The American Journal of Bioethics

Procreative Benecence, Diversity,

Intersubjectivity, and Imprecision
Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford
Sparrow (2015) claims that we should not impose
diversity when it reduces the well-being of children created to achieve diversity. He argues that social constructivists about disability are mistaken in imposing
disability. He claims that my arguments supporting certain kinds of diversity are flawed and are inconsistent with
procreative beneficence (PB)the moral obligation to have
the best child (Sparrow 2015).
Sparrow claims, I have argued that an obligation to
have the best child possible would require all parents in a
given environment to reproduce using clones of the same
embryo (3). In another target article in the American Journal of Bioethics, he argues that PB supports only having
women (Sparrow 2010) (and there he bemoans lack of sexual diversity). I have responded to these arguments
(Kahane and Savulescu 2010; Savulescu and Sparrow
2013).
I now show how PB and eugenics understood broadly
as having better offspring would not support reproduction
from a single clone and that both are committed to the
value of certain kinds of diversity, even in welfarist terms.
Indeed, in extreme cases, PB is committed to selecting
disability.
CLONES AND IMPRECISION
Sparrow (2015) claims that PB is committed to reproduction from a single cloned embryo: It is also clearly possible that one embryo might have a genome that was clearly
superior over all others in a given environment (Sparrow
2015, footnote 4).
Of course, that is logically possible, but vanishingly
unlikely, given the way the world is.
As I have claimed, in the way the world is and would
be under conditions of justice (in a just world, for short),
there will be many equally good genomes (Savulescu
2014). Sparrow thinks this significantly weakens PB. However, it would be absurd to believe there is a single genome
that is best.
People often give a related simple-minded objection to
enhancement. They claim it is better to be tall, so everyone
will select or enhance their children to be taller. This is
said to be self-defeating because, it is alleged, height is a
purely positional good.

But is it better to be short and a brilliant gymnast or tall

and a brilliant rower? It is not possible to say. Height, or
rather maximum height, is highly genetically determined.
It is not possible to say whether genes for being tall or
short are better simpliciter, let alone without considering a
given environment. But in our world, height will be advantageous for some ends, disadvantageous for others.
My concept of equally good is similar to Derek
Parfits recent concept of imprecision about goodness.
Indeed, he sees imprecision as blocking the Repugnant
Conclusion. What does he mean by imprecision? He
illustrates this with an example from Ruth Chang (2002)
Who is a greater genius, or achieved more: Einstein or
Bach? Parfit argues that the truth could be only that one
of these people was imprecisely greater than the other, or
more plausibly that they were imprecisely equally as
great (Parfit n.d.).
Now, Bach and Einstein also clearly had different
genomes. Perhaps one was better. But is more likely that
their genomes cannot be compared precisely.
Sparrow, however, seems to believe that for PB to have
any bite, we need to be able to precisely compare genomes
and lives. As I have repeatedly said to him, there are black,
gray, and white about value. The fact that there is gray
does not imply that there is no black and white. Perhaps
we cant compare the genome of Bach and Einstein, or
their achievements, but their achievements are obviously
greater than those of a human being with anencephaly, or,
for that matter, with very profound intellectual disability
and an IQ of under 15.
Is it better from the perspective of the individuals own
well-being to be brilliant, creative, and suffer manic
depression, or to be just a normal person without mental
illness? It may not only be impossible to tell, there may be
imprecision in comparing the value of these lives. They
may, in my terms, be equally good for the person who lives
them (though the first may be of greater value to others).
SINGLE DOMINANT CLONES
But let us grant, for arguments sake, that there is a single
dominant best genome and reproduction is based on
cloning this embryo, as Sparrows Scenario II assumes.
Lets call this person Theresa.

