>>115As a transhumanist who enjoyed DE:HR quite a bit but who tries to see other points of view, let me make a few points for you to consider.
First, Darrow says that he fears that other people, like the Illuminati, will attempt to make people into things that they do not wish to become. This is reflected in Sarif giving Jensen "more augs then he needed", as people tell you in the story (forget who).
Piggybacking on that, in the various side missions and dialogue, it's shown that to work in sectors as un-augged where others are augged (if I recall, that one woman who got augs from Tong worked in brokering), then they'll fall behind and can't compete in the market. Additionally, other dialogues have people stating that their bosses demand them to be augmented if they wish to continue working there.
One of the main reasons I think the creators chose Sarif to be the head of a corporation was to bring in some of the social worries about the interplay of capitalism and augmentation, and the possible need to augment oneself to stay viable in the job market. The whole "rich become richer because they can afford the augs and the poor become poorer because they can't", and the whole "augs will outpace non-augs and eventually leave non-augs no choice but to turn unless they want to behind" arguments come into play here as well.
All of those things, however, rely on the belief that society would always take the turn for the worst in the application of augmented humans. It also heavily relies on Neuropozyne as the main issues with any of the augs and how the people see it. The rejection possibility, the dependence, the cost, etc.. Augs in our world wouldn't necessarily have the same kind of thing to have issues with.
Additionally, while I'm not saying by any means that the Illuminati-controlled police in the game were justified for keeping that body from Sarif, his willingness to skirt the law to get the body shows how powerful men can use augmented people as tools in other, less justified cases. Chaotic Good/Neutral are pretty good alignments, but of course people will always make the fear arguments on these things. All the possibility of Chaotic Evil does is tell people to be on the watch, not to completely say no to the augs, which are not inherently evil like those who might try and use them.
I don't think anyone would argue with you that the Illuminati in the game could easily control people either way. Also totally agree that he took away his moral ground when he did what he did.
However, I will say that I can understand some of what he says when he talks about humanity's moral compass and its current state. Jensen mentions it in the positive in the Sarif ending about augs possibly allowing us to hold onto more stable, higher moral values, but here's how I could see Darrow argue it…
If someone was augged from birth to not be able to feel pain, would they be able to have empathy/sympathy for another human when they feel them in pain? Would they be better torturers for not being able to recognize suffering? Better killers? What about this applied to "dangerous leaders" with chaotic senses of ethics? Of course, this is all speculation on untested waters so it's a bit more of Darrow seeing what he wants to see, and, like your Illuminati point, humans are great torturers and killers nonetheless.
If there is such thing as a moral compass, then adversity is like a strong magnetic field, interfering with the direction it points in. I would argue that with augs would come less adversity, and thus, a weaker magnetic field surrounding humans, messing with their moral compass. That's also how I interpret Jensen's words, and ultimately why I disagree with Darrow.