Robert Sladek’s research while affiliated with McGill University and other places

Participants in the long-running bioethical debate over human germline genetic modification (HGGM) tend to imagine future people abstractly and on the basis of conventionalized characteristics familiar from science fiction, such as intelligence, disease resistance and height. In order to distinguish these from scientifically meaningful terms like “phenotype” and “trait,” this article proposes the term “persemes” to describe the units of difference for hypothetical people. In the HGGM debate, persemes are frequently conceptualized as similar, modular entities, like building blocks to be assembled into genetically modified people. They are discussed as though they each would be chosen individually without affecting other persemes and as though they existed as components within future people rather than being imposed through social context. This modular conceptual framework appears to influence bioethical approaches to HGGM by reinforcing the idea of human capacities as natural primary goods subject to distributive justice and supporting the use of objective list theories of well-being. As a result, assumptions of modularity may limit the ability of stakeholders with other perspectives to present them in the HGGM debate. This article examines the historical trends behind the modular framework for genetically modified people, its likely psychological basis, and its philosophical ramifications.

Participants in the human gene editing debate often consider examples from science fiction but have rarely engaged directly with the science fiction community as stakeholders. To understand how science fiction authors develop and spread their views on gene editing, we created an online questionnaire that was answered by 78 authors, including 71 who had previously written about genetic engineering. When asked which ethical issues science fiction should explore, respondents most frequently mentioned affordability, new social divisions, consent and unforeseen safety risks. They rarely advocated exploring psychological effects or religious objections. When asked which works of fiction had influenced their perceptions of gene editing, the most frequent responses were the film Gattaca, the Star Trek franchise and the novels The Island of Doctor Moreau and Brave New World Unlike other stakeholders, they rarely cited Frankenstein as an influence. This article examines several differences between bioethicists, the general public and science fiction authors, and discusses how this community's involvement might benefit proponents and opponents of gene editing. It also provides an overview of works mentioned by our respondents that might serve as useful references in the debate.

Anticipatory policy for gene editing requires assessing public opinion about this new technology. Although previous surveys have examined respondents’ views on the moral acceptability of various hypothetical uses of CRISPR, they have not considered whether these scenarios are perceived as plausible. Research in construal level theory indicates that participants make different moral judgments about scenarios seen as likely or near and those seen as unlikely or distant. Therefore, we surveyed a representative sample of 400 Americans and Canadians about both the likelihood and the permissibility of 23 commonly discussed uses of gene editing. Respondents with more knowledge of gene editing generally thought these applications would be more likely within the next 20 years. There was a strong positive relationship between the perceived likelihood and permissibility of most CRISPR applications. Our results suggest that ongoing public engagement efforts for gene editing could be improved by taking its perceived time-frames into account.