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Human Identity: The Question Presented By Human-Animal Hybridization, Jospeh Vining
Human Identity: The Question Presented By Human-Animal Hybridization, Jospeh Vining
Other Publications
What makes each of us, as individuals, human to one another, or, more generally, what makes an individual creature human? We have not often had to ask the question because of the species line based on reproductive capacity and incapacity, although "degrees of humanness" were explored in the various eugenic programs of the last century. Now the biotechnological possibility of fusing human and other forms of life is presenting the question in a new and serious way. If the traditional biological means of defining species are no longer reliable, what other criteria might determine what is "human" and what is …
Genes As Tags: The Tax Implications Of Widely Available Genetic Information, Kyle D. Logue, Joel Slemrod
Genes As Tags: The Tax Implications Of Widely Available Genetic Information, Kyle D. Logue, Joel Slemrod
Articles
Advances in genetic research promise to loosen the tradeoff between progressivity and effi ciency by allowing tax liability (or transfer eligibility) to be based in part on immutable characteristics of individuals (“tags”) that are correlated with their expected lot in life. Use of genetic tags would reduce reliance on tax bases (such as income) that are subject to individual choices and, therefore, subject to ineffi cient distortion to those choices. If genetic information can be used by private employers and insurers, the case for basing tax in part on it becomes more compelling, as genetic inequalities would be exacerbated by …