Genetic Enhancement of a Child’s Memory: A Search for a Private and Pub

Genetic Enhancement of a Child’s Memory: A Search for a Private and Public Morality ABSTRACT: Prospects of human genetic modification raise the question of genetic enhancement of memory. A moral framework that takes into account the tension between the roles of parent and citizen on the question of genetically enhancing a child’s memory is presented. Weaknesses of both moral liberalism and moral communitarianism are addressed: a tyranny of a powerful minority of liberalism, while a tyranny of orthodoxy and a tyranny of perfectionism plague different forms of communitarianism. A position is advanced that draws on the strengths of both a Rawlsian form of contractarianism and a moderate version of communitarianism. I argue that genetic enhancements of memory in children pose such serious wrongs and threats to general well-being that the practice should be decided from behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance. With the cards down, as Ronald Green describes the veil of ignorance, a basic right to nondiscrimination on the basis of genotype would be negotiated. With this right in place, conflicts between the parental role and the role of citizen would be managed by the negotiated prohibition of parental decisions genetically to enhance the memory of children. Let me imagine myself some years from now as a citizen and a parent — who also happens to be a philosophy teacher — facing the question of whether I should choose various enhancements for my young child. Orthodontics, music lessons, soccer leagues, and genetic enhancement of an average memory are among the practices I am considering. I soon discover an internal tension. Ronald Green, in an article called "The Rawls Game," (Teaching Philosophy, 1986, 9:1, 51-60) provides an el... ...eligious intolerance, new definitions of what it means to be a human person have been created. In a hypothetical, unanimous agreement to prohibit genetic enhancement of a child’s memory I would join a citizenry that exercises parental autonomy and — in the face of a volatile new technology — defines a new way of understanding what it means to be a human parent. My choice as a parent to serve as a link between past and future human generations prompts me to pursue a perspective of fairness in the application of this new technology — a technology that incorporates self-interest and benevolence but makes neither self-interest nor benevolence my primary motivation as a parent. I could tell a coherent story to my child if I were able to relate to that, with the cards down, people unanimously placed genetic enhancement of a child’s average memory off the political agenda.