CONCESSIVE JUSTICE, PUBLIC REASON, ENHANCEMENT, TREATMENT. REPLIES TO MY CRITICS

Abstract

I reply to the critics of my book In A Better World? Public Reason and Biotechnologies. The discussion is framed through several issues: normativity (I describe Estlund’s difference between aspirational and concessive justice, and I indicate that the discussion in my book is framed in terms of concessive justice; further, I explain why we must endorse a public reason justification in matters of biotechnologies), fair equality of opportunity and equal liberty (in terms of concessive justice, I reject their strict priority in relation to questions of justice about genetic enhancement), self-respect (I defend the thesis that under fair respect of the interests of the least advantaged, there are no conclusive reasons to think that unequally available genetic enhancement harms self-respect), disease and treatment (I offer a public reason defence of treatment), parental rights (they do not include the right to impose sectarian conceptions of value) and talents (there are no conclusive reasons to think that talents enhanced by genetic interventions would strongly harm social equality).