Brown, Eric B. "The Dilemmas of German Bioethics." The New Atlantis. Spring 2004.

Excerpt:

Habermas’s project is a complicated one: As a “post-metaphysical” liberal in the Kantian tradition, he doesn’t believe philosophy can ask questions about the ultimate purpose of man or “the good life.” He doesn’t agree with recent conservative efforts to “remoralize” human nature in light of man’s growing powers over human life. But he also does not think we can afford to be moral relativists in the biogenetic age, and he seeks to make a case for setting limits on genetic technology on the back of liberal reason. Habermas is opposed to embryo research, for instance, not because he believes the human embryo is a subject of dignity, but because he fears the “self-instrumentalization” of the human species at even the earliest stages. If we do not want liberal eugenics, he argues, “then we don’t want the means that will lead to that end.”

Online:
The New Atlantis [pdf]