Biomorality

...Empirical science was to be the means of political reformation...

...Though not hostile to science, the right views it more skeptically and worries about its capacity to undermine those institutions conservatives wish to preserve...

...The problem, as Levin diagnoses it, is that our constitutional order depends upon modern science and its blessings, yet science also works as a subtle moral corrosive that threatens to undermine the moral judgment essential to a healthy liberal democracy: In our time, we are perhaps less inclined to recognize science as a set of ideas with aspirations to universality precisely because the scientifi c enterprise has been so successful...

...As soon as we must debate publicly (and justify with reasons) such sound moral rules previously taken for granted—the Hippocratic oath, or even something as intuitively repellent as incest—we grant that there is something to talk about, that everything is on the table...

...Or so we are informed by luminaries ranging from Albert Einstein to George W. Bush...

...According to Levin, this skepticism extends to reason itself, and accounts for the right’s affi nity for tradition...

...What is new here is the manner in which he uses his scholarly knowledge to illumine the character of our contemporary (and future) political life...

...Ancient science was contemplative: It sought to understand nature, but was content to let it run its course...

...Levin avoids what is, at once, the principled but wildly impolitic argument that the embryo, as potential human life, deserves the same rights as actual human beings...

...Levin has a deep understanding of American political life, but he also has an expert knowledge of political philosophy, and puts both to good use in this important and enlightening book...

...Steven Lenzner is a research fellow in political philosophy at the Henry Salvatori Center of Claremont McKenna College...

...Yet even accepting Levin’s basic argument, his secondary case against embryonic stem cell research leaves one feeling ambivalent...

...Levin notes a burgeoning tension between the left’s desire to use science aggressively to improve human life and its simultaneous embrace of environmentalism, which refuses to “privilege” human life and sometimes betrays an antipathy to it...

...He shines a light, for example, on the impoverished character of the debate about the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research...

...Yet the capacity for unrefl ective moral intuition (and indignation) is alive and well in certain important realms of American life...

...For the political right, the family— along with the conditions that allow it to thrive—is fundamental...

...Levin dwells most extensively on biotechnology, which he sees as politically revealing and potentially explosive because it raises direct questions about how we defi ne ourselves in the most intimate aspects of our lives, such as birth, death, family, sex, and so on...

...All he asks is that, prior to addressing policy questions involving such intuitions, we not quickly bypass them in our headlong rush to decide in a detached, “scientifi c” manner...

...Levin has no illusions that the genie will return to the bottle...

...Science, the argument goes, offers knowledge of the inner workings of nature that bestows upon us the power to alter the physical and material conditions under which we live...

...For all its power, science risks leaving us morally impotent...

...Those other sources serve to ground our moral judgment, while science avoids or fl attens moral questions, since it cannot answer them and rarely needs to ask them...

...A new order was to emerge in which science would progressively conquer poverty and disease and hold out the prospect of the indefi nite extension of human life...

...The scientifi c project founded by Bacon and Descartes saw nature as hostile to human prosperity, as penurious and arbitrary...

...To be sure, Levin is not the fi rst to observe the hidden political foundations and aims of modern science, but you would be hard pressed to fi nd a treatment that is equally accessible, engaging, and precise...

...For good and bad, very few things are left implicit or unspoken in a liberal democracy...

...BY STEVEN LENZNER Among the many authorities we adhere to today, only science rivals that of equality...

...Genuine open-mindedness requires that we ask ourselves if there are good, if inchoate, reasons for the powerful, visceral reactions some taboos evoke, reasons that should be respected and accommodated in our policies and practices...

...Though an unapologetic opponent of embryonic stem cell research, Levin has less interest in winning converts than in persuading the open-minded that such research raises serious moral questions that should not be ignored: Regardless of where one ends up on the matter, only the incurably callous would shrug at the creation and casual destruction of potential human life...

...Much as we may congratulate ourselves for our openness to any and all opinions— prizing “diversity” for its own sake—not all refl exive sentiments on things public are open to discussion by decent folk...

...Levin shows that the Joe Friday ideal of science—“Just the facts, ma’am”— overlooks the woods for the trees...

...This is not thought to be a problem because, as everyone knows, science is morally and politically neutral...

...As such, science cannot come into confl ict with our democracy...

...Descartes...

...Put another way, the hidden moral premises of science—especially those concerning health—have so insinuated themselves into our collective consciousness that any attempt to challenge them in the name of other goods is almost invariably a defensive, rearguard action...

...They successfully sought to change the character of scientifi c activity for distinctively human and political ends...

...However important other controversies may be—climate change, say, or ethanol subsidies-—they seem merely technical compared with the foundational moral quandaries raised by biotechnology, from embryonic stem cell research to human cloning to the prospect of “designer babies,” and beyond...

