Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 19, 2026

In Vivo Modeling of the Morbid Human Genome using Danio rerio
Published on: August 24, 2013
Could it be permissible to prevent the existence of morally enhanced people?
1University of Gothenburg, Box 200, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden. ingmar.persson@filosofi.gu.se
Abstract:
This paper discusses Nicholas Agar's argument in Humanity's End, that it can be morally permissible for human beings to prevent the coming into existence of morally enhanced people because this can harm the interests of the unenhanced humans. It contends that Agar's argument fails because it overlooks the distinction between morally permissible and morally impermissible harm. It is only if the harm to them would be of the morally impermissible kind that humans are provided with a reason to prevent the coming into existence of enhanced people. But if their enhancement includes moral enhancement, it is unlikely that the enhanced people will cause morally impermissible harm.
Related Concept Videos
What is Genetic Engineering?
Limits to Natural Selection
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Ethics and Bioethics
Psychosurgery
Historical Development of Psychosurgery
In the 1930s, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz introduced a surgical procedure designed...
In-vitro Mutagenesis

