Leon Kass Leaves Bioethics Council

Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Bioethics Council, is stepping down and will be replaced by Georgetown University bioethicist Edmund Pellegrino. Last year Kass oversaw the removal of a couple of members of the Council who dissented from his conservative views on biotechnological progress and replaced them with three much more conservative and much more tractable members.

Pellegrino is certainly a distinguished bioethicist and he is also a conservative Roman Catholic. Pellegrino serves as a senior fellow at the Christian bioethics think tank, the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.

Pellegrino has been active in the national political debate over various biotech developments. For example, he participated in a press conference sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) in 1999 opposing all human embryonic stem cell research. At the press conference, Pelligrino urged that a congressional ban "should be extended permanently to include privately supported as well as federally supported research involving the production and destruction of living human embryos."

The bottom line: Pellegrino's appointment as chairman of the President's Bioethics Council will, if anything, increase that body's opposition to a lot biotechnological progress.

Comments

The Radical Revolutionary Plebiscitarian Militant | September 8, 2005, 11:17pm | #

Nothing better than a man who puts his faith above his knowledge of scientific fact.

Michael | September 8, 2005, 11:51pm | #

This is total nonsense, Ron. I know the man very well, and I bet the Council will have nothing to do with stem cell issues in the coming years. Pellegrino is universally admired in the field, and is one of the two or three true founders of American bioethics. His interest is medical ethics, not biotech, and I would bet anything that that's where he will take the Council.

gs | September 9, 2005, 12:08am | #

Heaven help us. Biotechnology is fundamental.

If the USA refuses to lead humanity into the 21st century, there are a number of Asian nations which are willing to do it.

Doesn't Bush realize how fortunate the USA was to regain the technological lead in the 1990s? Doesn't he remember that Japan was synonymous with technology in the 1980s? (Maybe not. For most of the Reagan administration he apparently lived in a fog, to try to put it diplomaticly.)

I reluctantly supported him in 2000/2004 as the lesser evil. Unfortunately, history grades on a pass/fail basis.

dead_elvis | September 9, 2005, 12:09am | #

Am I the only person wondering, why is there such a thing as a "President's Bioethics Council?"

I would venture that, more than providing expert advice, which surely every politician needs, it simply provides political cover, which is surely not a noble use of taxpayer money. What's their budget, and even if it's $5,000, surely there is a better way to spend the money.

jdog | September 9, 2005, 12:09am | #

Notice that there is no difference in the minds of mystics between studying the origins of the Universe and the origins of human life, that is, between studying physics and biology. Even though the Catholic church has long since vindicated Galeleo's work on physics, its episomology has not been repaired. ( Well, I'm trying to be nice, it cannot be really be repaired. )



From Steve Hawking at
http://sycophants.info/hawking.html :

"He [the pope] told us that it was all right to study the evolution
of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire
into the big bang itself because that was the moment of Creation
and therefore the work of God. I was glad then
that he did not know the subject of the talk
I had just given at the conference - the possibility
that space-time was finite but had no boundary, which means that it
had no beginning, no moment of Creation. I had no desire to share the fate of
Galileo, with whom I feel a strong sense of identity, partly because of
the coincidence of having been born exactly 300 years after his death!"

The Radical Revolutionary Plebiscitarian Militant | September 9, 2005, 12:16am | #

Pellegrino is universally admired in the field, and is one of the two or three true founders of American bioethics. His interest is medical ethics, not biotech

While there are ethical issues worth considering, this is just depressing. The potential benefits in biotech will allmost certainly outweigh the potential costs and/or ethicly questionable scenarios. Of course I could be wrong, but the potential seems so great that the risk is well worth taking. No pain no gain. And just to clarify, I lose no sleep over a cluster of cells.

Rick Barton | September 9, 2005, 12:34am | #

Ron:

Pelligrino urged that a congressional ban "should be extended permanently to include privately supported as well as federally supported research involving the production and destruction of living human embryos."

If this bio-luddite gets his way, it will be at the cost needless suffering. The fact that this guy is in a position of influence is another great reason for the separation of biotech and state.

