Deck 22: Genetic Engineering

Question 1

Talk about:
-Artificial Selection

Answer 1

the process by which humans develop desirable traits in plants or animals by selecting which males or females will reproduce together. It's sometimes called "selective breeding."

Question 2

Talk about:
-CRISPR-cas9

Answer 2

a gene-editing tool that allows scientists to target specific sequences of DNA and either alter or delete them or insert new genetic material altogether.

Question 3

Talk about:
-Eugenics

Answer 3

the use of selective breeding to develop desirable traits in human beings, or the use of sterilization to eradicate undesirable traits in human beings.

Question 4

Talk about:
-Extrapolation problem

Question 5

Talk about:
-Genetic enhancement

Question 6

Talk about:
-Genetic engineering

Question 7

Talk about:
-Genetically modified organism (GMO)

Question 8

Talk about:
-Germline cells

Question 9

Talk about:
-Somatic cells

Question 10

Which of the following is an example of genetic engineering?

A) Dog breeders select favored traits by carefully choosing which dogs reproduce.
B) A farmer manipulates the DNA of their corn crop to make it grow faster.
C) Through many generations, a species of birds naturally evolves sharper beaks.
D) All of the above

Question 11

Which of the following is not a potential problem of human genetic engineering discussed in this chapter?

A) It might lead to eugenics.
B) It is likely to make humans more susceptible to immune deficiencies.
C) It might deepen inequalities that already exist, such as those between the rich and the poor.
D) It might eliminate genetic disorders such as high-functioning autism that are beneficial to society.

Question 12

A key premise in the Benefits Argument is:

A) If a practice is morally legitimate, it violates no one's rights.
B) If a practice is morally legitimate, it provides great benefits to many people.
C) If a practice provides great benefits to many people and harms very few, then it is morally legitimate.
D) If a practice provides great benefits to many people and violates no one's rights, then it is morally legitimate.

Question 13

Personal cosmetic enhancement via plastic surgery

A) typically does not violate anyone's rights.
B) typically violates people's rights.
C) is a form of genetic engineering.
D) is a form of artificial selection.

Question 14

On what grounds do reasonable opponents challenge genetic engineering?

A) They claim that it is not possible.
B) They claim that it has substantial potential harms.
C) They claim that it does not yield benefits.
D) None of the above

Question 15

Which of the following accurately reflects the conservative position regarding genetic engineering?

A) We should certainly not move forward with genetic engineering.
B) We should move forward with genetic engineering only if we have excellent evidence for its safety.
C) We should certainly move forward with genetic engineering.
D) We should move forward with genetic engineering if we have evidence of its potential benefits.

Question 16

Which of the following is a challenge for any attempt to evaluate the Conservative Argument regarding genetic engineering?

A) It is clear that GMOs and genetic enhancements pose significant dangers.
B) It is not clear whether genetic enhancement or GMOs violate anyone's rights.
C) It is not clear whether two decades of research are enough to determine that GMOs and genetic enhancement are safe.
D) It is not clear whether GMOs and genetic engineering have significant benefits.

Question 17

What is the extrapolation problem?

A) The difficulty of differentiating good and bad effects of a social innovation
B) The difficulty of calculating how potential benefits weigh against potential risks
C) The difficulty of concluding that correlations indicate causation
D) The difficulty of concluding that outcomes in one context will carry over to a different context

Question 18

What is the difference between the Conservative Argument regarding genetic engineering and a Slippery Slope Argument?

A) The Conservative Argument does not issue predictions about the likely results of the innovation in question, but a Slippery Slope Argument does.
B) The Conservative Argument relies on a notion of family values, but a Slippery Slope Argument does not.
C) The Conservative Argument issues predictions about the likely results of the innovation in question, but a Slippery Slope Argument does not.
D) The Conservative Argument does not rely on a notion of family values, but a Slippery Slope Argument does.

Question 19

Which argument relies on the claim that genetic engineering will enable those who are wealthier to become even better looking, immune to various diseases, and more intelligent?

A) The Benefits Argument
B) The Conservative Argument
C) The Inequality Argument
D) The Authenticity Argument

Question 20

What response do proponents of genetic engineering offer to the Authenticity Argument?

A) Part of living authentically is choosing how to move forward in our lives and how to change ourselves in desirable ways.
B) It is not morally bad to live inauthentically.
C) Part of living authentically is learning to accept who you are rather than trying to change who you are.
D) We can never know whether it is more authentic to receive or abstain from genetic enhancement.

