I want to start off by saying that I really disapprove of Harris' tone. When one is discussing a subject as complicated and uncertain as he is, it's pretty disrespectful to refer to your opponent's arguments as "tirades" or "huffing and puffing". This may be an attempt at a casual, humorous writing style, but when it ventures into claims like "...those misguided enough to find virtue in nature and normalcy." you are standing to alienate those who don't agree with you. In fact, it started to read like it was meant to entertain those who already agreed with him. Very irritating.
I also find various shortcomings in his arguments. He tends to reiterate the same point over and over again with different examples. For example, there were multiple times he addressed the "Even if everyone can't have this, it's no reason to suspend it" argument when it was totally unessesary and actually weakened this point-- His first example was by far the best saying "reading used to be only available to an elite few, but it was still good for humanity."
Other points he makes that raise serious flags: He claims that if there were some substance we could release into the environment to kill diseases that harm humans, that is safe for the ecosystem, we should enthusiastically to it and are morally bound to do so. Recent history does have a substance like that. DDT was used to kill typhus-carrying lice and other harmful parasites. It was thought to be so safe that classrooms full of smiling children were filmed being doused with DDT in spray form as PSAs. Later, it was found to not only poison wildlife, but also cause developmental toxicity, diabetes, breast cancer and carcinogenicity. It is now banned. So no, we are not morally bound to pursue these things with such a relentless fervor.
On page 26, he goes into chemical enhancements, seemingly claiming that martial use of performance-enhancing drugs is okay. Meth was also invented as a military, performance-enhancing drug. Soldiers became addicted and wracked with all the problems associated. It wasn't their choice to even take it to begin with. Perhaps the terrible side-effects of these drugs will surface years later, after we've thrown the veterans into the gutters and scorn them for their drug problem. Furthermore, he claims that if everyone in sports was allowed to use steroids, then the advantage would be available to everyone. If steroids were allowed, non-drugged athletes wouldn't be able to compete with the doped athletes. They would have to take steroids to stay in the game, so you are taking their choice in the matter. Steroids also have nasty side-effects that you are now pushing onto all athletes. It becomes less about the triumph and dedication of the individual and more about who can pump the most dope into their bodies without showing their side-effects.
He also spends a lot of time defending the personal intent of a theoretical enhanced person, saying that their enhancement was not pursued for the direct result of having an advantage over non-enhanced people. That doesn't mean they don't have an advantage. By definition, they do. Just as we have an advantage over a person born in a war-torn, poverty-stricken country. Is that fair? No.
Furthermore, if I was arguing his case, I'd bring up that the two aspects of Darwinian evolution within our perception, sexual selection and death by poor adaption, no longer affect us much in the first world: A lonely, poorly adapted person can go on the internet and find someone, somewhere to couple with and most diseases won't kill you before you have time to reproduce. We pay for improvements to individual experience- and biotechnical enhancements may be the way to mitigate that cost.
As I recall there were a number of criticisms of Harris's book that pointed to his somewhat cavalier attitude. I must admit I read him as more humorous than condescending or insensitive. But, as we discussed in class, his view that the large justice concerns are not his to address at this point are a bit hard to take. We should pay ongoing attention to what WOULD disallow individual choices given that, so far, not much stands in the way of enhancement-producing interventions that might be chosen by individuals.
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