The American Journal of Bioethics

ISSN: 1526-5161 (Print) 1536-0075 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uajb20

Humans Should Be Free of All Biological

Limitations Including Sex

James J. Hughes

To cite this article: James J. Hughes (2010) Humans Should Be Free of All Biological
Limitations Including Sex, The American Journal of Bioethics, 10:7, 15-15, DOI:
10.1080/15265161.2010.481348

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2010.481348

Published online: 23 Jun 2010.

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Humans Should Be Free of All
Biological Limitations Including Sex
James J. Hughes, Trinity College
The first problem with the Sparrow (2010) essay is that it is
set up as a bait-and-switch reductio ad absurdum. It purports
to set out an argument for the liberation of human poten-
tial by making all humans female, and attempts thereby to
ridicule all enhancement arguments. Like most reductio ad
absurdum arguments it is forced to set up straw men and
ignore all sensible rejoinders to the reductio.
The second problem, therefore, with the piece is that
it ignores the proposal that human beings could be liber-
ated from the various limitations addressed through means
other than gender selection. This is puzzling since the au-
thor appears to be familiar with the literature on genetic en-
hancement, none of which sees any need to make recourse
to sex-selection-as-enhancement since all the various ills
would more fruitfully be addressed in other ways. But the
authors gotcha logic would disappear if the author tried in-
stead to argue against gene therapy or genetic selection for
life extension, or to extend to men the capacity to experience
the allegedly richer life experiences of women.
The third problem with the piece is that, contrary to
the charge that meliorists are too conservative to argue
for three or more genders, there are meliorist scholars,
of whom the author does not appear to be aware, who
have argued for liberating human beings from gender it-
self, which is a more radical extension of the case made
in the paper. We postgenderists mount an even more
direct assault on the yuck factor response to a postgen-
dered world that the papers argument hinges on by sug-
gesting that the ideal future would be one in which all
aspects of biological and neurological gendering are mat-
ters of analog choice. In other words, postgenderists do in
fact argue that A world of hermaphrodites . . . would re-
move these barriers to romantic and sexual satisfaction and
maximise individuals chances of finding happiness with a
partner.
The fourth problem with the paper is that it relies on
an irrational yuck factor response to the reductio ad ab-
surdum conclusion of an all-female world, and intuitionist
nonarguments for the desirability of normal human bod-
ies and sexual dimorphism. There are of course philoso-
phers who consider intuitionist arguments legitimate, but I
am not one of them. The argument is especially disturbing
in this case as it hinges on inducing disgust at the idea of a
lesbian or hermaphroditic future.
Address correspondence to James J. Hughes, PhD, Public Policy Studies, Trinity College, Williams 229B, Trinity College, 300 Summit St.,
Hartford CT 06106, USA. E-mail: james.hughes@trincoll.edu
July, Volume 10, Number 7, 2010
Sexual Dimorphism and Human Enhancement
The consistent use of other moral logics would not per-
mit this reductio. Principlism, for instance, is generally not
interpreted to permit violation of reproductive autonomy
for eugenic purposes.
Consequentialist reasoning sets quick limits on any pro-
gram of intentional gender imbalance because of its myr-
iad social consequences. The author seems perfectly ca-
pable of consequentialist reasoning to a point, when he
addresses possible consequentialist objections to an all-
female world, only to shunt them aside with the obser-
vation that they could all be adequately addressed with
technology if this female-only policy were presumed to
be inviolate. But there is no reason for the policy of gen-
der selection to remain inviolate under consequentialist
reasoning.
The author also appears to selectively use deontologi-
cal reasoning in the service of the reductio argument: Sex-
ual diversity can only be achieved at the expense of the
interests of those parents who are required to have sons
in order to produce it. This also raises the question of the
justification of requiring that some persons have reduced
opportunities and lower well-being in order to produce
goods that will largely be enjoyed by others. In particu-
lar, there is a danger that this involves using some peo-
ple for the benefit of others. Indeed, that is why lib-
eral democratic societies do not take seriously the kind
of eugenic arguments that the author is pretending to
proffer.
Finally, the paper makes an argument for the gender bi-
nary as an Aristotelian ideal type that should be preserved
from any deconstruction, and that should determine how
people are treated. While I find the idea philosophically
and politically offensive, it has an undeniable philosophical
pedigree. Perhaps the paper would make more sense sim-
ply arguing the case for gender as an inviolate ideal type
that should determine peoples lives, instead of mixing this
argument with a failed argument against procreative benef-
icence and human enhancement.

REFERENCE
Sparrow, R. 2010. Should human beings have sex? Sexual dimor-
phism and human enhancement. American Journal of Bioethics 10(7):
312.
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