The Radical Revolutionary Plebiscitarian Militant | September 9, 2005, 12:40am | #

dead elvis,

I thik you really hit the nail on the head. Why the fuck does a president's bioethics council even exist to begin with? I guess if the federal gubmint has to be funding this type of research, then maybe the president needs an advisor on the subject. Even so is this the kind of shit the president should be spending time worring about, even in the best of times? And if the fed is gonna fund it, they should at least let research scientists do best, research!

Rick Barton | September 9, 2005, 12:43am | #

BTW, Ron's new book is persuasive and engaging. It's really a fun read:

http://reason.com/lb/

J | September 9, 2005, 12:46am | #

I remember asking this question on a bioethics post here a few years ago, but everyone else seemed as confused as I am: What the hell qualifies one to be a bioethicist? As near as I can tell, for all practical purposes it boils down to "a religious person who hopefully has at least some minimal training in some field of biology." (I know Kass is an MD/PhD (biochemistry); some others seem to have very little formal training in biology/medicine.) Do officially recognized "bioethicists" pretty much all come at these issues from some religious tradition, or is there some vein of secular bioethicists I'm missing? Is there any particular reason why we or anyone else should value their opinions more than those of anyone with some basic knowledge of biology who has considered the ethical implications of the technologies in question?

And a related question - why are so many people worried about the moral "personhood" of human clones, if and when they exist? I can understand some very small group with very literal and narrow notions of a soul having issues, but the size of the controversy just seems stupid. These will be fully functional people** with the capacity for rational thought, emotion, abstraction, etc. Why would/should they be considered anything less than human?

**I realize many people (myself included) have serious reservations about full human cloning when the technology is as poorly developed as it is, and attempts at cloning in animals result in a high percentage of abortions and developmental defects. But my impression is that even if the process were perfect there would still be much controversy.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 1:11am | #

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Uncle Sam's clone | September 9, 2005, 1:12am | #

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dave W. | September 9, 2005, 1:35am | #

Am I the only person wondering, why is there such a thing as a "President's Bioethics Council?"

Concerns about eugenics for starters.

Also, while one might not lose sleep over a cluster of cells -- what is limiting scientists to tinkering with mere collections of cells, as contrasted with chimera or advanced fetuses or clones?

Answer: The gubmint.

Eugenics, the generation of slave clones and other issues like this are not scientific issues. There is nothing in physics or chemistry or biology that says it is wrong to do these things (or to rape, or to murder, etc). Our squeaishness about these things does not come from science, rather, it comes from metaphysics. Like it or not, the many of the laws we like and need have metaphysical, not scientific underpinnings. The moral issues surrounding this type of stuff has been recognized at least since Frankenstein was written (1819?).

These moral issues do go away just because somebody wants to make a new medicine. Maybe the president wants to move things slowly until we actuallt see a practicable gene therapy or two. No sense twisting our sense of right and wrong into a pretzel (or denying the very existence of right and wrong), in exchange for a suitcase full of dreams ad failed business plans.

Jack | September 9, 2005, 1:41am | #

J wrote: "What the hell qualifies one to be a bioethicist?"

To the best of my ability to discern, a near total opposition to further research in genetics, life extension, etc. I've certainly never heard of a transhumanist bioethicist.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 1:47am | #

Am I the only person wondering, why is there such a thing as a "President's Bioethics Council?"

Because we have science mixed with politics via federal funding.

dead_elvis | September 9, 2005, 1:50am | #

Dave W.,

My beef is with the notion that the Prez needs his own personal beurocracy to advise him on this- after all, adding "bio" as a prefix only means applying those ethics to a different field, not inventing or interpreting a whole new set of ethics. We don't have a President's Council on Pornoethics, or a President's Council on War Ethics, or a President's Council on Physical Fit... oh wait. Anyway, my point is that elected officials and their constituents deal with many issues all the time, all of which are affected by their personal sense of ethics. Why this one issue gets singled out to be externalized into a seperate council to deal only with the ethical aspect is indicative of how the constituents are easily frightened by technology and how cowardly politicians are.

dead_elvis | September 9, 2005, 1:51am | #

Am I the only person that needs to look up "bureaucracy" *every* time I use the word?

