There are really exercises in a kind of consumerist ethic that I think don't have the same moral weight as medicine or health.

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.

Markets are useful instruments for organizing productive activity. But unless we want to let the market rewrite the norms that govern social institutions, we need a public debate about the moral limits of markets.

My goal is first of all to promote a public debate about where markets serve the public good and where they don't belong. That's my first goal.

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.

One of the ways in which parenting is a learning experience and an opportunity for moral growth is that we learn as parents that we don't choose the kind of child that we have.

I think people who want to use genetic technologies to gain a competitive edge for their children are engaging in a kind of overreaching that could really undermine our appreciation of children as gifts for which we should be grateful and, instead, to view them as products or instruments that are there to be molded and directed.