Economics, Current Events

Designer Babies: Should We Design Dumber, Weaker, Less Healthy Babies?

One of the principal arguments against designer babies is that the rich would use this technology to give their children further advantages, but such technology would remain out of the reach of the typical person. In a previous post, I argued that this is probably false–most likely the technology would eventually be available to most–but even if were true, because of comparative advantage, we should still welcome designer baby technology.

Today, I want to push harder on the zero-sum mentality.  Many people believe it’s bad for the rest of us if the rich design smarter, stronger, more beautiful, healthier, more advantaged babies. They subscribe to a zero-sum worldview in which one person’s advantages come at everyone else’s expense. If that’s your worry, then in principle you should be in favor of using genetic engineering to design dumber, weaker, less healthy babies. It would sure be surprising if the status quo just happens to produce optimal amount of variation in natural talents from the zero-sum point of view. Are we right now at the ideal distribution of natural talent? I don’t see how or why a person worried about designer babies could answer yes. After all, thanks to assortative mating, the rich and successful are already giving their kids a leg up on the competition, namely by giving them better genes.

So, if you believe we shouldn’t allow the rich to engineer healthier babies because this will give their kids too many advantages, please explain why you don’t also favor (in principle) using genetic engineering to remove genetic advantages.

You needn’t imagine the government forces the advantaged to engineer  average kids. Imagine instead that the rich, now motivated by a strong sense of egalitarian justice, subscribe to the zero-sum mentality. Out of the goodness of their hearts, they choose to invest their money in producing less talented offspring. If you fear them engineering more talented offspring, shouldn’t you welcome them choosing to engineer less talented offspring?

EDITS: Fixed some typos. Added a sentence.

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