Biotechnology and Ethics: Ethics Overview
Part One
Philosophical ethics is a complex and varied discipline. In this unit we briefly present some basic theories. In a section at the end of the unit we include longer descriptions of the views we examine as well as a variety of other positions. Please take the time examine these after you go through the basic presentation.
In this section we will briefly examine basic ethical theories and positions that have been used to evaluate the issues we will examine, such as embryonic stem cell research. We begin by exploring two basic viewpoints, one dependent involving moral evaluation based on consequences and the other relying on moral rules and principles that are in part independent of consequences. We also examine a theory using multiple principles, social contract theory, and views on justice.
Ethical issues abound in biotechnological.
Biotechnology promises to increase human control over plants, non-human animals and humans themselves.
Some people view biotechnology as imparting a moral obligation to improve the human condition.
Other people view biotechnology as intrusive, improperly interfering with the natural order of things. Such people often claim, in addition, that its risks outweigh its potential benefits.
The different positions that people take on cloning, stem cell research, human enhancement, and agricultural biotech can typically be traced back to some moral theory or perhaps to a combination of theories.
Both understanding the positions others take and contributing to the moral debate ourselves is enhanced by a basic appreciation of the moral theories that stand behind various positions.
Furthermore, ethical theory can help us to fully understand or evaluate our own moral leanings.
We begin our moral theory overview with two basic views: Consequentialism and deontology.
Deontolgogists (the word has a Greek derivation that involves the notion of duty) believe that at least some moral obligations are independent of nonmoral consequences.
The key term is "nonmoral." Some things seem to good because they have moral worth: truth-telling, courage, care, loyalty, etc. Other things seem to have worth because people like them or desire them: good food, sex, good entertainment, success in one's job, good health, and even doing a fancy logic proof. Few would say that these things have moral worth in the same sense as truth-telling. So we call the goods that have worth because people desire them, "nonmoral goods."
Consequentialists believe that moral decisions should be based on producing good nonmoral consequences.
Consider this problem. Janice believes that human embryonic stem cell research is acceptable despite the fact that human embryos are initially destroyed. She believes that such research has the potential to curve devastating human diseases.
Juan disagrees. He believes that we cannot sacrifice some humans to potentially save others.
One person appears to hold a consequentialist position while the other seems to be a deontologist.
Which is the consequentialist? Select your answer.
Janice
Juan
I think it is Janice. She basis her argument on the good consequences, curing disease, that might follow from human embryonic research.
Biotechnology and Ethics: Ethics Overview
Part Two
Both of the theories we have been looking at are more complex than they first appear.
Let’s take a closer look at consequentialism. Consequentialists believe that people have a moral obligation to produce good consequences. Remember ‘good’ means ‘nonmoral good’.
Consequentialists must answer these questions:
What consequences matter most? Happiness? Human admirable achievements? General well being?
Who matters in considering consequences? Do all people count equally, or do some count more?
For example, should I count consequences to people in my own country as worth more than people in other countries? Should non-human animals be included in considering good consequences?
Should a consequentialist take into account risk and uncertainty?
Technically risk involves outcomes about which we have good knowledge concerning the probability they will occur. For example, we might have good knowledge that a certain medical procedure involves a 1% risk of death.
Technically, uncertainty involves outcomes about which we do not have good knowledge about the probability they will occur. For example, we might not know the numerical probability that human cloning will lead to a shorter life expectancy.
How should this be done?
How much of the desired consequence are people morally obligation to pursue? Are people obligated to pursue the most possible, or do they have an obligation to pursue an adequate amount?
The three features of any consequentialist theory are: What consequences count, to whom, and how much of the consequence are people morally obligated to pursue.
The most widely accepted form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. Typically this theory holds that we must take into account the consequences of action for all people affected, that each person counts equally, that happiness or pleasure is the consequence that matters, and that each person has a moral obligation to pursue the greatest happiness attainable.
Utilitarians believe that all of morality boils down to one principle: Do that action, among all available alternatives, that will produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
Biotechnology and Ethics: Ethics Overview
Part Three
Utilitarianism, much like consequentialism in general, has clear strengths. Happiness is obviously important to human beings.
Utilitarians believe that social policy and individual action should be judge by how happy it makes all people.
Utilitarianism seems fair because the happiness of all people count equally.
Everything individuals desire may produce happiness. So no person’s desires are automatically discounted. This point is especially important in a pluralistic society in which people value very different things.
Utilitarianism has some significant weaknesses.
Consequences are in the future, and they are often difficult to predict.
What makes people happy is often difficult to determine.
Here is a serious moral problem. Utilitarians might advocate sacrificing some people for the gain of others. This would occur when the total happiness produced is maximized by a decision that disregards the health, safety or wishes of a significant minority of people. Although everyone happiness counts equally, the majority’s view may add up to greater happiness than the happiness of the minority. In principle, a policy might be approved that causes significant suffering to the minority.
For example, 5% of the population might be enslaved for the benefit of the majority. This could conceivably produce more happiness than pain. So in principle utilitarianism would believe that such slavery would be morally required. Most people would disagree, claiming that this is immoral. Utilitarians tend to think that slavery causes more unhappiness than happiness, in total. So they might not take the example seriously.