Question 21

Which of the following cases was offered as a counterexample to the claim that if a practice undermines our authenticity, it is immoral?

A) A totalitarian regime lobotomizes political prisoners.
B) An employee quits their job because they are asked to compromise on their moral beliefs.
C) A person is bored and decides to become a drug addict.
D) A prisoner is forced to take personality-altering drugs so that they will be less resistant.

Question 22

Some critics of genetic enhancement argue that genetic enhancement is immoral because there is a fundamental difference between genetic enhancement and

A) improving oneself through hard work.
B) artificial selection.
C) genetic engineering.
D) changing one's personality or character.

Question 23

Which of the following is not an understanding of what it is to be natural that may be employed by proponents of the Unnaturalness Argument?

A) To be natural is to have one's essence preserved.
B) To be natural is to be a purely organic substance.
C) To be natural is to be in a pristine, unmodified state.
D) To be natural is to be unchanged by human manipulation.

Question 24

It may not always be morally wrong to change things that have natures because _______ things that have natures are _______.

A) some; good
B) all; good
C) all; bad
D) some; bad

Question 25

According to the Playing God Argument, genetic engineering involves a kind of

A) genius.
B) selfishness.
C) arrogance.
D) omnipotence.

Question 26

On the understanding of playing God considered in this chapter, which of these people would count as playing God?

A) Parents who intend to conceive a child
B) A soldier who sacrifices themselves to save their comrades
C) An emergency room doctor who makes life and death decisions
D) All of the above

Question 27

The Playing God Argument relies on the idea that

A) only God is able to change people's traits.
B) only people who can discern God's will should be permitted to perform genetic enhancement.
C) God does not approve of genetic enhancement.
D) None of the above

Question 28

Critics of genetic engineering are typically not critical of

A) GMOs.
B) CRISPR-cas9.
C) genetic therapies.
D) genetic enhancement.

Question 29

What does GMO stand for?

A) Germline modified organism
B) Genetically modified organism
C) Genetic modification only
D) Germline modification only

Question 30

Which argument against genetic engineering do you think is the strongest? Offer additional reasons to believe that the premises of the argument are true. What is the strongest response available to a proponent of genetic engineering?

Question 31

Explain the extrapolation problem as it applies to genetic engineering. How do you think policymakers should proceed in light of this problem?

Question 32

Are social policies that result in unequal distributions of benefits always or usually immoral? Explain your answer with reference to some current or historical social policies that have resulted in inequality.

Question 33

What is the authenticity of the self? Is it morally bad to be inauthentic? Is it possible to remain authentic despite receiving genetic enhancement? Explain your answers.

Question 34

Is there any understanding of what it is to "play God" that makes the premises in the Playing God Argument true? Is that how we should understand what it is to "play God?" Is there anything else humans do that would qualify as "playing God" in this way?

Question 35

For Sandel, acknowledging the giftedness of life requires recognizing that

A) we can remake nature.
B) everything in the world is open to whatever use we might desire.
C) our talents and powers are not wholly our own doing.
D) All of the above

Question 36

If parents genetically engineered their children, what would follow, according to Sandel?

A) Parenthood would involve greater appreciation of children as gifts.
B) Parenthood would no longer involve an openness to the unbidden.
C) Parenthood would involve greater passivity.
D) Parenthood would no longer involve shaping who the child becomes.

Question 37

Sandel argues that it is morally problematic for parents to show too much _______ love and neglect _______ love.

A) transforming; accepting
B) caring; shaping
C) unconditional; nurturing
D) passive; active

Question 38

Sandel argues that _______ is disturbingly close to eugenics.

A) praising effort over gifts
B) accepting love
C) genetically modifying crops
D) hyper-parenting

Question 39

What is the distinctive idea in the new "liberal eugenics" Sandel discusses?

A) The government will provide a standardized list of acceptable genetic enhancements and parents will not have a particular say in what traits their children will have.
B) Parents will have the liberty to design children with any traits they want, as long as those traits maximize diversity in the population.
C) Unlike previous eugenics programs, the state will not be neutral about what sort of children are designed
D) The government may not tell parents what sort of children to design and parents may engineer in their children only those traits that improve their capacities without biasing their choice of life plans.

Question 40

What is one of the benefits of seeing ourselves as creatures of nature, God, or fortune, according to Sandel?

