A Case Against Perfection, which I read in two sittings over 5 hours in one afternoon. I simply could not put the book down, Sandel proposes both sides in the debate of Cloning/Perfomance Enhancement/Gene Therapy etc... Sandel makes you guess and second guess, then triple guess your own beliefs on these issues. In the end, I felt well informed and satisfied with this book. I strongly recommend this book. Not lengthy, fast read, well written.

Enjoy.

Sandel is a gifted, lucid writer, which is why I wish I could give this book more stars. But if I restrict myself just to its substance, I have to confess that more than once I felt like throwing this book across the room or shoving it into my garbage disposal. What an irritating and profoundly misguided book!

Sandel seems to think that using biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, to enhance human life inevitably means encroaching on, and perhaps even destroying, our ability to appreciate the "gifted" character of life itself. The assumption is that appreciating what is "given" (whether by God or nature) requires holding back from enhancing our offspring and ourselves and accepting as normative the abilities and limitations of modern human beings. If we do proceed with genetic enhancements, then, according to Sandel, we are corrupted by a hubristic ethic of "mastery" over what is naturally given. This is wrongheaded--and for two main reasons.

First, Sandel offers very little by way of defense of the normativity of the natural. Although he concedes that not everything that is natural is good (and rightly gives cancer as an example), he tells us almost nothing in this book, beyond appealing to a naïve, static, Aristotelian-style natural law theory, about why the fact that something is naturally given is in any way even relevant to its goodness, let alone why it ought not be improved. If he is going to be any kind of naturalist, he needs to go back and rethink the implications of Darwinian evolution for attempts to identify and enshrine an immutable human essence. (The prospects aren't good.) Beyond that, he needs a response to a long line of critics of Aristotelian naturalism, from Hume to Moore, who with good reason have attacked the idea that one could straightforwardly infer what "ought" to be from what "is." Sandel's Aristotelian naturalism is highly doubtful, and since the rest of his evaluations seem to depend upon it, they would appear to be highly doubtful as well.

Second, Sandel treats the sense of reverence, awe, and mystery that we feel towards nature, including our own current way of being, as if it were a kind of non-renewable resource--as if it were like, say, a finite, exhaustible quantity of petroleum lying under the earth's surface. This is ludicrous. It is much more probable that no matter how much human beings enhance themselves--no matter how tall they can grow themselves, how big they make their muscles, how much more powerful they make their memories, or how much they can genetically enhance the powers of their offspring--they will always be limited both by their environment and by their competition with each other (and possibly other beings). As a result, we will never reach the sort of smug self-satisfaction to which Sandel refers near the end of his book: we will never entirely "banish our appreciation of life as a gift" nor ever find ourselves with "nothing to affirm or behold outside our own will" (p. 100). No doubt there are people (and have for a long time been people) who failed to appreciate what is given them, but this has to do with the lack of a certain kind of sensibility, a kind of imaginative obtuseness. It has nothing directly to do with whether we can make ourselves live somewhat longer, grow somewhat taller, remember more, think somewhat more quickly, and the like. No matter how much we enhance ourselves, there will always be what is "given" relative to that stage of advancement and over which we have no control. We will never become masters of the universe, and, if we really do have enhanced mental abilities, we will not fall into the delusion of thinking that we are.

On the other hand, suppose Sandel is right, and suppose that we actually do have the power to erase the "given" and make ourselves true masters of the universe. I for one have trouble even understanding this possibility. But suppose (probably per impossibile) that it makes sense. Well, in that case, we would have become gods. And, if we really were gods, the accusation against us of hubris would be quite misplaced, wouldn't it?

An earlier reviewer mentioned a similarity between Sandel and Heidegger. Despite my more negative assessment of Sandel's book, that comment seemed to me to be close to the mark, since Heidegger too was a thinker who tended to mistake his own subjective preferences and concerns for deep ontological structures. Sandel doesn't like genetic manipulation and enhancement, and he projects this dislike, ironically in a rather hubristic manner, on a cosmic screen, as if it were deeply revealing of the nature of reality, life, and humanity. But it isn't. If my criticisms are correct, then an ethic of "giftedness," in which we appreciate the naturally given, can coexist with a determination to enhance our abilities and those of our children so as to make all of our lives as good (in our own eyes) as possible.

Don't worry. The universe will take care of reminding us that we have limits.

The book is quite readable and clear to a reasonable extent. It is also very informative and well researched. The author is commended. However, the issue about research into possibilities about medicine and its technology cannot avoid the question of common sense, finality and the exclsuive nature of "human experience". Pure mechanics will be abnormal in matters that concern the human person. The fears of the author are quite shared. The questions one may asked could be: will the drive for recognition and mere scientific aggrandisement consume man or can man apply his creative imagination to promote the respect for and the dignity of the human person?

This book is quite interesting, it's written in a readable style, and it presents lots of "food for thought" if you read it carefully. The author attempts (fairly successfully) to be balanced although he does take a side (obviously, based on the title). It's probably one of the better presentations on "big ideas" relevant to the future of eugenics. The conclusion is somewhat perfunctory and there is (seemingly extraneous and unconvincing) preaching in favor of stem cell research, but otherwise it's definitely worth reading if you're interested in genethics.

Michael Sandel exhibits a valiant effort at rebuilding the cracking walls of society's dam of morality. His failure is inevitable, due to the materials he uses - he relies solely on nonreligious arguments.

Now, it is admittedly my own prior conviction that reason alone can never stem the tide of relativism - but Michael Sandel has failed to convince me otherwise.

