from The Case against Perfection

Michael Sandel

Political philosopher and Harvard professor Michael Sandel (b. 1953) is best known for the extremely popular course on ethics and justice that he has taught for the past twenty years. His class often needs to be held in a large lecture hall to accommodate the thousand or more students who enroll each semester. The selection you are about to read comes from an article published in the Atlantic in April 2004; five years later, Sandel expanded his argument into a book with the same title.

KEY CONTEXT In this essay, Sandel explores the ethics of genetic engineering in order to enhance the physical, intellectual, or emotional characteristics of a child. Although such procedures are not yet approved in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has begun explorations into radical biological procedures that, if successful, would produce genetically modified human beings. At this point, the techniques being considered involve manipulation of DNA to prevent inheritance of devastating diseases that result from genetic abnormalities.