:00:00. > :00:00.number of people have died, including a man crushed when a pile
:00:00. > :00:00.of salt used for de-icing roads fell on him. Thousands of people have
:00:00. > :00:00.been stranded after the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights.
:00:07. > :00:16.Now on BBC News, HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. From genetic
:00:17. > :00:19.engineering to bioscience, humans are close to acquiring the ability
:00:20. > :00:32.not just to combat disease but to enhance and perfect our species.
:00:33. > :00:35.But should we seek to do it? Or should we shy away from the path
:00:36. > :00:37.that led to Nazi eugenics? My guest is Australian-born,
:00:38. > :00:42.Oxford-based medical ethicist Julian Savulescu. Can we trust ourselves to
:00:43. > :01:15.be wise masters of our own biology? Julian Savulescu, welcome to
:01:16. > :01:18.HARDtalk. It seems we humans have acquired
:01:19. > :01:24.extraordinary knowledge of how to re-engineer the genetic building
:01:25. > :01:30.blocks of life. Do you regard that as a profoundly positive thing? I
:01:31. > :01:36.think it is. Because we are, all, products of evolution. We aren't
:01:37. > :01:42.products of design. We aren't designed to live happily or live
:01:43. > :01:49.long-term or be peaceful. We are just the blind results of nature. Is
:01:50. > :01:53.that natural evolution? What we are going to talk about today is about
:01:54. > :02:16.human intervention. Human meddling. You can call it meddling or you can
:02:17. > :02:19.call it modification, what you like. The important thing to ask is, is
:02:20. > :02:22.the natural state of affairs the best state of affairs? There is huge
:02:23. > :02:25.variation in levels of aggression, intelligence. At the extreme ends we
:02:26. > :02:28.call them diseases. We call the bottom 2% diseased or disordered in
:02:29. > :02:32.some way. Why should we draw the line at 2%? Why not 50% or 30%? We
:02:33. > :02:35.now have the possibility of deciding what kind of beings we should be and
:02:36. > :02:39.what sorts of lives we should lead. To believe that's a good thing, one
:02:40. > :02:42.has to believe in the wisdom of human beings, to use the ability in
:02:43. > :02:45.a way that is both individually and collectively beneficial. It's
:02:46. > :02:47.certainly correct that with any powerful technology or intervention
:02:48. > :02:54.is the possibility of great good and great harm. We haven't been
:02:55. > :02:59.judicious masters of our technology, that's true. We have developed
:03:00. > :03:02.nuclear weapons. But can we, at this point, use it and will it be
:03:03. > :03:07.developed anyway and should we try to control its direction?
:03:08. > :03:10.Let's start with repairing disease. Few people these days have found
:03:11. > :03:13.ethical issues with the notion of genetic intervention used to prevent
:03:14. > :03:24.or fix some of the most difficult inherited diseases, like cystic
:03:25. > :03:29.fibrosis. That's a reality today, isn't it?
:03:30. > :03:33.It's certainly a reality that you can select to have children who will
:03:34. > :03:38.be free of that genetic mutation that causes cystic fibrosis. But for
:03:39. > :03:40.many characteristics to do with our mental lives, like psychiatric
:03:41. > :03:49.disorders, the line that's drawn is arbitrary. 10% of children now have
:03:50. > :03:54.this new disease called attention deficit disorder. That's called a
:03:55. > :03:59.disease but suddenly 10% of children have this disease warranting
:04:00. > :04:02.treatment. I believe that, in many of these cases, these are normal
:04:03. > :04:09.human variations that are just disadvantageous. Science now gives
:04:10. > :04:12.us the ability of improving those. You go further than just discussing
:04:13. > :04:17.the possibilities that science offers. You seem to believe there is
:04:18. > :04:20.some sort of philosophical or moral obligation upon parents, who live in
:04:21. > :04:23.a context where this technology is available, to use it, enhance and
:04:24. > :04:35.maximise the potential of their progeny? Am I right?