Address correspondence to Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford, Littlegate House, St. Ebbes Street, Oxford, OX1 1PT, United Kingdom.
E-mail: julian.savulescu@philosophy.ox.ac.uk

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June, Volume 15, Number 6, 2015

Imposing Genetic Diversity

Soon, there are hundreds of thousands of Theresas,

then millions. With each subsequent Theresa, the value of
the existing Theresas lives reduces. There are more people
like themselves, who look like them, think like them, and
behave like them. There is a lack of originality. It becomes
like living in an inbred, cut-off, small country town. Life
becomes more boring for them.
As the expected well-being of subsequent Theresas
drops, the expected value of the next best embryos life
increases, because that person will be revered, valued, and
respected for his or her rarity. Just imagine being the only
male in a world of supersmart, superhealthy, superbeautiful Theresas. You could get away with being pretty
unhealthy, unintelligent, and ugly and your life would still
go very well, not least in hedonistic terms.
Lets call the value of an individuals life that is
dependent on the attitudes, desires, and practices of
others the intersubjective value of that life. This is how
well our lives go due to the intersubjective evaluative
attitudes of others.
The claim of social constructivists about disability is
that all disvalue of a life is intersubjective, and any difference in the value of a persons life is not due to any objective feature of that life but due to prejudice.
Guy Kahane and I have discussed this claim at
length (Kahane and Savulescu 2009; Savulescu and
Kahane 2009). We agree (as Sparrow does) that a substantial part of the badness of life with disability is due
to prejudice and injustice. However, we also argue (as
Sparrow claims) that there would still be residual disadvantage in the lives of the disabled, even if justice
obtained. Some of this is objectivethat is, independent
of the attitudes and practices of others. Some is intersubjectivedependent on the nonprejudicial value
states of other people.
Consider an example of a modern disability: obesity. Obese people are regularly discriminated against
and this makes their lives go worse. For example, they
are less likely to be employed because of irrational
beliefs about their self-control. Such discrimination
could be overcome by blind interviewing of candidates for jobs.
However, even if all discriminatory practices around
obesity were removed and justice obtained, the obese
would still be disadvantaged. For example, they couldnt
be bike couriers in crowded urban areas. They couldnt
walk up rugged mountains. They would have difficulty
swimming and surfing in the ocean. And many people
would find them unattractive as mates.
Now, whom we find attractive and wish to marry is
not within the realm of justice. The fact that an obese
person cant find a partner, and wants to, is not a matter of justice. It could be that some society values obesity, in which case being thin would be a disadvantage.
But insofar as people happen to disvalue obesity, it
remains a disadvantageous state. It is also an objective
disability because of its interaction with the physical
world, corrected for injustice.

June, Volume 15, Number 6, 2015

Thus, even if there were a single best objectively valuable genome (Theresa), the role of intersubjective evaluative attitudes that are not the result of prejudice would
lower and raise the value of certain lives. PB together with
the combination of intersubjective and objective value
would mean that diversity would result.
As another illustration, even if there is disvalue to having ginger hair now, if everyone had blond hair, it would
likely become more highly valued. The same applies to
breast size and other objects of social preference.
The legitimate social connectedness and freedom to
value states of the world including people means that
diversity is an inevitable outcome, even under harsh maximizing principles like PB. Together with imprecision in
value, we need not fear a loss of diversity, even under
maximizing principles like PB.
Indeed, it is possible that legitimate intersubjective
value could outweigh significant objective disadvantage.
In our previous work, Kahane and I postulated that in certain environments, deaf people could have the best of lives
( Savulescu and Kahane 2009).
To take another example, dwarfism would be associated with some residual objective disadvantage even in a
just world. But if dwarves were highly valued (say, as
artistic models, religious leaders, or stars in a new Hollywood movie series), this intersubjective value could mean
they have the best of lives.
When one makes procreative choices, one must predict not only the natural but also the social environment. Our nature as social animals ensures diversity in
value of life. Whether this means that lives with deafness, blindness, or intellectual disability are likely to be
among the best lives is a question I cannot address in
this short commentary.
What is clear is that imposing diversity is not an
issue for consequentialists (or Kantians, as Sparrow realizes). There will be more than enough diversity to go
round even if we accept PB and our obligation to select the
best child, where best is understood in a suitably imprecise
way. &

REFERENCES
Chang, R. 2002. The possibility of parity. Ethics 112(4): 659688.
Kahane, G., and J. Savulescu. 2009. The welfarist account of disability. In Disability and disadvantage, ed. A.Cureton and K.Brownlee, 1453. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Kahane, G., and J. Savulescu. 2010. The value of sex in procreative
reasons. American Journal of Bioethics 10(7): 2224.
Parfit, D. 2015. Can we avoid the repugnant conclusion? Moral Philosophy Seminar. Available at: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~moralps/
pastseminars.shtml
Savulescu, J. 2014. The nature of the moral obligation to select
the best children. In The future of bioethics: International dialogues, ed. A. Akayabashi, 170182. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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Savulescu, J., and G. Kahane. 2009. The moral obligation to create

children with the best chance of the best life. Bioethics 23(5):
274290.

