The Case Against Perfection

Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature—to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why. What is wrong with re-engineering our nature? The Case against Perfection explores these and other moral quandaries connected with the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. Michael Sandel argues that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery and dominion that fails to appreciate the gifted character of human powers and achievements. Carrying us beyond familiar terms of political discourse, this book contends that the genetic revolution will change the way philosophers discuss ethics and will force spiritual questions back onto the political agenda. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable. Addressing them is the task of this book, by one of America’s preeminent moral and political thinkers.

In this book, Michael Sandel takes up some of the hotly contested moral and political issues of our time, including affirmative action, assisted suicide, abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, the meaning of toleration and civility, the gap between rich and poor, the role of markets, and the place of religion in public life. He argues that the most prominent ideals in our political life--individual rights and freedom of choice--do not by themselves provide an adequate ethic for a democratic society. Sandel calls for a politics that gives greater emphasis to citizenship, community, and civic virtue, and that grapples more directly with questions of the good life. Liberals often worry that inviting moral and religious argument into the public sphere runs the risk of intolerance and coercion. These essays respond to that concern by showing that substantive moral discourse is not at odds with progressive public purposes, and that a pluralist society need not shrink from engaging the moral and religious convictions that its citizens bring to public life.

This volume presents articles which focus on the ethical evaluation of performance-enhancing technologies in sport. The collection considers whether drug doping should be banned; the rationale of not banning ethically contested innovations such as hypoxic chambers; and the implications of the prospects of human genetic engineering for the notion of sport as a development of ’natural’ talent towards human excellence. The essays demonstrate the significance of the principles of preventing harm, ensuring fairness and preserving meaning to appraise whether a particular performance enhancer is acceptable in the context of sport. Selected essays on various forms of human enhancement outside of sport that highlight other principles and concepts are included for comparative purpose. Sport enhancement provides a useful starting point to work through the ethics of enhancement in other human practices and endeavors, and sport enhancement ethics should track broader bioethical debates on human enhancement. As a whole, the volume points to the need to consider the values and meanings that people seek in a given sphere of human activity and their associated principles to arrive at a morally grounded and reasonable approach to enhancement ethics.

What do we owe our future children? How do advances in biomedical science bear on these obligations? How do capitalist incentives distort their execution? Advances in biotechnologies for human enhancement and designer babies appear to offer us new hope to control the fragility of human living. Some philosophers have argued that we have a moral imperative to use them, especially to eliminate disabilities. Elyse Purcell offers an opposing view, one guided by existential insights and Marxist reflections. Engineering Perfection: Solidarity, Disability, and Well-being explores the effect global capitalism may have on the selection of traits for our future children and how the commercialization of these technologies may lead to the elimination of bodily diversity. Although philosophers have addressed the possible widening between the haves and have-nots, this book considers the role oppression and exploitation may play in enhancing bodies for profit. As a challenge to the global economy of debility, Purcell proposes the Solidarity view, which embraces human vulnerability and embodied difference. By reflecting on facets of the human condition, the Solidarity view challenges us to reject our conception of the good life as human perfection, and instead reconceive of the good as one’s self-realization through the interdependent mutual recognition and co-belonging with others.

In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes an ethical case for biotechnology that is both forthright and rigorous. Human enhancement, Harris argues, is a good thing--good morally, good for individuals, good as social policy, and good for a genetic heritage that needs serious improvement. Enhancing Evolution defends biotechnological interventions that could allow us to live longer, healthier, and even happier lives by, for example, providing us with immunity from cancer and HIV/AIDS. Further, Harris champions the possibility of influencing the very course of evolution to give us increased mental and physical powers--from reasoning, concentration, and memory to strength, stamina, and reaction speed. Indeed, he says, it's not only morally defensible to enhance ourselves; in some cases, it's morally obligatory. In a new preface, Harris offers a glimpse at the new science and technology to come, equipping readers with the knowledge to assess the ethics and policy dimensions of future forms of human enhancement.