:04:36. > :04:39.As parents, most people want to have... Want their children to have
:04:40. > :04:42.the best lives they can have. But it's a moral obligation? As we
:04:43. > :04:45.look forward and technology becomes more pervasive, would you, as a
:04:46. > :04:48.philosopher and ethicist, say to a parent who is offered the chance to
:04:49. > :04:52.take advantage of this technology and to turn maybe just a kid, who
:04:53. > :04:54.genetically looks like he might be under average, is there a
:04:55. > :05:08.responsibility to intervene and make that kid above average? To make it
:05:09. > :05:12.enhanced? If it makes his or her life the
:05:13. > :05:18.better, yes. By moral obligation I mean that there is a reason to do
:05:19. > :05:20.it. We should do lots of things, provide a good education to
:05:21. > :05:28.children, provide diet and treat diseases. Where there are things
:05:29. > :05:30.like vitamins or nutritional supplements that improve their
:05:31. > :05:35.intelligence or reduce unwarranted aggression, then we should use those
:05:36. > :05:42.in the same way. It sounds like strong language. I'm not saying
:05:43. > :05:44.people should be required by law to do these things but we should
:05:45. > :05:49.encourage people and using terms like moral obligation is not to say
:05:50. > :05:54.that's what they must do. There's a good reason to do it. The reason is,
:05:55. > :05:56.the child is expected to have a better life.
:05:57. > :05:59.This is a quote from you. "Technology allows us to avoid the
:06:00. > :06:06.lottery of life, to choose our destiny". Such a strong statement
:06:07. > :06:10.and it brings to my mind the word hubris. If humans start talking
:06:11. > :06:16.about choosing and deciding their destinies, that is hubris, is it
:06:17. > :06:19.not? It can be but it's also important to
:06:20. > :06:24.realise that there is enormous inequality and disadvantage. We are
:06:25. > :06:30.two of the lucky ones. We are sitting here having a comfortable
:06:31. > :06:32.conversation. There are many people who have a life of extraordinary
:06:33. > :06:35.disease, disability, disadvantage and really being born behind the
:06:36. > :06:38.eight ball, not only socially but in terms of biological obstacles to
:06:39. > :06:49.them being able to just do the basic things in life, like work. If we
:06:50. > :06:54.have a chance to overcome that, why shouldn't we ask ourselves whether
:06:55. > :06:59.we should? Maybe because it's going down a
:07:00. > :07:01.dangerous path. It's a mindset which the philosopher and ethicist Michael
:07:02. > :07:04.Sandel says is undermining one of the most basic and important
:07:05. > :07:17.qualities we, as humans beings, have. That's humility and openness
:07:18. > :07:21.to be unbidden. I have been open to the unbidden.
:07:22. > :07:27.Why shouldn't we remain open to being unbidden? Why should we try to
:07:28. > :07:29.determine our destiny by meddling with genes?
:07:30. > :07:31.When you provide education to children, it changed their brains.
:07:32. > :07:39.You modify them. You do that according to certain values.
:07:40. > :07:41.What is the moral or any other equivalent between genetic
:07:42. > :07:46.engineering of the human embryo and sending your kid to school?
:07:47. > :07:50.There's no morally relevant difference. Both change the way the
:07:51. > :07:54.brain works. One acts directly, one acts through social mechanisms. The
:07:55. > :07:58.final common pathway is what's going on in people's brains. If you can
:07:59. > :08:01.use knowledge of science, in this case genetics, to augment the
:08:02. > :08:04.effects of education, why would you draw an arbitrary line, just because
:08:05. > :08:13.you think it's an internal modification rather than external?