Dave W. | September 9, 2005, 2:09am | #

Dead Elvis,

1. The president has all kinds of specialized advisors on traditional crimial law. Just as a random example, Gonzalez's famous torture memo is a tiny part of this huge, ongoing effort. You don't hear about these panels as much because they usually aren't tat controversial (torture memos aside). Just becuase you don't hear about this work doesn't mean it isn't ongoing.

2. Naturally, you hear more about bioethics these days. As a society, we have long internalized mores and morals ad ethics concerning lonstanding issues like murder, rape and slavery. Bioethics is a new thing. For example, it is amazing how Mr. Bailey and the posters on this thread fail to see the eugenics issue. This failure is exactly why bioethics needs to be such a prominent and studied issue. Too many ppl making too many rookie mistakes.

3. Something to think about: The US has already had one Civil War over bioethical issues. In that war, as you will recall, the bioethics side beat the property side.

DB | September 9, 2005, 2:58am | #

Concerns about eugenics for starters

If you're concerned about eugenics, that's an easy problem to solve: keep human genetic engineering completely unregulated. The government can't mandate eugenics programs if the government has no involvement in human genetics.

In any case, the idea of somebody being an expert on ethics is pretty ridiculous. That's like being an expert on "good taste" or an expert on "beauty".

Dave W. | September 9, 2005, 3:07am | #

If you're concerned about eugenics, that's an easy problem to solve: keep human genetic engineering completely unregulated. The government can't mandate eugenics programs if the government has no involvement in human genetics.

For most people, I think eugenics is a concern, even if it is carried out completely in the private sector with private funds. In order to explain this radical notion a bit for you, slavery was private enterprise, but we regulated it away anyways.

Julian Sanchez | September 9, 2005, 3:47am | #

J-
The vast majority of bioethicists--like the vast vast vast vast majority of philosophers--are wholly secular. They just don't get all that much attention, in part because we have a "President's Bioethics Council" whose composition is determined by whose positions are politically palatable rather than by who's taken seriously by other academics.

DB | September 9, 2005, 4:02am | #

In order to explain this radical notion a bit for you, slavery was private enterprise, but we regulated it away anyways

Eh, slavery depended on the government for its existance. Were the government agnostic about slavery, beating a slave would have been treated the same as beating a white man. Keeping a slave chained would have been considered unlawful imprisonment. And so on, and so on. The institution of slavery required government collusion -- it required that laws be passed stripping a certain class of humans of their rights.

But how could a private enterprise carry out a eugenics program, anyway? If I and my wife want to have kids, how, exactly, is a private entity going to forbid us from doing that, or forcibly dictate the genetic makeup of our children?

dead_elvis | September 9, 2005, 4:04am | #

I don't buy the eugenics thing. I'm with DB that the way to avoid eugenics is to keep gov't out. Yes, people right now can find out if their potential kid has downs, and have an abortion. But it's their choice. If gov't is involved, and notions of "public good" = "public health" become even more prevelant than they already are (i.e. nationalized health care), then we have your nightmare scenario. Keep it private, then the question is a matter for each individual's ethics.

And I wouldn't describe slavery as being in the private sphere. It had the sanction and enforcement of government.

Dave W. | September 9, 2005, 6:48am | #

And I wouldn't describe slavery as being in the private sphere. It had the sanction and enforcement of government.

Okay, lets say that a scientists does make a clone out of genetic matter from 100 people. Who owns the clone? Can the owners make the clone work to earn its food and shelter? Can they beat the clone if the clone isn't working hard enough? What if the clone doesn't want to work at the scientists's factory anymore, will the gov't help the clone get away from the owners? What if the scientists made the clone so that big parts of the brian are missing? Is it humane to make such a clone? Will that clone still have to pay into social security when it goes to work? There are legit, political questions aplenty here.

As a different answer: Imagine the Southern States had said, "Look, we promise not to make any efforts to help owners keep their slaves -- that way gov'ts hands are clean -- if private parties have enuf clout to procure and keep slaves, though -- more power to 'em." That might have satisfied you. It would not have satisfied me.

