GETTING MORAL ENHANCEMENT RIGHT: THE DESIRABILITY OF MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT

We respond to a number of objections raised by John Harris in this journal to our argument that we should pursue genetic and other biological means of morally enhancing human beings (moral bioenhancement). We claim that human beings now have at their disposal means of wiping out life on Earth and that traditional methods of moral education are probably insufficient to achieve the moral enhancement required to ensure that this will not happen. Hence, we argue, moral bioenhancement should be sought and applied. We argue that cognitive enhancement and technological progress raise acute problems because it is easier to harm than to benefit. We address objections to this argument. We also respond to objections that moral bioenhancement: (1) interferes with freedom; (2) cannot be made to target immoral dispositions precisely; (3) is redundant, since cognitive enhancement by itself suffices.     

Normal Human Variation: Refocussing the Enhancement Debate

This article draws attention to several common mistakes in thinking about biomedical enhancement, mistakes that are made even by some supporters of enhancement. We illustrate these mistakes by examining objections that John Harris has recently raised against the use of pharmacological interventions to directly modulate moral decision‐making. We then apply these lessons to other influential figures in the debate about enhancement. One upshot of our argument is that many considerations presented as powerful objections to enhancement are really strong considerations in favour of biomedical enhancement, just in a different direction. Another upshot is that it is unfortunate that much of the current debate focuses on interventions that will radically transform normal human capacities. Such interventions are unlikely to be available in the near future, and may not even be feasible. But our argument shows that the enhancement project can still have a radical impact on human life even if biomedical enhancement operated entirely within the normal human range.     

The Substance View: A Critique (Part 2)

In my initial critique of the substance view, I raised reductio‐style objections to the substance view's conclusion that the standard human fetus has the same intrinsic value and moral standing as the standard adult human being, among others. In this follow‐up critique, I raise objections to some of the premises invoked in support of this conclusion. I begin by briefly presenting the substance view as well as its defense. (For a more thorough presentation, see the first part of my critique.) I then raise objections to three claims involved in the substance view's defense: the claim that the standard human fetus's intrinsic value and moral standing is a function of its potentiality; the claim that the standard human fetus's intrinsic value and moral standing is a function of its essential properties; and the claim that it is the possession of the basic potential for rational moral agency that best accounts for the wrongness of killing the standard human fetus, among others.     

The insufficience of supervenient explanations of moral actions: Really taking Darwin and the naturalistic fallacy seriously

In a recent paper in this journal (Rottschaefer and Martinsen 1990) we have proposed a view of Darwinian evolutionary metaethics that we believe improves upon Michael Ruse's (e.g., Ruse 1986) proposals by claiming that there are evolutionary based objective moral values and that a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness can be given that avoids the naturalistic fallacy in both its definitional and derivational forms while providing genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive ethical claims. Jonathan Barrett (this issue) has objected to our proposal contending that we cannot hold for the reality of supervenient moral properties without either falling foul of the naturalistic fallacy or suffering the consequences of postulating inexplicable moral properties. In reply, we show that Barrett's explicit arguments that we commit either the definitional or derivational form of the naturalistic fallacy fail and that his naturalistic intuitions that supervenience explanations of moral properties by nonmoral properties force us into what we call the explanatory form of the naturalistic fallacy also fail. Positively, his objections help us to clarify the nature of the naturalistic fallacy within an evolutionary based naturalistic ethics and to point out the proper role of both supervenience explanations and moral explanations in such an ethics.     

Will cognitive enhancement create post‐persons? The use(lessness) of induction in determining the likelihood of moral status enhancement

The prospect of cognitive enhancement well beyond current human capacities raises worries that the fundamental equality in moral status of human beings could be undermined. Cognitive enhancement might create beings with moral status higher than persons. Yet, there is an expressibility problem of spelling out what the higher threshold in cognitive capacity would be like. Nicholas Agar has put forward the bold claim that we can show by means of inductive reasoning that indefinite cognitive enhancement will probably mark a difference in moral status. The hope is that induction can determine the plausibility of post‐personhood existence in the absence of an account of what the higher status would be like. In this article, we argue that Agar's argument fails and, more generally, that inductive reasoning has little bearing on assessing the likelihood of post‐personhood in the absence of an account of higher status. We conclude that induction cannot bypass the expressibility problem about post‐persons.     

