Religious Engagement Remarks

Leading political philosophers such as Michael Sandel and Jurgen Habermas have responded with alarm to the rise of powerful human biotechnologies. The potential usage of such technologies, in an emerging marketplace for individual genetic enhancement and, more broadly, in new forms of directed genetic selection or even programmatic altering of the genetic character of the human species, raises profound moral questions about human nature, individual autonomy, and the purpose of life, and serious moral concerns about the direction of science and technology in these areas. While neither Sandel nor Habermas (nor other mainstream critics) advance explicitly religious arguments against unregulated human biotechnologies, in fact their criticisms of genetic enhancement rely heavily on religious ideas of common creation, common humanity, and even traditional natural law thinking about the social limits of human self-determination. Likewise, the anti-aging movement in science and popular thinking, with the social, environmental, and other potentially negative consequences of substantially increased human longevity, can be powerfully contrasted with and challenged by religious understandings of life after death and human destiny. We need to re-engage with these traditional religious ideas, I argue, to draw out the full power of our concerns about an unreflective and ultimately market-driven liberalism that will not defend common humanity and future generations against the new powers of genetic enhancement and reprogramming.