Prefer our framework of relationality – Engagements in educational projects that center around an ethic of love allow us to break away from oppressive social structures that drive the techno-colonial project.

Here it is appropriate to return to the question of engagement with both the human experience of the emotional life and the rational adherence to fact demanded by work in scientific and technological fields. The balance of both these aspects of modern life necessarily requires an equally active conversation with the ethical questions requisite to meaningful involvement in both spheres. One cannot ethically engage in the work of bringing technological children into the world without also engaging in educational projects. Any such project should engage with both historical and present structures into which technologies will be inserted. Can technology lead us into a utopian society if it is merely grafted onto the old foundations that have produced wealth and prosperity for some, but slavery, starvation, and death for others? Perhaps in responding, it is wisest to begin by requiring an answer to the question “How should one live?” The use of the ambiguous pronoun here leaves open the position of subjecthood; in this opening one can see past an ethic of autonomy—a concern for a personal, individualistic freedom— to something more inclusive. Bieber Lake enters into this conversation with Emerson and his ethic of individual freedom. She states that it is as if Emerson is saying, “what matters most is that I go forward with my freedom to change the world by starting with myself. Perhaps others have real claims on me, perhaps not, but let us go ahead and assume them to be real, and treat them well.” But in a world where biotechnology is giving us startling new powers to literally and permanently shape the next generation, what does it mean to treat people well now? If I value my personal freedom highest, what happens to my neighbor? Can we simply lay aside, as Emerson does here, the question of how real the other is? If we do, what in this philosophy will teach me what it means to treat someone well—to want for them the good life?30 Bieber Lake asserts that it is not autonomy that should act as the ethical rule by which to measure the technologies that we release into the world. The ethic of autonomy, unless purposefully extended to include the other, is myopically focused on the subject. It is this ethic, fixated on the power and affluence of Western economies, that drives the colonial project and any new colonialism to come. The higher ethic of love, on the other hand, engages both the I and the you, making subjects of both. Citing Habermas, Bieber Lake stresses that love as the guiding force of ethics has the ability to direct care and consideration toward the other. She stresses that “it is not genetic engineering that is the issue, but the attitude with which the interventions are carried out. In gene therapy, for instance, we have the correct attitude because we are thinking about the person the embryo will be. How we see the other person is the main thing that determines how we ascertain our duty to them.”31 Perhaps most importantly, the ability of the love ethic to consider the other allows for the considerations of other-selves and other-futures that we simply cannot know with any precision at this time. Derek Parfit, in “Personal Identity,” explored the idea that a person is comprised of multiple, separate selves and thus future selves take up the position of object rather than subject. This is a position that was confirmed in 2008 by Pronin et al. when experimental subjects committed their future selves to more arduous tasks in the name of science than they would commit to in the immediate present. This interesting quirk of human psychology suggests that it may be especially hard to consider future others in the projects we commit to today, as these are twice removed from our present selves. Adding to the difficulty are other factors such as the removals of geography, culture, religion, and sex that prevent an autonomy ethic from being an effective rule by which to measure the future of an increasingly globalized human experience. How, then, can love address the dangers that we may or may not face as we stand on the precipice of our biopolitical future? If, as Latour suggests, we must love our monsters and care for the technology we release into the world, we must also care for those whom our technology affects. This care demands that we exert ourselves today in examining and altering damaging social structures in preparation for our future children, technological or otherwise.