In Defense of Prenatal Genetic Interventions

Jürgen Habermas has argued against prenatal genetic interventions used to influence traits on the grounds that only biogenetic contingency in the conception of children preserves the conditions that make the presumption of moral equality possible. This argument fails for a number of reasons. The contingency that Habermas points to as the condition of moral equality is an artifact of evolutionary contingency and not inviolable in itself. Moreover, as a precedent for genetic interventions, parents and society already affect children's traits, which is to say there is moral precedent for influencing the traits of descendants. A veil‐of‐ignorance methodology can also be used to justify prenatal interventions through its method of advance consent and its preservation of the contingency of human identities in a moral sense. In any case, the selection of children's traits does not undermine the prospects of authoring a life since their future remains just as contingent morally as if no trait had been selected. Ironically, the prospect of preserving human beings as they are – to counteract genetic drift – might even require interventions to preserve the ability to author a life in a moral sense. In light of these analyses, Habermas' concerns about prenatal genetic interventions cannot succeed as objections to their practice as a matter of principle; the merits of these interventions must be evaluated individually.     

Acting to Let Someone Die

This paper examines the recent prominent view in medical ethics that withdrawing life‐sustaining treatment (LST) is an act of killing. I trace this view to the rejection of the traditional claim that withdrawing LST is an omission rather than an act. Although that traditional claim is not as problematic as this recent prominent view suggests, my main claim is that even if we accepted that withdrawing LST should be classified as an act rather than as an omission, it could still be classified as letting die rather than killing. Even though omissions are contrasted with acts, letting die need not be, for one can let die by means of acts. The remainder of the paper is devoted to establishing this claim and addresses certain objections to it.     

Frozen embryos and the obligation to adopt

Rob Lovering has developed an interesting new critique of views that regard embryos as equally valuable as other human beings: the moral argument for frozen human embryo adoption. The argument is aimed at those who believe that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, and Lovering concludes that some who hold this view ought to prevent one of these deaths by adopting and gestating a frozen embryo. Contra Lovering, we show that there are far more effective strategies for preserving the lives of frozen embryos than adoption. Moreover, we point out that those who regard the deaths of frozen embryos as a very bad thing will generally regard the deaths of all embryos as a very bad thing, whether they are discarded embryos, aborted embryos or embryos that spontaneously abort. This entails that these other embryos must be taken into account when considering moral obligations, as well as other human lives at risk from preventable causes.     

On the need to redress an inadequacy in animal welfare science: toward an internally coherent framework

The time is ripe for a greater interrogation of assumptions and commitments underlying an emerging common ground on the ethics of animal research as well on the 3 R (replacement, refinement, reduction) approach that parallels, and perhaps even further shapes, it. Recurring pressures to re-evaluate the moral status of some animals in research comes as much from within the relevant sciences as without. It seems incredible, in the light of what we now know of such animals as chimpanzees, to deny that these animals are properly accorded high moral status. Barring the requirement that they be human, it is difficult to see what more animals such as chimpanzees would have to possess to acquire it. If the grounds for ascribing high moral status are to be non-arbitrary and responsive to our best knowledge of those individuals who possess the relevant features, we should expect that a sound ethical experimental science will periodically reassess the moral status of their research subjects as the relevant knowledge demands. We already can observe this reassessment as scientists committed to humane experimental science incorporate discoveries of enrichment tools and techniques into their housing and use of captive research animals. No less should this reassessment include a critical reflection on the possible elevation of moral status of certain research animals in light of what is discovered regarding their morally significant properties, characteristics or capacities, or so I will argue. To do anything short of this threatens the social and moral legitimacy of animal research.     