Dave W. | September 9, 2005, 6:52am | #

What if they find a "gay gene?" Can parents abort on this basis? What if they find a way to "fix" a "gay gene" in utero? Is that something gov't should let people do?

If you ain't seen the sceptre of eugenics it is time to look harder.

MJ | September 9, 2005, 7:29am | #

Is the position of those who question the merits of a bioethics commission that ethical concerns can never trump "scientific progress"? If so, that seems to be an cultlike idolization of science. Or is it merely lazy utilitarian rhetoric to avoid intellectually engaging ethical challenges to their pet biotech research?

Jeff P. | September 9, 2005, 7:32am | #

Kass is a monster, one whose age is twice the average lifespan of a century ago. I'm glad he thinks death is a blessing, and I sincerely hope he spends at least the last decade of his life hooked up to machines so he can show us all what "human dignity" means.

quasibill | September 9, 2005, 8:27am | #

Dave:

You may want to check up on your history of the Civil War - the "bioethical" issues weren't raised until 2 years into the War. As verification, read the Emancipation Proclamation - just where did Lincoln free the slaves? More importantly, where didn't he?

If you need more, do some research into the "Free port of New York" - why did NYC editorial pages advocate secession for the city prior to the Civil War?

It is one of the greatest feats of progressivist revisionism that so many people today believe in the lie that the Civil War was fought over the slavery issue.

Sorry for the threadjack, but Dave is the one that tried to equate our current ethical debate over biotech to the Civil War...

quasibill | September 9, 2005, 8:36am | #

Slavery as an institution required state intervention to remain economical. In fact, the fugitive slave laws were absolutely necessary to maintain slavery in the border states. Absent state enforcement, and in particular, federal government enforcement of these laws, slavery would have passed away peacefully - just as it did in every other Western Hemisphere nation. Another historical term you should familiarize yourself with is compensated emancipation - although even that was a wrong-headed solution, it was infinitely better than the mass slaughter of enslaved immigrants that our federal government used to solve the issue.

So, once again, the best way to avoid "eugenics" issues is to keep the state, and specifically, the Feds, out of the issue altogether.

Dave | September 9, 2005, 9:34am | #

Ron: Love to see phony libertarians like you come out in favor of funding any research, let alone research that so many taxpayers object to.

Keep up the fight for freedom, you posers!

crimethink | September 9, 2005, 9:55am | #

quasibill,

Yes, the immediate cause of the Civil War was the secession of the Southern states from the Union. But why did they secede from the Union after Lincoln became President?

Answer that question and you have the ultimate cause of the war.

Also, remember that Lincoln was elected on an anti-slavery platform, so it's not like he had a sudden conversion in 1863. It would also have been logistically unfeasible to piss off slave states that were fighting for the Union by banning slavery there as well. Not a perfect solution, but if Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland secede in 1863, the war might have gone very differently.

quasibill | September 9, 2005, 10:24am | #

"Yes, the immediate cause of the Civil War was the secession of the Southern states from the Union"

Well, duh :) But the question is - why did they secede, if Lincoln hadn't attempted to emancipate the slaves? Again, take a look at the Free port of NY movement - why were people agitating for NYC to secede? Marx and Clinton were right about one thing - politics is all about economics.

The anti-slavery plank, when it was there at all, was not a major plank of the Republican party. THE major plank was the American System - a set of tariffs to protect northern industries and fund subsidies for projects like railroads.

If you look at the Confederate Constitution, they specifically forbid such protectionist measures. Having the existence of Southern ports in the new world that wouldn't go along with the federal tariffs posed a problem for northern ports, like NYC - they correctly foresaw that European imports would shift to the Southern, un-tariffed, ports. Hence, the movement in NYC to secede from the union. But Lincoln cracked down and imprisoned newspaper editors who disagreed with him, so these voices were soon lost.

And one of the greatest shames in U.S. history is that Lincoln was shot before he could implement his plan to deport all the 'negroes' back to Africa - as was his campaign platform. Had he been allowed to do so, it would have been much harder to portray him as some sort of saint of racial harmony.

