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categories: ["society"]categories: ["society"]tags: ["bioethics", "philosophy", "precaution", "human dignity", "politics"]tags: ["bioethics", "philosophy", "precaution", "human dignity", "politics"]summary: "The position that biotechnological modification of human beings should face a strong presumption against it, grounded in dignity, precaution, or the value of the given."summary: "The position that biotechnological modification of human beings should face a strong presumption against it, grounded in dignity, precaution, or the value of the given."updated: "2026-07-27"updated: "2026-08-23"issues: ["The stem-cell-clinic harms and the 2019 plasma warning are stated without sources."]------ ```infobox```infoboxlines 31–37 → 30–3616 unchanged lines not shown
Four distinct arguments run under the heading, and they are frequently confused.Four distinct arguments run under the heading, and they are frequently confused. **Human dignity.** Francis Fukuyama's version holds that equal moral and political rights rest on a complex of species characteristics — he calls it Factor X — which is not reducible to any single trait and which would be fragmented by selective modification.[^fukuyama2002] He named transhumanism the world's most dangerous idea in a 2004 magazine symposium, on the ground that a society containing beings of engineered and unengineered kinds would have no stable basis for treating its members as equals.**Human dignity.** Francis Fukuyama's version holds that equal moral and political rights rest on a complex of species characteristics — he calls it Factor X — which is not reducible to any single trait and which would be fragmented by selective modification.[^fukuyama2002] He named transhumanism the world's most dangerous idea in a 2004 *Foreign Policy* symposium, on the ground that a society containing beings of engineered and unengineered kinds would have no stable basis for treating its members as equals.[^fukuyama2004] **The given and the made.** Jürgen Habermas argues that a person who learns their dispositions were chosen by another to a design stands in an asymmetric relation to that designer which no naturally born person occupies, and that the symmetry of mutual recognition among free and equal persons depends on nobody having authored anybody.[^habermas2003] Michael Sandel's related case against perfection is developed in [[bioethics-of-enhancement]].**The given and the made.** Jürgen Habermas argues that a person who learns their dispositions were chosen by another to a design stands in an asymmetric relation to that designer which no naturally born person occupies, and that the symmetry of mutual recognition among free and equal persons depends on nobody having authored anybody.[^habermas2003] Michael Sandel's related case against perfection is developed in [[bioethics-of-enhancement]]. lines 68–74 → 67–7330 unchanged lines not shown
Bioconservatism has a better predictive record than its opponents usually concede, and the vindications are specific rather than general.Bioconservatism has a better predictive record than its opponents usually concede, and the vindications are specific rather than general. The [[he-jiankui-affair]] confirmed that professional self-regulation of the kind inherited from the [[asilomar-conference]] does not bind a determined actor, and that the first heritable edits would be performed without medical justification, without adequate consent, and without the technical safeguards the field had described as prerequisites. Unregulated stem-cell clinics have caused blindness and death while operating in regulatory gaps. Clinics selling young-plasma infusions on the strength of mouse experiments prompted an explicit US regulatory warning in 2019; [[parabiosis-and-young-blood]] describes what the underlying science does and does not show. The tracheal-transplant scandal recounted in [[decellularized-scaffolds]] showed how far ahead of evidence a celebrated surgeon could operate before institutions responded.The [[he-jiankui-affair]] confirmed that professional self-regulation of the kind inherited from the [[asilomar-conference]] does not bind a determined actor, and that the first heritable edits would be performed without medical justification, without adequate consent, and without the technical safeguards the field had described as prerequisites. Unregulated stem-cell clinics have caused serious harm while operating in regulatory gaps: three patients treated at one US clinic for macular degeneration lost most of their sight after intravitreal injection of fat-derived cells sold as stem-cell therapy.[^kuriyan2017] Clinics selling young-plasma infusions on the strength of mouse experiments prompted an explicit warning from the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019, which said the infusions had no proven benefit for ageing or dementia and carried the risks of any large-volume plasma transfusion;[^fda2019] [[parabiosis-and-young-blood]] describes what the underlying science does and does not show. The tracheal-transplant scandal recounted in [[decellularized-scaffolds]] showed how far ahead of evidence a celebrated surgeon could operate before institutions responded. None of these vindicates the dignity argument or the repugnance argument. What they vindicate is the narrower claim that enthusiasm systematically outruns evidence in this field, and that the actors most confident about timelines have generally been wrong. Whether that supports a presumption against modification or merely a demand for better regulation is the question the two camps have never resolved, and it is not obvious that any amount of further argument would settle it — the disagreement appears to rest on prior judgments about how much risk a society should accept in exchange for capability it cannot yet evaluate.None of these vindicates the dignity argument or the repugnance argument. What they vindicate is the narrower claim that enthusiasm systematically outruns evidence in this field, and that the actors most confident about timelines have generally been wrong. Whether that supports a presumption against modification or merely a demand for better regulation is the question the two camps have never resolved, and it is not obvious that any amount of further argument would settle it — the disagreement appears to rest on prior judgments about how much risk a society should accept in exchange for capability it cannot yet evaluate. lines 89–93 → 88–9514 unchanged lines not shown
[^habermas2003]: `book` Habermas, J. *The Future of Human Nature*. Polity Press, 2003.[^habermas2003]: `book` Habermas, J. *The Future of Human Nature*. Polity Press, 2003.[^mckibben2003]: `book` McKibben, B. *Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age*. Times Books, 2003.[^mckibben2003]: `book` McKibben, B. *Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age*. Times Books, 2003.[^ptc2003]: `report` President's Council on Bioethics. *Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness*. Washington, DC, 2003. {An advisory report to a US president, written by appointees of the administration that convened the council, not by a scientific consensus body.}[^ptc2003]: `report` President's Council on Bioethics. *Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness*. Washington, DC, 2003. {An advisory report to a US president, written by appointees of the administration that convened the council, not by a scientific consensus body.}[^fukuyama2004]: `news` Fukuyama, F. "Transhumanism." In "The World's Most Dangerous Ideas," *Foreign Policy*, September–October 2004. {A short contribution to a magazine symposium in which eight writers were each asked to name a dangerous idea; it asserts the position rather than arguing it at length.}[^kuriyan2017]: `paper` Kuriyan, A.E. et al. "Vision Loss after Intravitreal Injection of Autologous 'Stem Cells' for AMD." *New England Journal of Medicine*, 2017. {A three-patient case series from a single clinic; it documents what happened to those patients and does not estimate how often such harm occurs.}[^fda2019]: `regulator` US Food and Drug Administration. "Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., and Director of FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., cautioning consumers against receiving young donor plasma infusions that are promoted as unproven treatment for varying conditions." 19 February 2019. {A consumer safety communication, not an enforcement action or a review of the underlying biology.}[^bo2006]: `paper` Bostrom, N. and Ord, T. "The Reversal Test: Eliminating Status Quo Bias in Applied Ethics." *Ethics*, 2006. {The test diagnoses status-quo bias in a judgment; it does not by itself show that any particular enhancement would be beneficial.}[^bo2006]: `paper` Bostrom, N. and Ord, T. "The Reversal Test: Eliminating Status Quo Bias in Applied Ethics." *Ethics*, 2006. {The test diagnoses status-quo bias in a judgment; it does not by itself show that any particular enhancement would be beneficial.} removed, struck through added, underlinedLine numbers count the serialised markdown of each revision, frontmatter included.
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