Sandel talks about that in sex selection part of the paper. Sandel offers a solution to stop parents from selecting the gender of their child by not allowing them to screen or pick a gender for the first and second child but can screen for a third child. The same logic can be used to maintain diversity with Genetically Modified Foods. We can regulate the percentage of crops farmers are allowed to plant that are genetically modified and require them to plant the proportional number of organic food as well. This allows the farmer to maintain …show more content…
In several places throughout the paper, he mentions this notion that We can’t tinker with nature because that’s God role. He says that “one of the blessings of seeing ourselves as creatures of nature, God, or fortune is that we are not wholly responsible for the way we are” (Sandel 17). To support his thesis, he talks about the concept of insurance and sharing the risk between everyone. Although his argument was persuasive, we can argue the other side just as well. Blaming God for our actions can also set a precedent for all the ill behavior that Humans do to one another. We wouldn’t accept murderer to say I am not responsible for this murder, it’s God’s fault for making me the way I am. By Genetically modifying Food we are not disobeying God’s will but are merely making it better. Improving the status quo is a reasonable way to approach genetic advancement. It’s not morally wrong to want better future for our children, to want better health, and better Food even if we have to enhance some of the traits genetically. Just like you can’t stop the flow of river but only guide it, we won’t be able to stop genetic innovation, but we can set forth some guidelines that can make Genetic enhancements fair, responsible and still maintain our