Embryo donation or embryo adoption? Conceptual and normative issues

A central question in the ethical debate on the practice of relinquishing in vitro fertilization surplus embryos for family building is whether we ought to think of it more in terms of donating these embryos or in terms of having them adopted. Deciding between these two alternatives is more than a matter of mere terminology. It has an impact on normative questions, e.g., on the question of what criteria for parent selection ought to be applied to the recipients of the embryos, and on the moral evaluation of the act of ‘donating’ the embryo or ‘having it adopted’. In this article, I defend the view that we should conceptualize the relinquishment of spare embryos according to the adoption model, not as a donation. Section 2 sketches the outline of the argument by making clear how we may ground a defense of the adoption model in a theory of parental responsibility without implicitly elevating the moral status of the embryo. Section 3 contains a preliminary defense of the adoption model that draws on geneticism as what seems to me the most persuasive theory of parental responsibility. In section 4, I examine three objections to geneticism and either rebut them or, insofar as they are justified, try to accommodate them into my view. In section 5, I point out some features that distinguish embryo adoption from the adoption of (born) children. I contend, however, that these differences are compatible with the adoption model. Section 6 is concerned with the normative ramifications of this view.     

The moral challenge of natality: towards a post-traditional concept of family and privacy in repro-genetics

Modern repro-genetics is going to change the way we conceive our children, and will have a substantial influence on the family. Two concepts of the family have been present in the ethical debate: the traditional model and the care model of the family. The first one has been rightly criticized because it privileges form over function. I will show that the second model is also insufficient and does not answer to the moral challenge of human natality, particularly from a child's point of view. Instead, I will suggest a third, kinship model of the family as moral agent. In post-traditional and post-patriarchal societies, the family must be reconsidered as actor in the ethical debates. This poses a challenge for ethical theory. The family's interests are best protected by a concept of relational privacy.     

The metaphysics of brain death

The dominant conception of brain death as the death of the whole brain constitutes an unstable compromise between the view that a person ceases to exist when she irreversibly loses the capacity for consciousness and the view that a human organism dies only when it ceases to function in an integrated way. I argue that no single criterion of death captures the importance we attribute both to the loss of the capacity for consciousness and to the loss of functioning of the organism as a whole. This is because the person or self is one thing and the human organism is another. We require a separate account of death for each. Only if we systematically distinguish between persons and human organisms will we be able to provide plausible accounts both of the conditions of our ceasing to exist and of when it is that we begin to exist. This paper, in short, argues for a form of mind-body dualism and draws out some of its implications for various practical moral problems.     

Uses of respect and uses of the human embryo

In most parts of the world, research on the human embryo is subject to tight controls. In the United Kingdom it is restricted by means of both a fourteen-day time limit and the permitted purposes of the research. One of the ways in which the argument for these restrictions has been put is in terms of respect. That is, the human embryo is said to be the kind of thing that is worthy of a measure of respect such that there are limits to what can be done to it. This paper considers some of the ways in which this principle of respect has been understood as well as some objections to the very idea that research resulting in the destruction of the human embryo can claim to show that embryo respect. It will be argued that an account of 'respectful destruction' can be articulated on the grounds of our shared finitude as human moral agents, and in particular on the grounds of our shared lack of certainty regarding the moral status of the embryo.     

At the Margins of Moral Personhood

In this article I examine the proposition that severe cognitive disability is an impediment to moral personhood. Moral personhood, as I understand it here, is articulated in the work of Jeff McMahan as that which confers a special moral status on a person. I rehearse the metaphysical arguments about the nature of personhood that ground McMahan’s claims regarding the moral status of the “congenitally severely mentally retarded” (CSMR for short). These claims, I argue, rest on the view that only intrinsic psychological capacities are relevant to moral personhood: that is, that relational properties are generally not relevant. In addition, McMahan depends on an argument that species membership is irrelevant for moral consideration and a contention that privileging species membership is equivalent to a virulent nationalism (these will be discussed below). In consequence, the CSMR are excluded from moral personhood and their deaths are less significant as their killing is less wrong than that of persons. To throw doubt on McMahan’s conclusions about the moral status and wrongness of killing the CSMR I question the exclusive use of intrinsic properties in the metaphysics of personhood, the dismissal of the moral importance of species membership, and the example of virulent nationalism as an apt analogy. I also have a lot to say about McMahan’s empirical assumptions about the CSMR.     