:08:14. > :08:18.Why would that make a difference? Maybe we can tease that out with
:08:19. > :08:22.some examples. Starting with one of the most basic uses of genetics that
:08:23. > :08:29.people may be aware of. That is, gender selection. For a long time
:08:30. > :08:34.now people have been able to look at the fertilised embryo and see what
:08:35. > :08:38.gender it is. You have taken a strong position on this, saying it's
:08:39. > :08:47.a basic human right. That everybody should be allowed to choose the sex
:08:48. > :08:50.of their baby. We have the right to choose when to
:08:51. > :08:53.have children, how many children to have, now we have the possibility of
:08:54. > :08:56.choosing between possible children. If you are going to restrict liberty
:08:57. > :09:02.in a liberal democratic society, you need to have a reason based on a
:09:03. > :09:04.risk of harm to people. You can't go around willy-nilly, stopping people
:09:05. > :09:10.doing what they want, unless they are really harming somebody. When it
:09:11. > :09:14.comes to sex selection, who are they harming? There are several possible
:09:15. > :09:26.candidates but the usual one is society or women by creating sex
:09:27. > :09:29.ratio imbalances. Which we see all over the world.
:09:30. > :09:32.Not reducing genetic technologies but basically by prenatal testing
:09:33. > :09:35.and abortion or infanticide. But when it comes to the use of these
:09:36. > :09:38.technologies, if you could demonstrate a harm to women or
:09:39. > :09:43.society, that would be a good reason to ban it, but you could easily
:09:44. > :09:46.prevent this. You simply allow for what you call family balancing,
:09:47. > :09:52.allowing it for the second or third child of a family who want a mix of
:09:53. > :09:55.sexes. You can monitor the sex ratio, there are many ways in which
:09:56. > :10:00.you can ensure that these sorts of harms don't occur.
:10:01. > :10:05.You talk about this in the context of a liberal, free, rich world
:10:06. > :10:08.society. Are you accepting that if you were to apply the logic of
:10:09. > :10:11.freedom to choose, for individual parents on this gender question, in
:10:12. > :10:14.many societies you would end up with a terribly unbalanced gender
:10:15. > :10:17.situation inside the country and it would also entrench the second class
:10:18. > :10:30.status and the disempowerment of so many women and so many societies?
:10:31. > :10:34.If it had those effects... It would.
:10:35. > :10:42.Then it would be a good reason to ban it in those societies.
:10:43. > :10:45.Having a basic human right in respecting freedom is always limited
:10:46. > :10:49.by the harm that you present to other people. In this case, there is
:10:50. > :10:52.a clear harm to women. But if we don't have a grave social problem,
:10:53. > :10:58.we shouldn't be infringing people's liberty.
:10:59. > :11:02.Imagine a world where the science of genetics has gone even further than
:11:03. > :11:05.it has today and one can look at the fertilised embryo and draw all sorts
:11:06. > :11:09.of conclusions about things you have already mentioned. Intelligence,
:11:10. > :11:18.likelihood of an inclination to violent or criminal behaviour.
:11:19. > :11:20.Coming back to moral obligation, do you believe in those circumstances
:11:21. > :11:34.there is a moral obligation to intervene? End those pregnancies
:11:35. > :11:35.which involve embryos with those signatures or to somehow repair
:11:36. > :11:38.them? Again, this is the reason amongst
:11:39. > :11:41.others. I have never suggested that people have a moral obligation to
:11:42. > :11:46.have termination of pregnancy. That's a very serious intervention.
:11:47. > :11:49.What I have been discussing is when you have ten embryos and you have
:11:50. > :11:55.tested them all for diseases... Like IVF?
:11:56. > :12:01.This is the simplest case. You will soon be able to sequence the embryos
:12:02. > :12:04.and you have found they are healthy. Why wouldn't you go on to look for
:12:05. > :12:07.their dispositions towards intelligence or towards psychopathy?
:12:08. > :12:18.1% of the population are psychopaths. We might identify the
:12:19. > :12:21.genetic contributions to psychopathy, not to say it's
:12:22. > :12:23.genetic, but those things that make it more likely and why wouldn't you
:12:24. > :12:27.take that information into account when deciding... You will implant
:12:28. > :12:29.one of those ten embryos. Why not choose the one that has a lower
:12:30. > :12:31.chance... That sounds dangerously like
:12:32. > :12:35.eugenics, when you take away all the traits, all of the huge numbers of
:12:36. > :12:44.different traits that make up human beings, and you try to develop a
:12:45. > :12:47.successful stereotype. We are in a completely different
:12:48. > :12:53.world to the world of the past. It's true, this is eugenics. It is
:12:54. > :12:56.eugenics when you test for cystic fibrosis or Down's syndrome, that's
:12:57. > :13:01.trying to have a child who is healthier or has less intellectual
:13:02. > :13:06.disability. That's healing a real impairment.