"It would also have been logistically unfeasible to piss off slave states that were fighting for the Union by banning slavery there as well."

Which is exactly why it is apparent that slavery was not the major issue in the war. If it was, the split would have been between slave states and non-slave states, AND, the emancipation proclamation would have been at the beginning of the war, AND it would have freed all the slaves. Clearly it wasn't any of those three, so clearly the war was not primarily about that issue.

Lincoln happened on the slavery issue after the war was going very poorly. Much like some current events, Lincoln predicted quickly crushing the South, but was surprised at how much fight they had in them. The was going badly, and much of Europe was starting to support the South (including the proto-libertarian Lord Acton) - Lincoln was desperate for a good P.R. move. Hence, he re-cast the war as one against slavery.

quasibill | September 9, 2005, 10:28am | #

One last point on this threadjack -

Robert E. Lee was an abolitionist. Why did he side with the Confederacy?

Dave W. | September 9, 2005, 11:00am | #

Robert E. Lee was an abolitionist. Why did he side with the Confederacy?

Because he thought the bioethicists were right, but that they were working through improper chanels (the Fed Gov't). Today, we would call such a position "nuanced."

FWIW, I basically agree with Lee and think that in a perfect world the North should have let the South go, albeit with severe economic trade sanctions due the slavery. But that is beside the point.

The main point is that I am glad that there were bioethicists in the early 1800s decrying slavery as a human rights violation, and I am glad that gov't, at some level, responded to the human rights concern and ended slavery. In other words, I think Lee let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The Kentucky Resolutions are nice, but slavery was a pretty damn big & egregious human rights issue. I am sad that my Church was not at the forefront in bringing down that very bad institution and tearing down the faulty bioethics (eg, blacks not fully human, etc.).

quasibill | September 9, 2005, 11:20am | #

"The main point is that I am glad that there were bioethicists in the early 1800s decrying slavery as a human rights violation, and I am glad that gov't, at some level, responded to the human rights concern and ended slavery."

Then I would assume that you are sorry that the federal government resorted to slavery (a draft of immigrants that the rich could buy their way out of) to "end" slavery? And that this form of slavery continued for at least 100 years into the future?

How about the institution of "total war" - the intentional targeting of civilians and their property in an effort to cause terror to create political change (definition sound familiar?) - to end slavery?

The ethics of the civil war are nowhere near as clear cut as the revisionists have made it seem.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 11:27am | #

What's the difference between bioethics and human ethics?

What's the distinction between ethics and morality?

quasibill | September 9, 2005, 11:30am | #

Uncle Sam:

I've had lots of debates on this issue, and like most debates over definitions, there is no universally accepted answer. However, this is my take - morality speaks to general principles of right and wrong. ethics is the application of these general principles to concrete, detailed situations and resolving the contradictions between the general moral principles that inevitably arise.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 11:34am | #

Southern politics led to succession because the federal government was leaning toward northern financial interests.

Lincoln declared war to "preserve the union".

There was very little in the way of ethics involved in these choices.

Follow the money.

Shelby | September 9, 2005, 11:57am | #

My goodness. I won't delve into the Civil War, except to note that I don't think anyone above offers a convincing and historically accurate assessment of the role slavery played.

Regarding bioethics, as some have noted it's essentially an "applied ethics" field. Because biology is so closely linked to the nature of humanity (and other life), it makes sense to try to evaluate the ethical implications of bioscience developments; we may soon also need a cyberethics field, to consider the ethical implications of developing electronic intelligence.

Ethics is indeed a field that benefits from study, to see what ethical problems people have identified and what methods they have developed to address those problems. Not all these problems and methods are self-evident; ethics is like philosophy in that way.

Personally, I'm hostile to Kass's underlying assumptions and principles. I don't know much about Pellegrino's (and why is there a brand of bottled water named for him?) but they sound similar or worse. There appears, to my layman's eyes, to be a segment of bioethicists that is fiercely opposed to further development of human life and potential. I find it infuriating that the president has apparently stacked (permitted the stacking of?) his "council" with scholars of that school.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 12:37pm | #

There appears, to my layman's eyes, to be a segment of bioethicists that is fiercely opposed to further development of human life and potential. I find it infuriating that the president has apparently stacked (permitted the stacking of?) his "council" with scholars of that school.

