1) When you have to address moral questions, please rank order from 1 (Highest) to 5 (Lowest) the five ethical frameworks (eg Kantianism, Act Utilitarianism, Rule Utilitarianism, Social Contract Theory, & Virtue Ethics) in terms of their meaning and usefulness to you. What is the rationale for your rank ordering?
2) In addition to your preferred ethical framework(s) above, what other factors do you generally consider when addressing moral questions?
As citizens of the world, we are concerned not just with whether actions are morally right and wrong, but also with what causes actions to be morally right or wrong. The key to improving our ethical decision-making skills is to better comprehend the rationale we use.
Ethical frameworks are perspectives that can help you decide which course of action is the most moral. A person may not apply a logical process in many circumstances and instead do what they feel is best at the time. Others may apply a concept learned from their family, peers, religious teachings, or personal experiences without thinking.
part in the modern world. It could be said that gene editing, and more specifically, designer babies, would encourage social standards regarding beauty to continue and get worse. Women are under more pressure to look a certain way to fit in and conform to the body standard at the time (Mazur, 2010). One year, blue eyes may be the standard, then it may change to brown in a few years. This is a similar case with body shape. According to an investigation conducted in 2007, 90% of all woman aged 15-64 around the world would like to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance (Calogero, Boroughs and Thompson, 2007).This shows that technology that allows you to change your child’s appearance will potentially be used by parents, based on these social standards. As will be demonstrated in this essay, there are also consequences of using this technology that impact the child on which they are being used on. Robert Sparrow of Monash University argues in his 2018 paper on gene editing (Sparrow, 2019) of the obsolescence of ‘designer babies’. He contends that when a child is given enhancements at birth, they will “rapidly go out of date” and “Sooner or later, every modified child will find him or her- self to be ‘yesterday’s child”. With this, he is making the point that, just as fashion becomes obsolete as the years go by, genetic traits that are considered ‘attractive’ will soon lose their flair. When this does happen, the child will feel inadequate and will no longer have what society considers the ‘best trait’. Furthermore, different qualities may be considered more attractive in the modern world, so gene editing would further homogenise and universalise our understanding of beauty, attractiveness and what is considered ‘good’. One thing that makes the human race so interesting is the diversity of people. This homogenisation of the idea of beauty will eliminate this diversity.