As technology advances, we are forced to face more increasingly difficult ethical dilemmas that people even a couple of years ago could not have imagined. We have already been genetically modifying crops for human benefit for years now, but what happens when scientists want to venture into modifying human genes? As this technology has been made available through CRISPR, the question now is, is it appropriate to modify human genes? Combining several moral frameworks, one can support the cause to use CRISPR technology in an ethical way.
The first ethical framework through which one can justify the use of CRISPR in gene modification is Christian virtue ethics. Virtue ethics is all about forming good habits in order to live virtuously and therefore morally. If one were able to modify a person’s genes so that they no longer have terminal illness, that person would have more time in their life to form good habits and be a virtuous person. By being a
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For a decision to be justified using utilitarianism, the end results must cause significantly more good than bad. In eliminating diseases that are as of now “incurable”, we would be elongating the lives of people and granting them life essentially; the gift of life or living longer is a much greater outcome than the opposite. This concept also brings in the idea of beneficence and reducing harm of individuals. Using CRISPR technology, we could reduce the suffering of those with “incurable” diseases, such as Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis, and Alzheimer’s (Stein, “Scientists Debate How Far To Go In Editing Human Genes”). This technology is already being used to help treat leukemia, so I think it is only right that we begin to use CRISPR to treat other terminal illnesses as well (Stein, “Breaking Taboo, Swedish Scientist Seeks To Edit DNA Of Healthy Human