Genome editing might be the most important scientific invention of the beginning of the 21st century (Knoepffler/Schipanski/Sorgner 2007). Selecting a fertilized egg after IVF and PGD is a biotechnological option already. We can have children with three biological parents. Biobags enable the development of unborn lambs, which show the likelihood of artificial human wombs being created. Japan allows human– animal hybrids to be born. The possibilities of modifying humans and other animals by means of gene technologies are enormous. Yet, many of the procedures which are technically feasible are still legally forbidden. The decisive breakthroughs concerning CRISPR occurred only in 2012. The human genome was fully deciphered in 2003.

Decisive developments in gene technologies have happened at the beginning of the 21st century. They have the potential to enable us to enhance evolution. We can modify ourselves and actively realize specific traits. We might even be able to pass on some of these traits to our offspring. Yet there is an enormous hesitation to embrace these technologies in continental Europe. Even though there are fewer hesitations in the Anglo-American and the Eastern-Asian world, there is still widely shared uncertainty concerning the moral legitimacy of the great variety of technologies and associated possibilities.

It can be expected that developments in the field of gene technologies will accelerate further if the use of big data digital analysis concerning correlations between genes and traits is developed further. In the US, private companies are trying to promote this goal; for example, 23andme with its over 5 million clients. In Estonia, the government pays for gene analysis if the result is shared with the government. In Kuwait for a certain time period it was mandatory for all residents and visitors to submit samples of their DNA.

Gene analysis is the prerequisite for gene technologies, and I addressed various issues concerning digitalization and gene analysis in Chapter 2. Here, I will focus on the question how to deal morally with gene technologies. I will present a non-utopian Nietzschean transhumanism, which embraces a radically pluralistic concept of the good, and I will progress as follows.