...Having argued that we need to heed our moral intuition, he fails to provide a compelling reason why, in the matter at hand, we should not embrace those selfsame intuitions that tell us this minuscule entity—the embryo—has nothing in common with us, and its fate should not be causing sleepless nights...

...Sad to say, it is precisely in the only institution where untrammeled questioning can do no harm—where it is the indispensable means to its end—that it is least respected...

...But the authority we cede to science, both as the servant of health and as the master of knowledge, weakens our allegiance to those other sources of wisdom so crucial to our self-understanding and self-government...

...So Levin outlines what a genuinely and morally serious political debate about science would look like...

...In the spirit of his hero, Edmund Burke, Levin laments the tearing away of what Burke called “the decent drapery of life”—namely, the realm governed by moral intuition, instinct, and sentiment...

...Instead, he limits himself to making a case for “moderation”— a muddling-through that seeks to meet the demands of our citizenry for longevity and medical progress without running afoul of our moral sense and sensibilities...

...We’re far from the guillotine, but you only have to think about the relative capacities of smoking, on the one hand, and blasphemy, on the other, to generate indignation and see precisely to what extent this peculiarly modern moralism has taken hold...

...Modern science came into being in the 17th century through the thought and action of a handful of great thinkers, foremost among them Francis Bacon and Ren...

...Nor does he believe that a reliance on moral intuitions is right or proper for our liberaldemocratic way of life...

...Of course, the fact that we are willing to discuss matters previously veiled from public view does not mean that we will discuss them well...

...Such attempts can slow but not stem the tide of “progress,” and rollbacks are all but unimaginable...

...In describing our democracy’s constitutional impetus for discussing all matters in a forthright manner, Levin somewhat overstates our willingness to do so: Modern democracy may have a greater sense than any of its predecessors of the importance of separating private and public affairs, but everything deemed public (as the questions raised by modern technology have rightly been) is, at least in principle, fully discussed and exposed...

...The promises and hazards of biotechnology put formerly taboo subjects front and center...

...So Levin keeps one eye dry...

...Levin nicely sums up the less sober aspirations born of the modern scientifi c project in this way: From the very beginning, the modern worldview has given rise to peculiar utopianisms of various stripes, all grounded in the dream of overcoming nature and living, free of necessity and fear, able to meet every one of our needs and our whims, and able, most especially, to live indefi nitely in good health...

...Unfortunately, this is only half true...

...Political correctness employs the means of traditional morality, especially shame, less to silence certain opinions than to make them unthinkable...

...The anthropology of innovation is hopeful and discontent, animated by a belief that things here and now can always be better, and it views its task as ushering in that change, often hand-inhand with modern science...

...Far from being a source of guidance on how to live, nature was something to be overcome or conquered...

...Levin identifi es our two fundamental approaches in terms of a left “anthropology of innovation” and a right “anthropology of generations...

...The anthropology of generations is more resigned, content, and cautious...

...Insofar as “traditional morality” appears to stand in the way of our aspirations for physical well-being and medical progress, it will be under assault...

...The anthropology of innovation views the individual and his idiosyncratic aims—whether the “pursuit of happiness” or a quest for self-actualization—as primary...

...This brand of utopianism generally begins in a benign libertarianism, though at times it has ended in political extremism, if not the guillotine...

...The second half of Imagining the Future offers an insightful analysis of our politics in terms of left and right, and their respective attitudes towards science—attitudes which reveal much about our contemporary political ideologies...

...It seems that only the sentiments of the political right have become fair game...

...He recognizes that moral intuitions based on instinctual repugnance may be the product of prejudices, and he acknowledges that our system requires informed citizen participation to inspire thoughtful deliberation by elected offi cials...

...Levin will persuade thoughtful readers...

...Whether science is used for good ends or bad—in the service, for example, of freedom or of tyranny—is beyond its purview...

...Consider higher education...

...it appreciates the society it has inherited and is mindful of its responsibility to pass the riches to future generations...

...Yet that knowledge does not come with an instruction manual...

...It ignores the reality that science, as we take it for granted, is a relatively new phenomenon in human history and was brought about by men who saw science and healthy politics as inextricably linked...

...Science stands outside of, indeed above, politics...

...Science was, in Bacon’s famous phrase, to be put in the service of “the relief of man’s estate...

...Henceforth, all who read Yuval Levin’s Imagining the Future will refrain from availing themselves of this plausible, but deeply misleading, piece of conventional wisdom...

...Neither prominent academics, who seek to obscure the moral questions raised by such research, nor legislators, who believe that individual tales of woe are suffi cient to dispense with moral argument, escape Levin’s incisive skewering...

...But is science as innocent as scientists claim...