Robert Nozick, in what is surely one of the most
intriguing and provocative footnotes in modern philosophical
writing, referred in Anarchy, State and Utopia
to the notion of a “genetic supermarket.”
In keeping with the central arguments of that text, his
suggestion was that choices about the genetic composition
of future generations should, as far as possible, be left
in the hands of private individuals, and should not be
determined or restricted by the state. This free market
in genetic screening would meet “the individual specifications
(within certain moral limits) of prospective parents,”
and would possess “the great virtue that it involves
no centralized decision fixing the future human type(s).”
In short, prospective parents would be allowed, to whatever
extent was rendered possible by current technology, to
choose the genetic traits of their future children.