A large portion of theology is devoted to interpreting phenomena to confirm beliefs rather than modifying beliefs to accomodate dicoveries of reality. Of course, this behavior pattern is not restricted to theology, but seems to be the general mode of politics and humanity in general.

I think morality refers to minimum requirements for civil society while ethics reaches into the area of "fairness".

Aristotle | September 9, 2005, 1:32pm | #

I understand the concern that a "bioethics council" sponsored by the federal government has a strange Orwellian ring, but one look at the book the council published, BEING HUMAN, might allay some fears. It is an anthology of readings ("in the humanities") about "what it means to be human" and "how can we live well." The main purpose seems to be to help educate citizens so that they can think reasonably about moral questions raised by various technologies that bear on human life. Do scientists think that their discoveries have no moral implications? Is the power to do something sufficient warrant to do it? The knee-jerk utilitarianism of so many comments here suggests that a little education in moral reasoning isn't such a bad idea. (For what it's worth, the field of applied ethics, including bioethics, tends to be dominated by utilitarians. It is to the president's credit that he has been able to staff the council with deeper thinkers, more sensitive to the question of human flourishing, and unwilling to reduce questions of biotechnology to their political or economic implications.)

SM | September 9, 2005, 2:12pm | #

"Okay, lets say that a scientists does make a clone out of genetic matter from 100 people. Who owns the clone?"

Strawman. A clone would be a moral agent with volition & all the rest of it. You can't own a clone anymore that you can own a baby concieved thru' in-vitro. Surely, we don't need an entire Bio-ethics Council to tell us that.

Rick Barton,
"The fact that this guy is in a position of influence is another great reason for the separation of biotech and state."

I seriously doubt that even the most severe separation of state & biotech, while a good thing, will end theocrat/luddite meddling & moral posturing. Remember when TV censor's used to invoke the "public airwaves" argument to call for all kinds of regulation because they were having trouble operating the "off" switch ? Well, now they want to censor cable and satellite, too. I bet it'll be the same deal with biotech - govenment funding is a red herring.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 2:15pm | #

Pelligrino urged that a congressional ban "should be extended permanently to include privately supported as well as federally supported research involving the production and destruction of living human embryos."

That's not quite as bad as Ron's conclusion implies, but it also raises questions. Would such a policy lead to banning certain reproductive technologies because of the need for the creation and destruction (usually) of excess embryos?

What do people mean by "life begins at conception"? Is that pertinant to government policy making? When should the existance of a person be recognized? Is an embryo a person? (I think not)

Cultures have long taken birth to be the point a person becomes a member of society, but when does a human organism become a person, entitled to protection by, and subject to, the body politic?

How shall we define "a person"?

SM | September 9, 2005, 2:23pm | #

"It is to the president's credit that he has been able to staff the council with deeper thinkers, more sensitive to the question of human flourishing"

Deeper thinkers = religous motivated folks who wrestle with notions like soul & luddides who wish to force their bounded understanding of human nature onto everybody else.
Does someone like Gregory Pence/Gregory Stock qualify as a "deeper thinker" ?

hilzoy | September 9, 2005, 2:23pm | #

Hi. I am a bioethicist. To answer some of your questions: First, there are lots of secular bioethicists. Bioethics as a field got started after some of the research scandals of the 60s and early 70s, like the revelation of the Tuskegee experiments, when people realized that it wasn't enough to just trust doctors and biomedical researchers to do the right thing; someone needed to undertake serious and systematic thought about what the right thing, in various situations doctors and researchers encountered, actually was.

Bioethics has always been an interdisciplinary field. Some people come from philosophy, others from medicine and the sciences; in both cases, they will have to learn a lot about the other (set of) field(s). Since there are a lot of secular philosophers, scientists, etc., and a bunch of them have gone into bioethics, there are a lot of secular bioethicists. Me, for one.

