Adrian M. Viens, University of Toronto
The legitimate conditions under which the state is able to intervene into the lives of the citizenry are often constrained by a prohibition not to enforce a particular conception of the good in law and policy. Using the case of recent advances in genetic technology - specifically the ability to use the knowledge and technology derived from the Human Genome Project to help improve the lives of citizens through the reduction or elimination of disease and disability in the interest of justice - this paper argues that the state's positive obligation with respect using genetic technology to promote equality of opportunity comes into tension with the state's negative obligation to remain neutral on matters of value since the state's position regarding the funding, regulation, or prohibition of any genetic technology necessarily favours one conception of the good over another. Many liberal theorists working under, and having affinities with, the Rawlsian political framework have argued that a democratic framework that emphases the just society, as opposed to the good society, can justify the inclusion of particular genetic interventions without violating its commitment to remaining neutral between reasonable conceptions of the good. I argue that such attempts are not fully successful. I suggest that in order to succeed, the best prospect lies in making the progression from a view of comprehensive liberalism presented in Rawls' A Theory of Justice in favour of the view predicated in Political Liberalism. This transition would accommodate what Rawls calls the fact of reasonable pluralism in society and would do a great deal to reconcile the tension (as I view it) that arises between the state's obligation to promote equality and to remain neutral on substantive moral issues.