OBJECTIVES

The Morality of Inclusion

So far this volume has examined ethical issues concerning how, when, and by whom genetic intervention technologies should be employed. Until now, the tacit assumption has been that the project of using genetic science to improve human lives is not only ethically permissible but laudable. The present chapter articulates, analyzes, and evaluates an arresting critique of this basic assumption that has been advanced by some members of the disabilities rights movement. Addressing the radical disabilities rights challenge will reveal how the prospect of advances in genetic knowledge and genetic intervention pushes the limits of ethical theory by raising profound issues about what we referred to in Chapter 3 as the morality of inclusion.

These two objectives are intimately related. The critique by disabilities rights advocates is a profound challenge to the reassuring assumption that the new genetics avoids the exclusionary features of the eugenics movements that were noted in Chapter 1. The concept of the morality of inclusion provides the key to articulating the various dimensions of exclusion and understanding their moral significance.

At the deepest level, a theory of the morality of inclusion would articulate criteria for membership in what might be called the primary moral community, specifying the characteristics that individuals must have in order to qualify as worthy of equal consideration and respect.