Rationality and the Genetic Challenge

Matti Häyry is Professor of Bioethics and Philosophy of Law at the University of Manchester and Professorial Fellow at the University of Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Finland.

• 1. Seven ways of making people better; 2. Rational approaches to the genetic challenge; 3. The best babies and parental responsibility; 4. Deaf embryos, morality, and the law; 5. Saviour siblings and treating people as a means; 6. Reproductive cloning and designing human beings; 7. Embryonic stem cells, vulnerability, and sanctity; 8. Gene therapies, hopes, and fears; 9. Considerable life extension and the meaning of life; 10. Taking the genetic challenge rationally.

'Häyry gives us a masterful topography and analysis of the philosophical and ethical questions raised by attempts to 'make better future people and to make existing people better.' Anyone who is interested in the challenges posed by genetics (and who wouldn't be?) - from educated lay persons to professionals in the field - will find this a must read by one of today's most outstanding philosophers.' Thomasine Kushner, University of California, Berkeley