A) We do not see ourselves as wholly responsible for the way we are.
B) We do not see ourselves as more powerful than we actually are.
C) We see our traits as totally up to us.
D) None of the above

Question 41

Which of the following is a potential negative effect of genetic engineering discussed by Sandel?

A) Those confident that they have good genes would not marry those with bad genes.
B) Those confident that they have good genes would opt out of health insurance pools.
C) Those confident that they have bad genes would opt out of insurance health pools.
D) Those confident that they have bad genes would not marry those with good genes.

Question 42

What does Sandel argue is the best answer to why the successful should owe anything to the least-advantaged members of society?

A) Whether we earn something or get it by chance, we have obligations to share our material wealth with anyone who would benefit from it.
B) If our genetic endowments are gifts rather than achievements, it's a mistake to think we are entitled to keep all the good that they bring us to ourselves.
C) The successful do not owe anything to the least-advantaged members of society.
D) Everyone must give to others in proportion to the gifts they receive from the genetic lottery.

Question 43

What "smug assumption" does Sandel think we can stave off with "a lively sense of the contingency of our gifts?"

A) The poor and the rich differ in their effort, not in their luck.
B) The poor are just as deserving as the rich.
C) The poor are poor because they are genetically disadvantaged.
D) The rich are rich because they are more deserving than the poor.

Question 44

Sandel suggests that technology that enables genetic engineering may have arisen not as a byproduct of medical research, but as an expression of

A) our obsession with certain aesthetic traits.
B) our desire for immortality.
C) our resolve to see ourselves as masters of our nature.
D) All of the above

Question 45

Sandel asks "What would be lost if biotechnology dissolved our sense of giftedness?" Explain what he means by this question and what you think the correct answer is.

Question 46

What does it mean to be open to the unbidden? Do you think this openness is morally important? How does genetic engineering threaten this openness?

Question 47

What is the difference between transforming love and accepting love? Use your own example to illustrate both the optimal balance of these types of parental love and the imbalance that worries Sandel in this essay.

Question 48

What does Savulescu conclude from the "lazy parents" example?

A) The best thing we can do for our children is refrain from harming them.
B) Since genetic enhancement is wrong, so is providing children with an intelligence-enhancing diet.
C) Providing a proper diet is fundamentally different from genetic enhancement.
D) To not wrong our children, we should enhance them.

Question 49

Savulescu contends that genetic interventions differ from biological interventions in which of the following ways?

A) They alter our biology.
B) They alter a person's opportunities.
C) They are irreversible.
D) None of the above

Question 50

Savulescu argues that we should accept genetic enhancement if we accept

A) the treatment of disease.
B) that our traits are gifts.
C) the moral importance of luck.
D) that dietary supplementation cannot alter biology.

Question 51

Savulescu notes that biological enhancement has which of these potential benefits?

A) It could make humans immortal.
B) It could make humans morally better.
C) It could make humans more antisocial.
D) None of the above

Question 52

According to Savulescu, what was objectionable about the historical eugenics movement?

A) The movement was focused on what was good for individuals rather than what was good for society as a whole.
B) It was not unified by a single clear vision.
C) It aimed to bring about a state vision of a healthy population through coercion.
D) The movement afforded too much free choice to parents.

Question 53

Which of the following is not a possible way for our genes and biology to be determined, according to Savulescu?

A) Random chance
B) Authorities
C) Experts
D) Nature or God

Question 54

Which of the following does Savulescu recommend as a limit on parental choice regarding the genetic enhancement of children?

A) The enhancement must be made with only the intention of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering for the child.
B) The enhancement must be consistent with development of autonomy in the child and a reasonable range of future life plans.
C) The enhancement must benefit society as a whole.
D) All of the above

Question 55

What is Savulescu's response to the claim that genetic engineering involves an objectionable form of "playing God?"

A) We could never know enough about the complexity of human nature to be justified in playing God.
B) We should not play God since, unlike the traditional conception of God, we are not omnipotent or omniscient.
C) God gives us the technology for genetic engineering, so God must want us to use it.
D) We already make decisions about life and death in healthcare. If those are morally permissible, genetic engineering is too.

Question 56

One objection to genetic engineering that Savuelscu considers is that, if we could engineer perfect children,

A) those children would still face inequalities in life.
B) the world would be a sterile, monotonous place where everyone was the same.
C) those children would resent their parents for intervening.
D) None of the above

Question 57

What is an example of a self-defeating effect of genetic engineering?