Read The Case Against Fragrance and you will never think about fragrance in the same way again. If you have been suffering fragrance in silence, you will know you are not alone.’ Conversation Kate Grenville had always associated perfume with elegance and beauty. Then the headaches started. Like perhaps a quarter of the population, Grenville reacts badly to the artificial fragrances around us: other people’s perfumes, and all those scented cosmetics, cleaning products and air fresheners. On a book tour in 2015, dogged by ill health, she started wondering: what’s in fragrance? Who tests it for safety? What does it do to people? The more Grenville investigated, the more she felt this was a story that should be told. The chemicals in fragrance can be linked not only to short-term problems like headaches and asthma, but to long-term ones like hormone disruption and cancer. Yet products can be released onto the market without testing. They’re regulated only by the same people who make and sell them. And the ingredients don’t even have to be named on the label. This book is based on careful research into the science of scent and the power of the fragrance industry. But, as you’d expect from an acclaimed novelist, it’s also accessible and personal. The Case Against Fragrance will make you see—and smell—the world differently. When I was little, my mother had a tiny, precious bottle of perfume on her dressing-table and on special occasions she’d put a dab behind her ears. The smell of Arpege was always linked in my mind with excitement and pleasure–Mum with her hair done, wearing her best dress and her pearls, off for a night out with Dad. When I got old enough to have my own special occasions I also had my favourite perfume. I loved the bottles: those sensuous shapes. I loved the names and the labels, so evocative of all things glamorous. Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Her bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History. Kate lives in Sydney and her most recent works are the non-fiction books One Life: My Mother’s Story and The Case Against Fragrance. ‘One spritz of aftershave or perfume can leave other people retching and clutching their heads—you never see that in the ads.’ Kaz Cooke ‘Beginning with her own physical reaction to fragrance that begins with a headache a lot of us know ourselves, she investigates the fragrance industry and its side-effects and interweaves these facts with the personal to create an accessible work of non-fiction.’ ArtsHub ‘Fact-dense and extensively referenced, the book is a delight to read and never gets bogged down...While some of the science has been simplified, the book generally conveys the sense of it correctly...Well developed and thoughtful. Read The Case Against Fragrance and you will never think about fragrance in the same way again. If you have been suffering fragrance in silence, you will know you are not alone.’ Conversation ‘Grenville sets out to unlock the dark science—the volatile compounds, conspiracies and carcinogens—hiding in perfume, the ingredients of which are regularly listed as alcohol, water and the mysterious catch-all “fragrance”.’ New Statesman ‘In this appealingly written exploration, Kate uncovers the dark side of the fragrance industry, from the carcinogens in after-shave to the hormone disruptors in perfume that mimic oestrogen.’ Child ‘An insightful and frightening book.’ Readings ‘Readable, interesting and informative.’ Big Book Club ‘Grenville expresses hope though that our society will find solutions to the fragrant violation of personal space based on courtesy and civility rather than on regulation and policy.’ Australian Book Review ‘You may be familiar with Australian novelist Kate Grenville’s work but she enters new territory here. After exposure to perfumes and scents delivered ill-health her way, Grenville got curious as to why...The result is a fascinating (and worrying) exposé of the potentially damaging health effects of fragrances and the laxity of their regulation. Grenville digs into the science of scent as well as the intrigue of a multi-billion-dollar industry and makes it beautifully accessible in the process.’ WellBeing ‘The Orange Prize-winning novelist’s discovery that she reacts badly to the artificial fragrances all around us led her to investigate what is in fragrances, what it does to people and whether it is properly tested for safety...The result is this accessible and personal book on the science of fragrance’ Bookseller ‘[Grenville] raises valuable questions about the potentially harmful chemicals surrounding us every day and why we so unabashedly live in ignorance of them.’ Reader’s Digest UK, Best New Books to Read This Summer ‘In some places, though, the danger [of fragrance] is beginning to be taken as seriously as passive smoking 30 years ago...it sounds silly, until you read Kate Grenville’s explosive exposé and wonder why no one ever told you this stuff before.’ Mail on Sunday ‘An accessible, intelligent, seriously researched—and terrifying—book’ Daily Mail UK

A Times Literary Supplement’s Book of the Year 2020 A New Statesman's Best Book of 2020 A Bloomberg's Best Book of 2020 A Guardian Best Book About Ideas of 2020 The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.

How looking beautiful has become a moral imperative in today's worldThe demand to be beautiful is increasingly important in today's visual and virtual culture. Rightly or wrongly, being perfect has become an ethical ideal to live by, and according to which we judge ourselves good or bad, a success or a failure. Perfect Me explores the changing nature of the beauty ideal, showing how it is more dominant, more demanding, and more global than ever before.Heather Widdows argues that our perception of the self is changing. More and more, we locate the self in the body--not just our actual, flawed bodies but our transforming and imagined ones. As this happens, we further embrace the beauty ideal. Nobody is firm enough, thin enough, smooth enough, or buff enough-not without significant effort and cosmetic intervention. And as more demanding practices become the norm, more will be required of us, and the beauty ideal will be harder and harder to resist.If you have ever felt the urge to "make the best of yourself" or worried that you were "letting yourself go," this book explains why. Perfect Me examines how the beauty ideal has come to define how we see ourselves and others and how we structure our daily practices-and how it enthralls us with promises of the good life that are dubious at best. Perfect Me demonstrates that we must first recognize the ethical nature of the beauty ideal if we are ever to address its harms.

A path-breaking scholar's insightful reexamination of the resurrection of the body and the construction of the self When people talk about the resurrection they often assume that the bodies in the afterlife will be perfect. But which version of our bodies gets resurrected--young or old, healthy or sick, real-to-life or idealized? What bodily qualities must be recast in heaven for a body to qualify as both ours and heavenly? The resurrection is one of the foundational statements of Christian theology, but when it comes to the New Testament only a handful of passages helps us answer the question "What will those bodies be like?" More problematically, the selection and interpretation of these texts are grounded in assumptions about the kinds of earthly bodies that are most desirable. Drawing upon previously unexplored evidence in ancient medicine, philosophy, and culture, this illuminating book both revisits central texts--such as the resurrection of Jesus--and mines virtually ignored passages in the Gospels to show how the resurrection of the body addresses larger questions about identity and the self.

In a society that praises and promotes technological advancement, it becomes increasingly essential to review the effects of such rapid technological growth. New high-tech advances need to be examined to determine what they mean to science, society, and industry along with the benefits and challenges they present. The Handbook of Research on Industrial Advancement in Scientific Knowledge addresses the intersection of technology and science where engineering considerations, mathematical approaches, and management tools provide a better understanding and awareness of Industry 4.0, while also taking into account the impact on current society. This publication identifies methodologies and applications related to decision making, risk and uncertainty, and design and development not only on scientific and industrial topics but also on social and ethical matters. It is designed for engineers, entrepreneurs, academicians, researchers, managers, and students.