A philosophy untouched by the shadows on the wall can only yield a sterile utopia.

One can imagine a kind of hormonal arms race or genetic arms race, whether it's to do with height or IQ, conceivably, in the future. So it's limitless, and that's another of the features that sets it apart from medical intervention.

What intrigued me most was not the technology as such but the questions about the human goods, the fundamental human values and virtues that are raised by debates over biotechnology.

It is true that the Jewish tradition emphasizes the moral mandate to save life. It also has a different position from the Catholic Church on the moral status of the embryo. It has a more developmental view of when human life, in the sense of personhood, begins than does the Catholic Church.

They seek principles of justice that are neural among ends, and enable people to choose and pursue their ends for themselves.

A better way to mutual respect is to engage directly with the moral convictions citizens bring to public life, rather than to require that people leave their deepest moral convictions outside politics before they enter.

I think the reason we might hesitate to pay cash to students for doing well on tests or getting good grades or reading books is that we sense that the monetary payment is an extrinsic reward.

If you pay a child a dollar to read a book, as some schools have tried, you not only create an expectation that reading makes you money, you also run the risk of depriving the child for ever of the value of it. Markets are not innocent.

I think too often in our society parents, who may have good impulses, overreach and try to mold and shape and direct their child.

It's ultimately the purpose of education to cultivate the love of learning for its own sake.

I think it would be a great tragedy to devote medical resources and genetic technological breakthroughs to purposes that are not to do with health or medicine, but instead are to do with satisfying the desires that are created by the consumer society.

Science can investigate nature and inquire into the empirical world, but it cannot answer moral questions or disprove
free will. That is because morality and freedom are not empirical concepts.
We can't prove that they exist, but neither can we make sense of our moral lives without presupposing them.

I think very often when we think we are aiming at the best for our children, what we are really doing is trying to position them for competitive success in an intensely driven kind of society. I'm not sure that always leads to the good life or to happiness.

Other animals can make sounds, and sounds can indicate pleasure and pain. But language, a distinctly human capacity, isn´t just for registering pleasure and pain. It´s about declaring what is just and what is unjust, and distinguishing right from wrong. We don´t grasp these things silently, and then put words to them; language is the medium through which we discern and deliberate about the good.

The norm of unconditional parental love, I think, depends on the fact that we don't pick and choose the traits of our children in the way that we pick and choose the features of a car we might order, or a consumer good.

Whether you're a libertarian liberal or a more egalitarian liberal, the idea is that justice means being non-judgmental with respect to the preferences people bring to public life.

Aiming at health, restoring health -- that is a goal that is both morally important and limited, because it aims at the restoration of normal human functioning, which is an important part of human flourishing.

I do think it is very important that the religious communities do try to bring their teachings and their insights to bear on the stem cell debate and on the debate about genetic engineering.

I am trying to get at the moral arguments and the ethical status of various attempts at enhancement, or genetic engineering, or the bid for designer children. But there are implications for society at large.

The responsibility of political philosophy that tries to engage with practice is to be clear, or at least accessible.