Sandel lists the norms that he wants to maintain in society: unconditional love, openness to all human life, celebration of natural talents and gifts, humility, and social solidarity. He also believes that we should seek and express our freedom not by changing ourselves to fit the world, but the other way around.

Then he explains how we are to maintain these good things: we must view life as a "gift", rather than as something in our control. Of course, Sandel doesn't claim that life really IS a gift - just that we should think of it AS a gift. We should maintain a kind of respect for the near sacredness of the natural - sacredness without a religious basis, giftedness without a giver. He almost seems to be arguing for a kind of primeval respect for the cosmic forces of nature and chance.

I don't disagree with Sandel's list of desirable social norms, or with his view that bioengineering would dull our sense of life as a gift. However, I am entirely unconvinced by his suggested cure. Why should we cling to the view that life is a "gift" if this view is in fact mistaken, if it is merely a useful verbal mirage that keeps us well-behaved? If there is no giver, then life cannot truly be a gift; rather, it is a random, chance occurrence that means nothing. And if that is the case, then why should certain social norms be privileged over others? Regardless of how seemingly good Sandel's norms appear to be, there will always be those who disagree - and who says they can't be right? Why can't we change our social norms and courageously progress into a braver, newer society?

Sandel's prescribed cure falls flat because people aren't too tempted to delude themselves, even for the common good. In a world without a giver, only we can assign true meaning and value. And so, we can't really believe that life has meaning or value other than what we choose to assign to it. We tend to sink into utilitarianism and a struggle for power - not to mention individualism and relativism.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of the book was Michael Sandel's last chapter, which is a defense of embryonic stem cell research. In a book that attempts to convince the reader to respect human beings, this is a disillusioning finish that rather spoils the appetite.

Michael Sandel exhibits a valiant effort at rebuilding the cracking walls of society's dam of morality. His failure is inevitable, due to the materials he uses - he relies solely on nonreligious arguments.

Now, it is admittedly my own prior conviction that reason alone can never stem the tide of relativism - but Michael Sandel has failed to convince me otherwise.

Sandel lists the norms that he wants to maintain in society: unconditional love, openness to all human life, celebration of natural talents and gifts, humility, and social solidarity. He also believes that we should seek and express our freedom not by changing ourselves to fit the world, but the other way around.

Then he explains how we are to maintain these good things: we must view life as a "gift", rather than as something in our control. Of course, Sandel doesn't claim that life really IS a gift - just that we should think of it AS a gift. We should maintain a kind of respect for the near sacredness of the natural - sacredness without a religious basis, giftedness without a giver. He almost seems to be arguing for a kind of primeval respect for the cosmic forces of nature and chance.

I don't disagree with Sandel's list of desirable social norms, or with his view that bioengineering would dull our sense of life as a gift. However, I am entirely unconvinced by his suggested cure. Why should we cling to the view that life is a "gift" if this view is in fact mistaken, if it is merely a useful verbal mirage that keeps us well-behaved? If there is no giver, then life cannot truly be a gift; rather, it is a random, chance occurrence that means nothing. And if that is the case, then why should certain social norms be privileged over others? Regardless of how seemingly good Sandel's norms appear to be, there will always be those who disagree - and who says they can't be right? Why can't we change our social norms and courageously progress into a braver, newer society?

Sandel's prescribed cure falls flat because people aren't too tempted to delude themselves, even for the common good. In a world without a giver, only we can assign true meaning and value. And so, we can't really believe that life has meaning or value other than what we choose to assign to it. We tend to sink into utilitarianism and a struggle for power - not to mention individualism and relativism.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of the book was Michael Sandel's last chapter, which is a defense of embryonic stem cell research. In a book that attempts to convince the reader to respect human beings, this is a disillusioning finish that rather spoils the appetite.

I bought this book because I really enjoyed the Atlantic Monthly article that preceded this effort. Unfortunately, this book didn't include any additional substance but a lot more fluff. I was totally bored with the effort and pretty disappointed. I would not recommend spending $20 on this book, but rather dig up a pdf of the article and enjoy it instead.

This is a small but very impressive book: timely, interesting, original, extremely well informed, very clearly written, organized, and argued, and largely persuasive. Reading it (in two sittings) was like listening to the two best applied ethics lectures I've ever heard (and I've heard lots). I strongly recommend this book.

It seemed to me, nonetheless, that one of the main moral criteria Sandel relies on got a bit blurred by the end. The distinction between manipulative molding (bad) and respectful beholding (good) seems to me to draw the line of moral permissibility too far into passivity territory. It'd be better to recognize, as Sandel does in the nice appendix on the stem cell debate, that there are molding beholdings or respectful manipulations, i.e., active interventions that respect and help develop the intrinsic capacitites at issue. But if the mold/behold dichotomy blurs that way, it would seem to undermine the hard and original line Sandel takes against bioengineering in the main part of the book. It would suggest, instead, that we could indeed allow some forms of genetic enhancement so long as they respect the intrinsic excellences we decide matter most. (How we are to decide that is a tricky issue broached but not delved into in this book.) If this is right, however, it would put Sandel much closer to the liberal eugenicists he criticizes.

In the end, I think Sandel's book is great: insightful, thought-provoking, and largely persuasive. Sandel articulates an original and deeply humane vision that ethicists, politicians, and other thinking citizens very much need to hear -- and then develop further. (Interestingly, Sandel's ethical vision seems surprisingly close to the later Heidegger in several crucial respects; the book suggests that he was influenced by a Heideggerian theologian and some brilliant undergraduate at Harvard, but I'd guess there's more to it than that.)