:13:07. > :13:09.What you are now talking about is trying to perfect, trying to
:13:10. > :13:15.maximise, the benefit to any newborn individual. For example, you might
:13:16. > :13:19.say in a deeply prejudiced society, where it's difficult being an ethnic
:13:20. > :13:21.minority, being black or being gay, then you should meddle with the
:13:22. > :13:24.genetic material before birth in IVF, for example, to lighten the
:13:25. > :13:26.scheme or to avoid having the genetic disposition to
:13:27. > :13:36.homosexuality, because that would create such problems for the future
:13:37. > :13:41.child. Is that what you would contemplate?
:13:42. > :13:49.You also have the obvious strategy of reducing... Good memory
:13:50. > :13:54.institutions. That's politics. But in the short
:13:55. > :13:58.term, as a scientist, you are faced with the issue, do I get rid of the
:13:59. > :14:00.embryo that is physically disabled or predisposed to being homosexual,
:14:01. > :14:03.because the individual, if born, would have a much more difficult
:14:04. > :14:17.life than the perfect stereotype that I'm seeking? As I said, there
:14:18. > :14:23.are a number of ways to address this kind of problem and one of them is
:14:24. > :14:29.through social intervention. That does not answer my question. Imagine
:14:30. > :14:37.the society is not fixed, it has not worked the way you would like it to
:14:38. > :14:40.work. But you still have to decide. Do you think it's legitimate to
:14:41. > :14:43.decide on the basis that I just outlined to get rid of the embryo
:14:44. > :14:49.that is predisposed to be homosexual or might have a physical impairment?
:14:50. > :14:58.Because, to use your logic, why wouldn't you? Why not take the
:14:59. > :15:01.embryo and maximise its own advantage? From the perspective of
:15:02. > :15:04.the child that is born, in considering whether their life goes
:15:05. > :15:06.well, you have to consider these unjust institutions and choose the
:15:07. > :15:14.child that will have the better future. But there are other reasons
:15:15. > :15:17.not to bend to these forces. Perhaps they want to change these unjust
:15:18. > :15:25.practices by resisting this kind of choice. But you have to remember
:15:26. > :15:28.that you are not doing that for the benefit of the child, you're doing
:15:29. > :15:31.that to change society. And the reasons why people choose to have
:15:32. > :15:35.boys in India... There are two reasons. First, if you have a girl,
:15:36. > :15:39.you have to have a very large dowry. For poor people, it's very expensive
:15:40. > :15:44.to have a girl. The problem there is the institution of the dowry. If you
:15:45. > :15:48.are a poor person and you cannot afford a dowry, there is a very good
:15:49. > :15:52.reason for you to select to have a boy. The problem in these cases is
:15:53. > :15:59.not just to say that you are perpetuating this problem. You have
:16:00. > :16:02.to address the causes not the symptoms of the disease. The causes
:16:03. > :16:05.are homophobic attitudes, racism, and outdated social institutions.
:16:06. > :16:07.Those are the causes. Of course, if you cannot treat the disease, you
:16:08. > :16:16.have to consider symptomatic treatment. Thereby entrenching those
:16:17. > :16:22.very institutions. And that might be a reason not to administer
:16:23. > :16:26.symptomatic treatment. But you are picking a case where... You are
:16:27. > :16:29.clearly an ethicist and you have to deal with it. Ethics is about not
:16:30. > :16:38.considering one reason but to consider all relevant factors. You
:16:39. > :16:41.cannot make a decision in theory about the rightness or wrongness of
:16:42. > :16:48.selection that applies in every single circumstance. I don't want to
:16:49. > :16:52.suggest this is simple. It's complex.