Sparrow, R. 2010. Should human beings have sex? Sexual dimorphism and human enhancement. American Journal of Bioethics 10
(7): 312.

Savulescu, J., and R. Sparrow. 2013. Making better babies, pro and
Con. debate transcript. Monash Review of Bioethics 13(1): 3659.

Sparrow, R. 2015. Imposing genetic diversity. American Journal of

Bioethics 15(6): 210.

Genetic Diversity as a Value: Imposing

Fairness
Diana Aurenque, University of Santiago (Chile) and University of Tubingen (Germany)
Sparrow (2015) focuses on a key argument in the ethics of
reproductive technologies such as prenatal and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Sparrow shows that the
concept of genetic diversity as a value is not only maintained in the literature on disability by critics of the use of
PGD (such as Rosemarie Garland-Thomson) but also supported by those who, on the contrary, are quite liberal
regarding the use of this technique (e.g., Julian Savulescu).
However, despite the divergence between the two positions, they converge on the intuition that genetic diversity
is a value that should be preserved, inasmuch as genetic
diversity brings heterogeneity into the world. From this
perspective, the absence of genetic diversity would result
in an epistemic and ethical loss in our experience of the
world. In his article, Sparrow focuses on the scope of this
argument and develops a particularly interesting philosophical work that shows certain limits and problems
resulting by stressing that genetic diversity is a value. One
of the most interesting aspects of the text emerges from
thought experiments: Sparrow clearly states that the argument on genetic diversityalthough it may intuitively
seem to be reasonableis more problematic than we think
and should therefore be discussed and analyzed more
deeply.
This commentary critically examines Sparrow
s effort
and aims to look constructively at some aspects that, as
I hope, help to better address what I believe represents
the main question of the article: If genetic diversity is
an fundamental epistemic and ethical value, why
should it not be imposed, when it is diminished or
jeopardized? In answering this question, I focus on the
concept of genetic diversity as an ethical value in order
to go into more detail about some aspects that Sparrow
mentions but remained not fully analyzed. In addition,
the commentary attempts to offer a way to overcome
some of the difficulties Sparrow sees in the argument

by distinguishing between the legitimate and illegitimate use of genetic diversity as a value.

(GENETIC) DIVERSITY AS A NEW VALUE

The emergence of genetic diversity as a value can be seen
as a response to a particular context: It is part of a discourse
against the discrimination of people with different capabilities (different from the normal body maintained by the
medical model) that supports values like inclusion, solidarity, and tolerance. Due to the tremendous amount of progress in modern medicine and technologies in general, as
well as in the field of reproductive medicine in particular,
genetic diversity can certainly be understood as something
that might be compromised. In this sense, it is a concept
that encourages the right to be different, to have the chance
to develop different skills and thus to have a more heterogeneous world. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the idea of
conserving diversity begins as early as the mid 1980s precisely in the context of ethical discussions concerning the
environment (a term that since 1988 has been specified as
biodiversity). The concept appears in order to protect a
biological or genetic minority. Like many other concepts in
bioethics, the idea of genetic diversity emerges as a value
in order to protect a vulnerable minority.

VULNERABILITY AND FACTICITY

According to Sparrow, the concept of genetic diversity
belongs to the argument type of theodicy. These arguments are deeply related to the epistemic question of the
existence of evil (cf. Ehni 2012; Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy n.d.). Arguments of this kind seek to establish
that although there are suffering and evil in the world (if
such apparently undesirable facts are evaluated from a

Address correspondence to Diana Aurenque, University of Santiago, Chile, Department of Philosophy, Avenida Libertador Bernardo
OHiggins 3363, Santiago, 9170022, Chile. E-mail: diana.aurenque@usach.cl

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June, Volume 15, Number 6, 2015

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