Germ-line Enhancements and Rough Equality.

This paper argues that human germ-line biomedical enhancements (such as those that may be enabled by the application of CRISPR/CAS9 technology to human embryos) should be regulated in the name of preventing the inter-generational transmission and amplification of extreme socio-economic inequality. The protection of a background condition of “rough equality” trumps any justification provided by Rawls’s “Difference Principle”. That is to say, rough equality of starting position ought morally to be preserved even by regulations of germ-line enhancements that, as a collateral cost, prevent significant improvements in the expectations of income and wealth of the least advantaged socio-economic group, which would otherwise become more rapidly achievable.