:16:53. > :16:57.Human cloning. Do you believe that the ultimate logic of what you
:16:58. > :17:02.suggest about perfecting - enhancing and perfecting human genetic
:17:03. > :17:06.material - does lead to cloning? Taking the very best and replicating
:17:07. > :17:14.it? Well, again, if that were your only goal, to have the most gifted
:17:15. > :17:18.possible child, then... Sometimes it sounds like that is your goal. No,
:17:19. > :17:21.it's not. Sometimes we have a reason. But sometimes people want to
:17:22. > :17:26.have their own child, not Albert Einstein's child or Michael Jordan's
:17:27. > :17:30.child. You would need to have a good reason to clone. Here is one.
:17:31. > :17:35.Imagine if you were infertile and could only produce one or two
:17:36. > :17:41.embryos. You cannot produce anymore eggs. And you have a pregnancy and
:17:42. > :17:45.it looks like the pregnancy will be lost. But you can clone that foetus
:17:46. > :17:53.in utero in case the pregnancy miscarries. That seems an entirely
:17:54. > :17:58.legitimate use of cloning technology if you could do it, to enable that
:17:59. > :18:07.couple to have a child. Yes, it would be a clone, but so what? One
:18:08. > :18:10.line you appear to be happy to cross is cross-species genetic mixing. You
:18:11. > :18:14.talk about a future in which the human being might have, to quote
:18:15. > :18:16.you, sonar ability like a bat, or indeed, the ability to convert
:18:17. > :18:28.sunlight into energy for growth like a plant. I know that this is
:18:29. > :18:30.blue-sky thinking, but you don't have an ethical problem with this
:18:31. > :18:33.cross-fertilisation of genetic material? Again, it's important to
:18:34. > :18:39.start with the science and the facts. We are the result of
:18:40. > :18:43.integration of viral DNA into our genome. A lot of our genetic
:18:44. > :18:47.material is viral. We are already integrating stuff from the
:18:48. > :18:49.environment. Now, if I had a gene sequence that could confer
:18:50. > :18:52.resistance to HIV that came from some other animal, that was
:18:53. > :18:56.constructed in a laboratory and put into people to prevent the spread of
:18:57. > :18:59.HIV, you have to ask why is the fact that it comes from an animal
:19:00. > :19:07.different from the fact that you just invented it in a laboratory? In
:19:08. > :19:12.fact, you could just copy the sequence and construct it in a
:19:13. > :19:15.laboratory. The question is, what are the risks and benefits of the
:19:16. > :19:19.particular case under consideration? If we ran out of food and we could
:19:20. > :19:24.then use sunlight to produce energy, why would that be... Certainly
:19:25. > :19:30.unnatural, but why would it be wrong? Risks and benefits. It's
:19:31. > :19:32.always a difficult calculation. You have been talking about futurology
:19:33. > :19:35.to some extent but let's bring it back to something real, which is
:19:36. > :19:38.your stance on performance-enhancing drugs in sport. You have made a big
:19:39. > :19:41.noise around the world, saying that you believe it is right to allow
:19:42. > :19:44.athletes, cyclists, to use performance-enhancing drugs, even
:19:45. > :19:50.though many of those same athletes say that it is absolutely not the
:19:51. > :19:56.way they want their sport to go. Why is that? The rules of sport are
:19:57. > :20:00.entirely arbitrary. There is no inherent rightness or wrongness in
:20:01. > :20:05.the set of rules. You choose them according to various values. Some of
:20:06. > :20:08.those values include their ability to be enforced, the ability to
:20:09. > :20:11.protect the health of participants, the ability to create a fair playing
:20:12. > :20:14.field that is enforceable. The current regime involves, today, what
:20:15. > :20:17.athletes are actually doing today is not what the East Germans did in the
:20:18. > :20:22.1970s, taking massive doses of drugs to turn women into men. They are
:20:23. > :20:26.moving within the natural range for all of these parameters. Blood,
:20:27. > :20:28.testosterone, growth hormone. And it's virtually impossible to detect
:20:29. > :20:31.whether someone is moving within this normal range and it's safe