Why a President's council? I think the general idea is that it's a good idea for the President to be advised by a group of experts in bioethics specifically (in addition to the advice he already gets from various scientific boards.) The nature of the advisory board in question depends a lot on the President and the people he appoints. Under Bush it has had a lot less diversity of views, and (until now) a lot less representation of people who would be recognized as bioethicists by people in the field itself.

Ed Pellegrino is conservative. But he's also (by reputation, I don't know him personally, to speak of) a person of real decency and intellectual integrity. This opinion is as close to universal within the field as any such opinion of a person is likely to be, and the people I know who hold it tend to be liberals and secular.

hilzoy | September 9, 2005, 2:28pm | #

And Aristotle: the field is not dominated by utilitarians, nor are Kass' views the most obvious alternative to utilitarian views.

As I said, bioethics got started in response to various research scandals. Tuskegee was just bad science and racist, but some of the others involved doing research that might actually produce real benefits without getting consent from the people the research was being done on. Probably the most important thing that bioethics, as a field, has accomplished is to convince people that research cannot morally be done on people without their consent (except in a few very limited circumstances in which they cannot consent, and some proxy -- e.g., a parent -- consents for them), regardless of the benefits of doing it. This is a completely non-utilitarian point.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 2:41pm | #

I am quite willing to accept that GB needs counsel on ethics. But why stop with GB?

dead_elvis | September 9, 2005, 2:50pm | #

Do scientists think that their discoveries have no moral implications? Is the power to do something sufficient warrant to do it?

Certainly the answer to your first question is no. But I think the second question is the wrong one to ask. As a species, we are curious. Even the darkest centuries in human history eventually led to periods of innovation. Even the full power of the Catholic Church couldn't keep Copernicus, Galileo, etc. stifled. Rather than asking if we can do something, should we, I would ask: if we can do something, *can* we prevent everyone from doing it? If we can do something, *should* we prevent *others* from doing it? In each case, I would argue no. The genie simply can't be put back in the bottle. If an idea coupled with the technology necessary to accomplish it has come to light to the point where it reaches the attention of a president's council, it's too late- someone, somewhere, will create it. I believe that's simply human nature.

Uncle Sam | September 9, 2005, 3:03pm | #

There has been a big problem with the idea that morality and ethics spring from religion. When religious precepts were challenged by discoveries of science, there too went the basis for morality and ethics.

Fortunately, morality and ethics are not the arbitrary creations of a mystical god, and so, the secular arena may discover the rational basis for and value of morality and ethics.

Simon Young | September 10, 2005, 1:26am | #

Done it, Uncle Sam! Order my book, Designer Evolution - A Transhumanist Manifesto, from Amazon: it debunks religion and sets out the rational basis for benevolent morality (I call it Nurethics).

DB | September 10, 2005, 5:13am | #

Okay, lets say that a scientists does make a clone out of genetic matter from 100 people. Who owns the clone?

Nobody owns the clone, because ownership of humans is illegal. And what's odd about a person having genes from 100 other people? My genes contain genetic material from hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

Now, if the scientists just cloned *parts* of humans (such as a kidney for transplant), using genetic material they had permission to use, then presumably the scientists themselves would own the cloned part. The obvious precedent here is that donated organs become the property of the person they are donated to.

As a different answer: Imagine the Southern States had said, "Look, we promise not to make any efforts to help owners keep their slaves -- that way gov'ts hands are clean

In that scenario, slavery ends after about a week. The slaves file a host of criminal charges against their so-called masters, all of whom are guilty as sin. The "masters" go to jail, end of story. Slavery can't exist unless the government actively modifies its laws to legalize the host of brutal crimes that are required to keep slaves in line -- assault, kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment, torture, rape, etc. It requires that the government grant slave owners rights that it does not grant to slaves.

Phil | September 13, 2005, 10:01am | #

Have any of you actually read any of Pellegrino's writings? You have dozens of presuppositions about this man and you have no idea what his arguments are. Treat HIS ARGUMENTS, not his background. If you can beat his arguments, then you deserve all the respect in the world. But I will go out on a limb and guess that most of you haven't read much bioethics literature, nor do you know anything about natural law, Aristotle or Pellegrino nonetheless. Be informed and engaging, not spineless and presumptive.