MacIntyre's Paradox

Tobin Bernadette

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Abstract:

Alasdair MacIntyre was once asked whether, if it should become possible genetically to do so, we ought to enhance our descendants. In reply, he argued that, if the question is taken to be a question about what may be the desirable traits to engender and construct in a whole society (rather than a question about what we are to do as parents in raising our own children), then it inescapably raises the problem of identifying virtues for ourselves. In constructing a 'new table of the virtues', he argues that, if we were to succeed in designing people who possessed such virtues, we would have designed descendants who would be unwilling in turn to design their descendants. I shall use the main elements of MacIntyre's thesis, in particular the idea that a commitment to non-manipulative relations with others is a virtue the possession of which would lead us to conclude that we ought not to embark on the project, to address some of the moral concerns associated with prospects of human enhancement.