One way to think about it is comparing to the alternative of not choosing. There are tradeoffs, but it’s a net improvement over the alternative of a random genome. By going through substantial inconvenience in order to make some genomic choices on behalf of your future child, you’re giving them that gift. Maybe it’s not the optimal gift, but it’s still a supererogatory gift.
If I pick the former and the die roll goes badly, I know I’m directly responsible for that, for the rest of my life. If I pick the latter, then, every single time my kid misses the game-winning catch by a hair, or gets waitlisted to his dream school, I think about my paranoia being the reason his life is worse.
Are you making sure to also account (both in reasoning and in intuition / emotion) for the upsides in both cases? If not, then you’re applying a sort of Copenhagen ethics, where you’re automatically punished for taking responsibility, compared to leaving it up to random chance.
I think a lot of people do apply Copenhagen ethics, and I sometimes do too, so it’s not crazy. But my experience has been that sometimes it becomes just totally untenable to have no one taking responsibility, so you have to do it yourself. And then you have a bunch of difficult fast-paced choices where any option can be criticized. I think this situation is probably basically necessary as parent (though I’m not a parent)? Like, there’s just a ton of choices (what food? what water filter? what books? where live? what about phone / screens? school? rules? enforcement? etc. etc.), and you have to make some choice, and they all have flaws, but it’s ok, you’re doing your best—that’s the standard, not “was I totally blameless for all bad outcomes”.
being the reason his life is worse.
Another way to think about it, is making your best guess at what he would want. Of course, this doesn’t really answer any concrete question, but it’s maybe a slightly different stance. If you could, you should give him control over his own genome; but that doesn’t make sense because he doesn’t exist yet. ( https://berkeleygenomics.org/articles/Genomic_emancipation.html#appendix-the-origins-of-souls ) One way to try to compute what he’d want, is to ask what you’d wish your parents would have done for you.
One way to think about it is comparing to the alternative of not choosing. There are tradeoffs, but it’s a net improvement over the alternative of a random genome. By going through substantial inconvenience in order to make some genomic choices on behalf of your future child, you’re giving them that gift. Maybe it’s not the optimal gift, but it’s still a supererogatory gift.
Are you making sure to also account (both in reasoning and in intuition / emotion) for the upsides in both cases? If not, then you’re applying a sort of Copenhagen ethics, where you’re automatically punished for taking responsibility, compared to leaving it up to random chance.
I think a lot of people do apply Copenhagen ethics, and I sometimes do too, so it’s not crazy. But my experience has been that sometimes it becomes just totally untenable to have no one taking responsibility, so you have to do it yourself. And then you have a bunch of difficult fast-paced choices where any option can be criticized. I think this situation is probably basically necessary as parent (though I’m not a parent)? Like, there’s just a ton of choices (what food? what water filter? what books? where live? what about phone / screens? school? rules? enforcement? etc. etc.), and you have to make some choice, and they all have flaws, but it’s ok, you’re doing your best—that’s the standard, not “was I totally blameless for all bad outcomes”.
Another way to think about it, is making your best guess at what he would want. Of course, this doesn’t really answer any concrete question, but it’s maybe a slightly different stance. If you could, you should give him control over his own genome; but that doesn’t make sense because he doesn’t exist yet. ( https://berkeleygenomics.org/articles/Genomic_emancipation.html#appendix-the-origins-of-souls ) One way to try to compute what he’d want, is to ask what you’d wish your parents would have done for you.