No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Genetic Intervention and the New Frontiers of Justice*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2010
Extract
Recent advances in genetic research pose many complex problems for moral and political philosophers. On the one hand, these advances promise great things. Genetic enhancement techniques might allow us to prevent or cure a variety of debilitating diseases. But on the other hand, talk about intervening in people's genetic make-up conjures up memories of the sinister episodes of past eugenic movements. Such movements violated the most basic principles of justice. How can society capitalize on the benefits of genetic intervention and yet avoid the injustices of past eugenic movements? What basic moral principles should guide public policy and individual choice concerning the use of genetic interventions? These important questions are tackled by Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler in From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. This book brings together the thoughts of leading scholars in the field and is likely to set the agenda for serious debate on this topic.
- Type
- Critical Notices/Études critiques
- Information
- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , Winter 2002 , pp. 139 - 154
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2002
References
Notes
1 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 3.Google Scholar
2 See Roemer, John, Theories of Distributive Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
3 See, for example, Ibid., Arneson, Richard, “Equality and Equality of Opportunity for Welfare,” Philosophical Studies, 56 (1989): 77–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Cohen, G. A., “Equality of What? On Welfare Goods and Capabilities,” in The Quality of Life, edited by Nussbaum, Martha (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).Google Scholar
4 Rawls, , A Theory of Justice, p. 62.Google Scholar
5 See Daniels, Norman, Just Health Care (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
6 Moore, Adam, “Owning Genetic Information and Gene Enhancement Techniques: Why Privacy and Property Rights May Undermine the Social Control of the Human Genome,” Bioethics, 14, no. 2 (April 2000): 97–119, p. 117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7 See my article, “Genes and Social Justice: A Rawlsian Reply to Moore,” Bioethics, 16, no. 1 (January 2002): 72–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 This is a modified version of the model adopted in Canadian Charter Jurisprudence with respect to Section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section of the Charter guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. See, for example, R. v. Oakes in 26 D.L.R. (4th) 200 (1986).
9 I would like to thank two anonymous referees from Dialogue for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.