Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• reflect on the practical nature of ethics;

• consider the place of rules in ethicaldecision-making;

• acquire an understanding of why ethical dilemmasarise;

• learn how to distinguish first order ethics andsecond order ethics;

• consider the relation between ethics and truth;

• learn how to distinguish epistemology frommetaphysics;

• reflect on the importance of free will to ethics and on thepossibility we do not have free will;

• think about how religion is related to ethics.

People can be surprised to discover that ethics is primarily a practicaldiscipline. But if ethics didn’t link with action it would beuseless. Ethics, after all, is concerned with what we should andshouldn’t do. Should we clone human beings (Chapters 7 and 8)? Shouldwe pursue immortality (Chapter 12)? Should we produce genetically modi- fiedcrops (Chapter 17) or ‘engineer’ our genes (Chapter 14) orthose of animals (Chapters 17 and 20)? All these decisions are ethicaldecisions.

Ethics and rules

Ethical decision-making would be easy if all we had to do was follow thesmall set of rules – ‘do not lie’, ‘keeppromises’ and so on – we were given as we grew up. But there is moreto moral decision-making than this. Consider the following situation:

You have a problem. It is not a problem you can solve by invoking the rules you weregiven as a child. Those would certainly have included both ‘be honest’ and ‘be kind’ andyour problem is that in this situation it seems impossible to be both honest and kind.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• learn about pre-implantation genetic diagnosis;

• consider whether it is morally acceptable to select against embryos with diseases and disabilities;

• reflect on whether good intentions make an action morally acceptable;

• ask about the value of a life compromised by disease or disability;

• reflect on whether diseases and/or disabilities are socially constructed;

• consider the moral acceptability of ‘saviour siblings’ and gender selection.

In 2003 the Human Genome Project was completed. It sequenced and mapped thehuman genome, demonstrating there are fewer genes than expected (25–26,000instead of 80,000–140,000), and that 50% of the genome consists of ‘non-codingDNA’, repeated sequences of DNA that do not code for proteins. The next step –already well advanced – is to identify the functions of the genes that make up thegenome, their interactions with each other and with the environment.

We shall be discussing the activities made possible by our understanding of humangenetics in several parts of this book. In this chapter we shall consider only usinggenetic information to test embryos before implantation, and selecting for and againstembryos on the basis of such tests.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• learn about the growing population, the shortage of land and the prospect of a world food crisis;

• learn about the interaction of food and energy security;

• reflect on the means by which a food crisis might be averted;

• consider the pros and cons of using GM technology to alleviate a food crisis;

• consider the importance of politics, the media and the public perception of a technology.

We have already looked at genetic engineering in the context of human enhancement.In this chapter we shall look at the same technology in the context of our attempts tosecure, for everyone in the world, food and energy security by the genetic modifica-tion of plants and animals.

Genetic modification, food and energy security

Many people believe that it is only by using the technology of genetic modificationthat the global community will be able to solve the current food crisis.

‘Food crisis? What food crisis?’ you might say, as you butter another slice of toast.If you live in the west you might be forgiven for not realising there is a food crisis, forthinking, indeed, that the only food crisis around is the obesity crisis.

You’ll know, of course, that large parts of the world are starving: news reports onfamine in Africa will have been the wallpaper of your childhood television viewing.The starvation continues. But the current food crisis is different. It is a matter (inpart) of the price of food being so high that many simply can’t afford it.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• acquire some logical terminology;

• learn about deduction and induction;

• consider the difference between deductive validity and inductive strength;

• learn how to evaluate arguments;

• discover how to analyse arguments and set them out ‘logic-book style’;

• learn about a few important fallacies;

• reflect on the importance of the principle of charity.

Argument is the philosophical method. This is why philosophers study logic, thediscipline that tells us how to distinguish good arguments from bad. There are manyproblems that can be approached only by using logic. Consider, for example, thefollowing sentence:

1. Therapeutic cloning is morally acceptable.

Therapeutic cloning (as we’ll see in Chapter 7) is cloning for the purposes ofconducting research on, or harvesting stem cells from, the resulting embryo. Someof us will believe sentence (1) is true. Others will believe it is false. We can’t both beright. Which of us is right is not the sort of question the truth of which can bedetermined by observation or experiment. This can be decided only by engaging inargument.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• consider why we might believe we have duties to the environment;

• reflect on the source of these duties;

• consider how the different moral theories would view duties to the environment;

• examine the nature of these duties;

• examine the threat of climate change and the duties it imposes;

• reflect on climate-change scepticism;

• reflect on the threat of mass species extinction.

