Add this to The Useless Tree summer reading list: Michael Sandel, The Case Against Perfectionism: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Harvard, 2007).  It was reviewed today in the NYT by William Saletan.  I have only read the review – though I have encountered Sandel’s arguments before – but I want to jot down some ideas by way of response.

     Both Confucianism and Taoism would be skeptical of the desire to perfect the human biological form – that is, after all, what bioengineering is about – if it were done for selfish purposes.  The two philosophies would diverge on the point of genetic manipulation for some social goal – to provide a family with a child, say.  In that case, Confucianism would be more sympathetic to medical interventions, while Taoism would still resist, viewing all such efforts as violative of Way (this last point has been challenged by readers here in the past on the grounds that Taoists might accept subtle interventions, but I am not so sure of the subtly of bioengineering…)

     In any event, Saletan writes:

But genetic engineering is too big for ethics. It changes human nature,
and with it, our notions of good and bad. It even changes our notions
of perfection…

    And later says:

    In a world without givens, a world controlled by bioengineering, we
would dictate our nature as well as our practices and norms. We would
gain unprecedented power to redefine the good.

      I think this is wrong, because it relies too heavily on a biological definition of human nature.  Ancient Chinese philosophy – both Taoism and Confucianism, though in somewhat different ways and to different extents – view human nature as a complex interactive process of inherent individual characteristics (the Te) and the cosmic context within which each individual performs and communes with others (the Tao).  Biology is only part of this story, to the extent that it plays a role in shaping inherent individual characteristics.  But it is limited.

     Mencius tells us that "duty is internal."   Our impulse to love those closest to us, and thus carry through on our social duties, is something like an appetite.  When we are hungry we eat; when we see an infant crawling toward an open well, we want to stop it.  Do most forms of bioengineering affect that impulse?  No.  Building up our muscles or selecting out disabilities does not change our inherent need to do the right thing – or, at least, that is what a modern Confucian would say.  Might bioengineering someday affect our internal appetite for duty?  Perhaps.  And if it does, then we may face the possibility of "changing our nature."  But we’re not there yet, and may never get to quite that point.

    Human nature must be enacted socially, for Confucians.  We all might start with the same internal capacities for moral action, but we have to follow through, and we have to learn precisely how to act properly in specific social contexts.   Social change – and political and economic change – therefore, are likely to have more influence on "human nature" than bioengineering.  When social and political circumstances change, the possibilities for enacting our inherent morality change.  And if we are unable to perform our duties we are not living out our nature.  That is the bigger problem for Confucians, it seems to me.

       Saletan, thus, latches on to a powerful, if implicit, liberalism in his thinking.  He uncritically accepts a kind of methodological individualism, wherein "human nature" and ethics and only be understood from the point of view of individual preferences.  This is an impoverished view of human nature, one that misses the fundamental sociality of humanity.

     Surprisingly, it seems Sandel might be making the same mistake (I have to read the book to see if Saletan’s take on this is correct).  Although he was closely identified with communitarian thinking some years ago, Sandel seems not to be making a strong communitarian argument in this book.     Saletan suggests that Sandel’s main objection to bioengineering is that is will rob us of the understanding of "giftedness," that sense of awe at the random distribution of human capacities across a population:

To defend the old ways against the new, Sandel needs something
deeper: a common foundation for the various norms in sports, arts and
parenting. He thinks he has found it in the idea of giftedness. To some
degree, being a good parent, athlete or performer is about accepting
and cherishing the raw material you’ve been given to work with.
Strengthen your body, but respect it. Challenge your child, but love
her. Celebrate nature. Don’t try to control everything.

Why
should we accept our lot as a gift? Because the loss of such reverence
would change our moral landscape. “If genetic engineering enabled us to
override the results of the genetic lottery,” Sandel worries, we might
lose “our capacity to see ourselves as sharing a common fate.”
Moreover, “if bioengineering made the myth of the ‘self-made man’ come
true, it would be difficult to view our talents as gifts for which we
are indebted rather than achievements for which we are responsible.”

 A sense of giftedness might be good because it would engender in us a certain humility and would encourage us to understand ourselves within a broader social context.  There is a communitarian idea here.  But a stronger emphasis on human sociality is possible.  It is not so much about gifts as it is about the necessity of social interaction in realizing our humanity.  We can be gifted and selfish; we cannot be morally good and selfish – at least not from a Confucian standpoint.

      To return to bioengineering: it would be permissible if it were pursued for non-selfish purposes.  It should not be all about "me."  Rather, if it is about making a better "we," creating and reproducing and developing the social networks through which we build our humanity, then a Confucian would accept it.   Or maybe that is what Sandel is really saying…

     Again, Taoists would likely question the whole enterprise.  Why are we seeking "perfection" in the first place?  We might be able to change our physical form, but we cannot, ultimately, overcome fate and destiny and Way.