A) If everyone tried to gain an advantage by making their children taller because height is socially desired, none of those children would have any relative benefit.
B) If everyone tried to gain an advantage by making their children look inconspicuous, none of those children would actually look inconspicuous.
C) If everyone tried to gain an advantage by making their children more intelligent, none of those children would benefit from being more intelligent.
D) All of the above

Question 58

What does Savulescu mean when he says that "to be human is to be better." Do you agree with this claim? Why or why not?

Question 59

Identify the strongest argument that Savulescu gives for the conclusion that genetic enhancement is morally obligatory and explain its premises and conclusion in your own words. What do you think is the strongest objection to this argument?

Question 60

Explains the limits that Savulescu thinks should govern parents in their choices regarding genetic enhancement. Do you think these limits are strong enough to prevent bad outcomes? Do you think they are too strong?

Question 61

Which of the following is not a human limitation that Bostrom discusses?

A) Intellectual capacity
B) Altruistic concern
C) Lifespan
D) Bodily functionality

Question 62

Transhumanists use the term _______ to refer to the type of radically enhanced human they envision.

A) transhuman
B) Homo superior
C) future human
D) posthuman

Question 63

According to transhumanists, _______ is a work-in-progress; a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways.

A) human nature
B) technology
C) religion
D) human freedom

Question 64

What is the most fundamental and nonnegotiable requirement of the transhumanist project according to Bostrom?

A) Global security
B) Wide access
C) Justice
D) Economic development

Question 65

Why do transhumanists support wide access?

A) To reduce inequality
B) To express solidarity and respect for fellow humans
C) To help gain support for the transhumanist project
D) All of the above

Question 66

What is the core transhumanist value?

A) Technological progress
B) Wide access
C) Exploring the posthuman realm
D) Individual freedom

Question 67

What is the greatest possible danger posed by the transhumanist project according to Bostrom?

A) Widening social inequalities
B) A loss of personal identity
C) Existential risk
D) None of the above (Transhumanists are technological optimists.)

Question 68

How can global security be improved according to Bostrom?

A) By counteracting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
B) Through global cooperation
C) By promoting international peace
D) All of the above

Question 69

What underlies the moral urgency of the transhumanist vision?

A) The imminent prospect of existential risk
B) The number of humans that die everyday
C) The possibility of nuclear catastrophe
D) All of the above

Question 70

According to Bostrom, some limitations might be impossible for us to transcend given the metaphysics of

A) personal identity.
B) time and space.
C) causation.
D) personal freedom.

Question 71

Bostrom lays out several human limitations that transhumanists would like to see overcome. What are these limitations? Would overcoming these limitations be a wholly good thing in your view, or are would there be costs as well? Defend your answer.

Question 72

Transhumanists like Bostrom are often accused of harboring a desire to "play God." What do you make of this objection? Is it in any way compelling? Why or why not?

Question 73

Bostrom identifies several possible dangers that the transhumanist project must seek to avoid. What are these dangers? Are there any other dangers of the transhumanist project in your view? Why or why not?

Question 74

Why does Wikler object to cognitive enhancements?

A) Because of the potential threat they pose to civil liberties
B) Because they are unnatural
C) Because they amount to "playing God"
D) All of the above

Question 75

Wikler argues that cognitive enhancements would be problematic if they were

A) substantial and universally distributed.
B) minor and unequally distributed.
C) substantial and unequally distributed.
D) minor and universally distributed.

Question 76

Egalitarianism is the view that everyone

A) has the same intellectual capacities.
B) should be the treated in the same way.
C) has the same physical capacities.
D) should have the same opportunities to do well.

Question 77

According to Wikler, the historical record shows that the most central preoccupation of the eugenics movement is

A) race.
B) intelligence.
C) class.
D) gender.

Question 78

According to Wikler, restricting the freedom of those judged to be insufficiently intelligent to handle their own affairs is

A) always immoral.
B) routine and uncontroversial.
C) unusual and highly controversial.
D) a way of "playing God."

Question 79

According to the _______ view of competence, competence is a property had in equal measure by all who possess it.

A) egalitarian
B) threshold
C) relativist
D) libertarian

Question 80

According to Wikler, which conception of competence makes paternalism particularly easy to justify?

A) The relativist conception
B) The absolute threshold conception
C) Both a and b
D) Neither a nor b (Paternalism is never justified in Wikler's view.)