There are broadly three positions we might take on our duties to the environment:

1. Anthropocentrism: we have direct duties to ourselves; everything else is only ofinstrumental value;

2. Biocentrism: we have direct duties to ourselves and to (certain) other living things;the non-living environment is only of instrumental value;

3. Ecocentrism: we have direct duties to ourselves, other living things and thenon-living environment.

Plenty of people would add to or cross-cut these distinctions. But let’s consider eachin turn.

Anthropocentrism

Human beings, like other living things, have always used nature as a resource. Somethink that until the Industrial Revolution we acted in harmony with nature, but thatsince then our activities have thrown nature comprehensively out of balance. Thelatter part of this claim, at least, seems justified if we believe those who say ouractivities are implicated in climate change and in the sixth great extinction ofplanetary history. We shall discuss both below.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• learn about Henrietta Lacks and her singular contribution to science;

• reflect on whether Lacks had a moral right to share in the profits generated by her cells;

• consider John Moore and the need for fully informed consent;

• reflect on the notion of informed consent for specific and commercial uses of tissue;

• examine a UK scandal to reflect further on consent to specific uses of tissue;

• consider the notions of biopiracy and bioprospecting in the context of the Biodiversity Convention;

• learn about the recent history of patenting DNA and other biological resources;

• reflect on whether the ‘stuff of life’ should be patentable at all.

In the eighteenth century surgeons were trained by the Company of Barber Surgeonswho were alone allowed legal access to the corpses of criminals executed by the state.The many private schools of anatomy made do with the services of grave-robbers orthose, like Burke and Hare, who murdered their victims to provide fresh corpses.

The authorities turned a blind eye to the activities of the grave-robbers (though notthe murderers) because of their service to society. In those days, anyway, the notion of‘informed’, ‘genuine’ or ‘appropriate’ consent was unknown.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• distinguish reproductive and therapeutic cloning;

• consider arguments for and against therapeutic cloning;

• learn more about validity and the analysis of argument;

• start to apply the moral theories outlined in Chapter 4;

• consider whether it is always wrong to kill one of us;

• reflect on the moral status of the embryo;

• reflect on the difference between therapeutic cloning and abortion.

Clones get bad press. From the re-creation of Hitler in The Boys from Brazil to the ‘spare part’ clones of Kazuo Ishiguru’s Never Let Me Go, no one has a good word to sayfor them. The idea of cloning triggers, for most people, a visceral recoil (a version ofthe ‘boo’ or ‘yuk’ response discussed in Chapter 6).

In somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) the nucleus from a somatic cell (anordinary body cell) of an organism is inserted into the de-nucleated egg of another(female) member of the same species (or even that of another species as withchimera), and triggered into developing as an embryo. Clones can also be producedby ‘twinning’, by splitting apart an embryo. If done early enough each clump of cells willdevelop into a separate individual. This happens naturally to produce identical twins.In this chapter and the next we shall be discussing only clones produced by SCNT.

The possibility of using this process on mammals generates the possibility ofcreating, from every cell of a human adult, a baby genetically identical to that adult.From the hair follicle you left in your hairbrush this morning it would be possible, inprinciple, to create many babies, each genetically identical to you.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• learn about the international regulations governing experiments involving human subjects;

• examine the cultural difficulties involved in obtaining ‘informed consent’;

• reflect on whether the standard of care for subjects during clinical trials should relate to international or local standards;

• reflect on the nature of intellectual property, and in particular patents;

• examine the tension between the protection of intellectual property and public health in the developing world;

• learn about the serious shortage of human organs and tissue, for transplantation and research;

• consider the black market in human organs and tissue, and especially the trade between the rich in the developed world and the poor in the developing world;

• ask yourself whether the trade in human organs and tissue should be legalised.

There are many things we could learn if we could freely experiment on humanbeings. Imagine the good that could be done with the knowledge that we acquired.But unless we think the end justifies any means whatsoever it is unacceptable toconduct experiments on human beings except in accordance with the strictest ethicalstandards.