OUGHT WE TO ENHANCE OUR COGNITIVE CAPACITIES?1

Ought we to improve our cognitive capacities beyond the normal human range? It might be a good idea to level out differences between peoples cognitive capacities; and some people's reaching beyond normal capacities may have some good side‐effects on society at large (but also bad side‐effects, of course). But is there any direct gain to be made from having ones cognitive capacities enhanced? Would this as such make our lives go better? No, I argue; or at least there doesn't seem to be any evidence suggesting that it would. And it doesn't matter whether we consider the question from a narrow hedonistic perspective, from a more refined hedonistic perspective, from a desire‐satisfaction view, or from some reasonable objective list view of what makes a life go well. Only an extremely perfectionist – and implausible – view of what makes our lives go well could support any direct value in cognitive enhancement. Finally, our sense of identity gives us no good reasons to enhance even our capacity to remember. So, cognitive enhancement as such would not improve our lives.     

THE SUBSTANCE VIEW: A CRITIQUE

According to the theory of intrinsic value and moral standing called the ‘substance view,’ what makes it prima facie seriously wrong to kill adult human beings, human infants, and even human fetuses is the possession of the essential property of the basic capacity for rational moral agency – a capacity for rational moral agency in root form and thereby not remotely exercisable. In this critique, I cover three distinct reductio charges directed at the substance view's conclusion that human fetuses have the same intrinsic value and moral standing as adult human beings. After giving consideration to defenders of the substance view's replies to these charges, I then critique each of them, ultimately concluding that none is successful. Of course, in order to understand all of these things – the reductio charges, defenders of the substance view's replies to them, and my criticisms of their replies – one must have a better understanding of the substance view (in particular, its understanding of rational moral agency) as well as its defense. Accordingly, I address the substance view's understanding of rational moral agency as well as present its defense.     

Types of moral argument against embryo research

Almost all moral objections to embryo research depend on one version or another of a slippery slope argument. There is one absolutist consideration which may be thought to decide the question independently of that argument, to the effect that the early embryo simply is a human being. But any plausible use of that consideration itself relies on the slippery slope argument. This argument may use either of two ideas (or both): that to distinguish between the two cases is not reasonable or that it will not be effective. The argument turns out to be very largely an empirical, consequentialist argument, and its application to early embryo research to rest on doubtful assumptions.     

Moral philosophy and public policy: the case of NRTs

In this paper, I will express some reservations about the usefulness of moral philosophy for the analysis of public policy issues.... My question is whether taking morality seriously requires taking moral philosophy seriously. This paper focuses on one particular public policy context -- namely, government commissions into new reproductive technologies, such as Britain's Warnock Committee, Australia's Waller and Michael Committees, Canada's Baird Commission, and many others.... Moral philosophers are sometimes asked to participate in these commissions, either as Commissioners, staff, or expert advisers. How can moral philosophers contribute to the analysis of public policy recommendations on NRTs? A survey of the literature suggests that there are two main views on this question, one of which is ambitious, the other more modest. The ambitious view says that moral philosophers should attempt to persuade Commissioners to adopt the right comprehensive moral theory (e.g. adopt a deontological theory, rather than utilitarianism or contractarianism), and then apply this theory to particular policy questions. The more modest view shies away from promoting a particular moral theory, given that the relative merits of different moral theories are a subject of dispute even amongst moral philosophers. Instead, it says that moral philosophers should attempt to ensure that the Commission's arguments are clear and consistent. On this view, philosophers should focus on identifying conceptual confusions or logical inconsistencies within the Commission's arguments without seeking to influence its choice of the underlying theory.     

Designing babies: morally permissible ways to modify the human genome

My focus in this paper is the question of the moral acceptability of attempts to modify the human genome. Much of the debate in this area has revolved around the distinction between supposedly therapeutic modification on the one hand, and eugenic modification on the other. In the first part of the paper I reject some recent arguments against genetic engineering. In the second part I seek to distinguish between permissible and impermissible forms of intervention in such a way that does not appeal to the therapeutic/eugenic distinction. If I am right much of what we would intuitively call eugenic intervention will be morally acceptable. Central to my argument is an asymmetry in the way genetic engineers can influence a person's capacities on the one hand and life-goals on the other. Forms of genetic intervention that have a high probability of producing a mismatch of life-goals and capacities will be ruled out.