Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• consider how biotechnological advances might be used for hostile purposes;

• reflect on the adequacy of current attempts to guard against this;

• learn about ‘dual-use’ technologies and the difficulties that attend them;

• consider the possible ramifications of ‘open-source wetware’;

• reflect on the possible impact of ‘garage-biology’ on our ability to keep ourselves safe;

• reflect on the extent to which we can sensibly assess risk in this area;

• identify and evaluate possible responses to the threat of bioweaponry.

In this chapter we shall be discussing the fact that biotechnology can be used forhostile purposes. In particular we shall be looking at the use of biotechnology toproduce weapons with which to wreak havoc. The intentional dispersal of the Ebolavirus in a city, for example, would have appalling consequences. So would the use ofnano-vehicles to deliver toxic agents into the lungs of a platoon of soldiers or thehostile release of harmful self-replicating organisms into the environment.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• reflect on the nature of death;

• consider the pros and cons of changing our standard of death;

• consider whether ‘quality of life decisions’ should replace ‘standard of death’ decisions;

• learn about the different types of euthanasia;

• reflect again on our three moral theories and their views on the intentional killing of human beings;

• consider whether any type of euthanasia should be legalised.

You might think that death wouldn’t change much whatever biotechnology does. Butover the last 50 years advances in biotechnology have triggered a great deal ofphilosophical thought about death, and not just amongst philosophers.

The ‘standard‘ of death

Sixty years ago death was easily determined. Once a person had stopped breathing,had no pulse and was turning stiff and greyish-white, he was dead. If he was stillbreathing and had a pulse, he was alive. Implicit in this was a certain way ofdetermining death and a certain understanding of the nature of death. The irreversiblecessation of the cardiopulmonary system was the ‘standard‘ for death.

During the 1950s and ‘60s two technological advances, artificial respiration (AR)and heart transplantation, brought this standard of death into question.

During the 1950s AR made it possible for us to support the functioning of someone‘scardiopulmonary system in the hope the heart would start beating spontaneouslyagain. Often it did. But sometimes it quickly became clear that the patient would neveragain live a productive life however long – and expensively – we kept his heart pumping.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• consider whether it is morally permissible to use biotechnology for the purposes of human enhancement;

• reflect on the precautionary principle in respect of genetic enhancement;

• consider whether the enhancement/therapy boundary is a moral boundary;

• reflect on whether enhancement is consistent with being ‘true to oneself’;

• consider whether the use of enhancement in sport is cheating;

• reflect on whether enhancing our children is consistent with our unconditional love for them;

• examine the social ramifications of permitting enhancement;

• reflect on the fact that ‘evolution’ is now partly in our own hands.

How would you like to be taller, blonder, more intelligent or have a better memory?Sound good? Well just around the corner (if you believe the hype) there’s a positivecornucopia of enhancers on their way: smart drugs that will enhance your cognitiveabilities or your moods, genetic engineering that will increase your immunity ormake it easier for you to lose weight and bio-nanotechnology that will give youartificial muscles, enable you to monitor your health by means of an implant or thefabric of your clothes or make it unnecessary for you ever to clean your house.

In some cases it’ll be too late for you. But you’ll still be able to enhance your children.No longer will you be able to choose their characteristics only by your choice of partner,you will also be able to choose the genes, drugs or nano-implants that will make it morelikely your children are tall, intelligent, sporty, musical or whatever you’d like them to be.

Objectives

In reading this chapter you will:

• learn about the negative public view of human cloning;

• consider the possible causes of such public disapprobation;

• reflect on the role played by the media in forming public opinion;

• note that until cloning is safe it will be wrong to clone a human child;

• reflect on whether clones would have free will;

• consider whether clones would lack human dignity;

• ask whether a clone would have confused and ambiguous relationships;

• consider whether cloning for reproductive purposes is morally acceptable.

We saw in the last chapter that embryos produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer(SCNT) can be used for therapeutic or reproductive purposes. In this chapter weshall discuss reproductive cloning: SCNT (or yet-to-be-developed cloning tech-niques) used to produce a live human baby.

The visceral recoil against cloning noted in the last chapter was particularly evidentin February 1997. In this month the birth of Dolly the sheep was announced. Dollywas the first mammal cloned by SCNT. The announcement triggered inflammatoryheadlines worldwide, and an avalanche of international legislation (see Box 8.1).

Preface

If you are reading this you must have at least a passing interest in the ethical and social issues generated by biotechnology. Maybe a newspaper article or television programme has made you worry about cloning, bio-security or human–animal hybrids? Perhaps you have found yourself embroiled in a bioethical problem at work or as the result of needing IVF? Or perhaps you are a student required to do bioethics as part of your course? Or a school teacher, or college or university lecturer charged with teaching bioethics? If you are an instructor there are special notes for you at the end of this section.

I have written this book to help anyone with an interest in the ethical and social problems thrown up by our fastest moving areas of science and technology. The book will help its readers:

• understand the key issues in bioethics and the different positions people take on them;

• appreciate the arguments for and against the differing positions;

• discuss the issues with confidence;

• think productively about the issues that might arise in the future;

• come to their own considered positions on various issues, understanding the arguments for and against those positions.

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.