Abstract
In his left-libertarian theory of justice Hillel Steiner introduces the idea of conceiving our germ-line genetic information (GLGI) as a natural resource as a means to achieving luck-egalitarian equality. This idea is very interesting in and of itself. But it also has the potential of turning Steiner’s theory into a particularly powerful version of left-libertarianism, or so I argue in the first part of this paper. In the second part I critically examine this idea. I show why, in contrast to what Steiner claims, this idea requires us to evaluate not only the pieces of GLGI that we have used, but rather all the pieces of GLGI that our bodies deliver throughout our lives. Then I argue that besides the immense technical difficulties involved in meeting this requirement, which we may overcome in the future, there is also a substantive reason why we cannot meet this requirement. The relevant value of any given piece of GLGI depends on the way it would interact with another piece of GLGI of the opposite sex in a reproductive process. But there is no way of determining which pieces of GLGI should be assigned to each other for the purpose of this evaluation.
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Notes
It should be noted that the ultimate distribuendum in Steiner's theory is (pure) negative freedom, whose maximal equal distribution promises to deliver also luck-egalitarian equality. Elsewhere (Shnayderman 2013) I argued that, on Steiner's own terms, the maximal equal distribution of (pure) negative freedom actually fails to deliver luck-egalitarian equality. In this paper I raise doubts as to the theory's ability to deliver luck-egalitarian equality, not through equal distribution of (pure) negative freedom, but rather more directly through equal distribution of the value of the world's natural resources and particularly of our GLGI. Hence, in what follows I will set aside the fact that the ultimate distribuendum in Steiner's theory is (pure) negative freedom and the problems that this raises.
This thought may have also stood avant la lettre behind Jerry Cohen's (1995, ch. 4) argument that the principles of self-ownership and luck-egalitarian equality are incompatible.
For a prima facie plausible reply which says that: (1) most versions of left-libertarianism do rely on two independent premises, one concerning agents and one concerning objects; (2) this is justified by the different moral statuses of agents and objects; and (3) there is little reason to require that ‘the justification for each of one's principles appeal to the same set of considerations’, see Vallentyne et al. (2005). But not everybody seems to be persuaded (see, for example, Fried 2005). And, in any case, ceteris paribus, a more coherent theory—a theory in which the justification of all of its principles does appeal to the same set of considerations—does seem to be more compelling than a less coherent theory.
It is unclear whether parents can be said to have an enforceable duty (i.e. a duty with a correlative right) to do so within Steiner's theory. On the one hand, Steiner (1994a, pp. 245–246) argues that children do not count as moral agents who can have rights. On the other hand, he argues that when (and if) children reach majority and become moral agents, they may have a right to receive compensation from their parents, if their parents did not spend enough resources on them while they were children (Steiner 1999). But if children cannot have rights, then ipso facto they did not have a right that their parents spend the additional resources they receive on them when they were minors. What are they supposed to be compensated for then? Furthermore, even if we assume that children could have rights within Steiner's theory, it would still be unclear why they would have that particular right. After all, the additional resources that their parents receive are part of their share of the world's natural resources, not their children's share. Why would their children have any right with respect to these resources then? In what follows I set these problems aside, as they are in any case irrelevant to my arguments against Steiner's idea of conceiving our GLGI as a natural resource as a means to achieving luck-egalitarian equality. That is, even if Steiner could somehow solve these problems or if we assume (not unrealistically) that parents would in any case invest these additional resources in their children, my arguments would not be affected. If Steiner could not solve these problems, though, this might reflect on the coherence of his theory discussed in section I above.
This last point is not made explicit by Steiner. But it is implied by the fact that he simply does not argue that we do owe something to other people by virtue of merely carrying pieces of GLGI within our bodies.
Steiner (2002, p. 321) himself claims that an appropriator of a natural resource owes compensation to all others ‘for their exclusion from the resource’. See also Steiner (2008, pp. 352–353). Similarly, both Robert Nozick (1974, p. 175) and Jerry Cohen (1995, p. 75) agree that the crucial point with respect to appropriation of natural resources is its impact on others rather than the means whereby it was brought about.
That is assuming that I can be held responsible for doing so.
I will explain this qualification below.
It might be thought that there is another obvious difficulty here; namely, the state should not possess such data, even if they can be collected in a morally acceptable way. There are some judgements, it has been argued with respect to luck-egalitarianism in general, that the state should not pass on its citizens, if it is to show them respect (see, for example, Anderson 1999; Wolff 1998). Passing judgement on the quality of their GLGI may be thought to belong to this kind of judgements. But I do not think that it does. For this kind of judgements is concerned only with what Ian Carter (2011, p. 557) calls individuals' ‘agential capacities’—that is, individuals' capacities ‘to make rational and responsible decisions, to form reasonable value commitments, to develop worthwhile life plans, and so on’. The quality of individuals' GLGI, on the other hand, has nothing to do with their own agential capacities and is normally only very loosely related to those of their children.
The following analysis focuses on the problem raised by the need to evaluate all the pieces of GLGI that our bodies deliver throughout our lives due to the fact that the reckoning here takes the parents' generation as delineating the relevant set of individuals. But it also applies, mutatis mutandis, to the need of doing so due to the fact that we might owe everyone else the value of having access to our sperms and ova merely by virtue of carrying them within our bodies and the need of evaluating the sperms upon which men act while not procreating.
The success rate of in vitro fertilisation is far below 100%. And this is another, technological, reason that counts against the standard of best possible combination—if we cannot be sure that we can take advantage of the best possible combination, there is no sense in holding us to this standard.
Thus, for instance, an article titled ‘Grade A: The Market for a Yale Woman’s Eggs’, published in the The Atlantic in December 2002 reported about an advertisement published in the Yale Daily News offering $25,000 for an egg from ‘a young woman over five feet five, of Jewish heritage, athletic, with a combined SAT score of 1500, and attractive’. Similarly, a piece titled ‘A Baby Booming Business’ published in the Los Angeles Daily News on 23.04.2006 reported about a similar advertisement that ran online in the Daily Bruin, UCLA's student newspaper: ‘We are seeking women who have blue-green eyes, are under the age of 29, SAT 1300+, physically fit … $20,000 (plus all expenses)’.
There may be of course some ways of benefiting from any natural resource of which we are currently ignorant. An apple, for instance, may turn out to benefit us as an ingredient in a medication against some disease. But that is not what is at issue here. For we do not evaluate resources on the basis of the mere possibility that they may turn out to benefit us in some unknown ways. Accordingly, the problem with our GLGI discussed here is not that it may turn out to benefit us in some unknown ways. The problem is that we know very well in which ways it can benefit us, but cannot predict reliably the level of the known benefits that would follow from using any particular piece of it.
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Acknowledgments
I presented an earlier version of this paper at the symposium on Property and Equality in Left-Libertarianism, XII Conference of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, University of Pistoia, in September 2016. I would like to thank the participants, and particularly Ian Carter, Hillel Steiner and Peter Vallentyne, for their helpful feedback.
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Shnayderman, R. Germ-Line Genetic Information as a Natural Resource as a Means to Achieving Luck-Egalitarian Equality: Some Difficulties. Res Publica 25, 151–166 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-017-9392-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-017-9392-z