Unfortunately we know that an action’s being morally unacceptable does not preventits being performed. In the case of experimentation on human beings the Nazi doctorsJosef Mengele, Herta Oberhauser and Carl Clauberg cared not a jot for morality.Mengele conducted experiments without anaesthetic on twins as young as five. Inpursuit of a better understanding of the wounds German soldiers were sustainingOberhauser deliberately inflicted wounds on conscious subjects, then rubbed wood, sawdust, rusty nails, dirt and slivers of glass into them. Clauberg’s interest was inreproduction. He stood his ‘patients’ between two X-ray machines aimed at theirsexual organs. The radiation burns they received rendered them unfit for work so theywere gassed.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• learn about the different techniques of assisted reproduction;

• distinguish legal from moral rights;

• reflect on the ‘right’ to found a family;

• distinguish positive and negative duties;

• reflect on the hard financial and moral decisions governments must make;

• reflect on the differences between adoption and assisted reproductive technology (ART);

• reflect on the fairness of ‘postcode’ lotteries.

One of the major motivations of biotechnology has been the desire to learn how tohelp the sub-fertile have children. Over the 30-odd years since the birth of LouiseBrown, the world’s first test tube baby, huge strides have been made in the technologyof assisted reproduction (ART). Many couples, thanks to biotechnology, have beenable to have a family they wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• consider whether it is reasonable to be fearful of official attempts to collect, store and use bio-information;

• reflect on the desirability of universal databases;

• reflect on whether personalised medicine is desirable;

• wonder whether the result of widespread genome testing would lead to discrimination in employment, healthcare and/or insurance;

• consider the impact of discovering that women, or black people, have certain genetic tendencies;

• reflect on the practicality of supposing we could keep bio-information private.

If you are not an identical twin, you will be distinguished from everyone else by 1%your DNA. If there is a match between your DNA and a sample of DNA the source ofwhich is unknown, you can be conclusively identified as the source of that sampledespite sharing 99% of your DNAwith every human being on the planet (and 98% of itwith chimpanzees, and 60% with bananas). Your genome contains 3,000,000,000 basepairs. It differs from that of any other person, therefore, in about 6,000,000 locations.

Your looks, your behavioural traits, your personality, your responses to drugs,foods and allergens are all a function of your unique set of genes, and the uniqueenvironment in which you grew up.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• reflect on the metaphysics and epistemology of morality;

• learn about Aristotle and virtue ethics;

• reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of virtue ethics;

• acquire an understanding of Immanuel Kant and deontology;

• reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of deontology;

• reflect on John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism;

• reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of utilitarianism;

• consider how to balance the three theories against each other in approaching moral dilemmas.

If we were to consider every ethical theory, this book would be too long. Instead weshall consider the three theories that command most followers. These are:

1. Virtue Theory: according to which the right action is the action that would beperformed by a virtuous person.

2. Deontology: according to which the right action is the action that is performedout of duty (or ‘reverence for the moral law’).

3. Utilitarianism: according to which the right action is the one that wouldproduce the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

Each of these theories postulates an account of the metaphysics of morality (whatmakes an action morally right or wrong) and the epistemology of morality (anaccount of how we know an action is morally right or wrong).

As you read about these theories and as, throughout the book, you apply themto specificproblems, you will probably find yourself drawn to first one, then the other. Each theory hasstrengths and weaknesses whichmust be balanced against each other aswe decide how to act.

We shall start by considering the theory of greatest longevity, the theory with itsorigins in the writings of Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of all time.

Objectives

In reading this final chapter you will be:

• reflecting on what you have read in this book;

• speculating on how social decisions may affect the future;

• thinking creatively about participative democracy.

You might be reading this before you read anything else. Well, why not? It is often agood way to discover whether you are going to enjoy a book. Or you might be readingit having worked your way through the rest of the book. If so, in reading this finalchapter you will be pulling together everything you have read, and reflecting on howit might be of benefit, not just to you but to society as a whole.

We are going to engage in some speculation. In this book we have considered manycontroversial issues. As we saw in Chapter 3, where we discussed ethics in the contextof society, when an issue is controversial – when equally rational people can come todifferent conclusions – governments must make hard decisions. The decisions theymake will push society in one direction or another. If we are lucky enough to live in ademocratic society we can, by participating in the decision-making process, affectthese decisions.