:20:32. > :20:39.because it's within this normal range. But if you persist in this,
:20:40. > :20:45.you turn sport into a contest between scientists rather than a
:20:46. > :20:55.contest between physical athletes. Because the best drugs will win. Of
:20:56. > :20:58.course, you could if you again moved into supra-normal doses of these
:20:59. > :21:01.things. You seem to miss the human element. To quote you from Bradley
:21:02. > :21:05.Wiggins. He says he has never used drugs, in a sport which has been
:21:06. > :21:09.tainted by drugs. He says, "I do what I do because I love it. I don't
:21:10. > :21:13.do it for a power trip. What I love is doing my best and working my
:21:14. > :21:18.hardest. If I felt I had to take drugs in my sport, I would quit
:21:19. > :21:25.tomorrow". Well, they do take substances. Caffeine used to be
:21:26. > :21:34.banned. It's not a naturally-occurring substance. It's
:21:35. > :21:37.now permitted. It increases the tolerance of the body. Other
:21:38. > :21:41.examples include analgesics. Local anaesthetics. Non-steroidal ones. It
:21:42. > :21:45.enables them to deal with the pain and damage of competition. Nearly
:21:46. > :21:48.100% of footballers are on these sorts of drugs to enable them to
:21:49. > :21:51.perform better. They are very unnatural and they are dangerous but
:21:52. > :21:55.nobody perceives them to be performance-enhancing drugs, but of
:21:56. > :22:01.course they are. That's why they give them. You put an enormous
:22:02. > :22:03.amount of faith and trust in humanity to use ever expanding
:22:04. > :22:10.scientific, biological knowledge to the best effect, for the best good
:22:11. > :22:13.of us as a species. There is one area where you seem to fall down in
:22:14. > :22:16.that approach and that's bioscience, where you have admitted you're
:22:17. > :22:19.terrified by the capacity of human beings to create a new pathogen,
:22:20. > :22:27.which could actually wipe us all out. Are you terrified because of
:22:28. > :22:30.what bioscience can do or are you actually terrified because you have
:22:31. > :22:37.come to realise that human beings, we ourselves, are actually pretty
:22:38. > :22:40.dangerous? I don't have great faith in human beings and their ability to
:22:41. > :22:46.make decisions about this technology at all. We are the most dangerous
:22:47. > :22:51.species on the planet. We may extinguish all life on the planet.
:22:52. > :22:55.Don't get me wrong. And yet you want to give us all these freedoms to
:22:56. > :22:57.meddle with nature. When it comes to meddling on the level of allowing
:22:58. > :23:01.people to choose their family, yes, they should have freedom, but what I
:23:02. > :23:05.would say is that once science gives us the knowledge and power, we have
:23:06. > :23:10.to make a decision and we have to make it on the basis of values and
:23:11. > :23:13.ethics. What I have argued in terms of sport and genetic selection is
:23:14. > :23:17.that once you can make a difference, you have to ask if you should stay
:23:18. > :23:22.with the status quo or if you should not. And if you choose to stay with
:23:23. > :23:26.the status quo, you are then responsible for it. In all these
:23:27. > :23:29.areas, we have to start thinking because unavoidably, science is
:23:30. > :23:34.giving us the power to make these sorts of changes. My point is that
:23:35. > :23:38.we need to have a set of values. What I have argued with sport is
:23:39. > :23:41.that you can have a set of values that allows a level of safe
:23:42. > :23:44.performance enhancement that would be not threatening to the human
:23:45. > :23:48.contribution and would be much more enforceable and would make the whole
:23:49. > :23:51.thing better. That is just a proposal. We know it's up for
:23:52. > :23:54.debate. But that's what ethics is about - making proposals. And plenty
:23:55. > :24:34.of debate. Thank you for joining us. There will be spells of wet and
:24:35. > :24:37.windy weather over the next two or three days. If you have any concerns
:24:38. > :24:46.about the flooding situation, call the floodline number. The reason we
:24:47. > :24:47.had such a wet and