Biotechnology and Ethics: Ethics Overview
Part Four
Deontologists believe that at least some moral obligations are independent of consequences. The moral theory of the 18th century philosophy, Immanuel Kant, is typically considered the most important deontological theory.
Kant’s theory rests on two principles, the categorical imperative and the principle of respect for persons.
Categorical imperative: Never do things that cannot be consistently willed as a universal moral law that all follow.
The categorical imperative is similar to the golden rule: Do to others what you would have them do to you. This however may involve willingness to accept things that others would not be willing to accept. For example, I might not care if you are late to an appointment, so I might come late myself even though this upsets you.
The categorical imperative depends on considering whether it is consistent to make ones proposed action into a universal law. Can I consistently will that everyone should lie? This can’t be because lies depend, for their effectiveness, on the expectation of the truth. So the action would defeat itself if universally demanded.
The second Kantian principle is the respect for persons principle: Never treat a person merely as a means but always as an end in her or himself.
This principle prohibits some people merely being used for the gain of others. It does not preclude “using” other people, say to paint one’s house. But one may not merely use the person. The painter should be talked to respectfully and paid a non-exploitative wage for his or her service.
The respect principle might demand that people who serve as subjects in human research must be given the opportunity to consent to treatment based on full and understandable information about what will happen. Using a person as a “guinea pig” in an experiment would be rejected by the respect principle.
Kant’s deontology has strengths and weaknesses.
It is strong insofar as it protects humans from exploitation.
It promotes following rules long held to be important in moral considerations: rules against lying, murdering, breaking promises, etc.
However, it is thought to be an inflexible theory. It may reject breaking a promise even when keeping the promise would lead to significant harm. It would reject lying even when lying could save lives.
Biotechnology and Ethics: Ethics Overview
Part Five
Rule theory is another form of deontology. This view claims that morality is mainly about following a relatively well-known set of moral rules, such as those against harming others, against breaking promises, and in favor of obeying the law.
Rule theorists tend to see morality as a set of constraints, things we cannot do.
Rule theorists tend to reject the claim that we have moral obligations to do good for others. Instead they claim that we simply have obligations not to harm others and to obey basic moral rules.
Such theorists might agree that if we do help others, we are doing something that deserves moral praise. Such actions would be above and beyond normal moral requirements, and as such might be especially commendable, even though not obligatory. Such commendable but non-obligatory actions are sometimes called ‘moral ideals’.
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We ended the previous unit by talking about the introduction of moral ideals into rule theory. These ideals are much like consequentialist obligations, only in rule theory they are not obligatory.
This begins to suggest that some moral theorists believe that consequentialism and deontology can be combined.
In bioethics, a leading theory is called principlism. This theory does combine both basic views. Principlism is based on four principles: Respect for persons, nonharm, beneficence, and justice.
Beneficence is about doing good for people. This principle tends to take second place to the other, apparently more important, principles. It is often unclear the degree to which beneficence is required or the degree to which it allows for trade-offs with other theories.
Biotechnology and Ethics: Ethics Overview
Part Six
You might be getting a little frustrated by now. We already have viewed a variety of moral theories that seem to give conflicting advice.
I suggest that we view these theories as tools to help us deal with the moral arguments others make, to help us understand our own moral views, and to use in resolving moral difficulties. Each can play a role in good moral thinking.
Unfortunately, we have really only seen the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. In the coming units we will briefly examine some additional moral theories.
In dealing with biotech issues, claims about justice frequently arise. To see this, one need only think of the fact that applying biotechnology is expensive.
Suppose one decides to use recombinant DNA to enhance the mental capacities of one’s children.
I know that this is not currently possible. But one must keep in mind that knowledge of genetic manipulation is accumulating quickly and that sooner or later, probably later, we may well have this capacity.
So for the time being, much of what we say will have the look of science fiction. Since this would be expensive, most people in the world and in the US would not be able to afford it. The people who could afford such enhancement for themselves or for their children would be those who already are better off. This biotech application would then tend to increase inequality. Many people would find that this is unjust.
Who do you think would be more likely to object to the use of recombinant DNA to enhance a child’s IQ:
A consequentialist.
A deontologist.
I think that under both views reasons would be found to claim it is objectionable. The consequential might point to potential social upheaval and jealousy and money being spent in less that the most effective way. The deontologist might claim that this interferes with the natural order of things, uses children as means to parents’ desires rather than as ends in themselves, and that it would tend to undermine proper family life one way or the other and especially if the child comes out less intelligent than expected. (This stance would support the current way of getting children by a natural lottery.) On balance it is my opinion (and I reiterate that I’m not sure) that the deontologist would be most inclined to find it objectionable. I think that the consequentialist is likely to find much good stemming from the fact that people would be more intelligent, even if the enhanced people would be in the minority.
Justice is a key moral concern in dealing with biotechnology. Unfortunately, ethicists do not agree on the meaning of justice.
One thing is more or less agreed upon, that justice means that everyone should have benefits and burdens that are due to them. But this leaves the question: What is due to a person? That’s where the disagreement starts.
One plausible view is that social equality, for example equality between the sexes, does not need justification. Socially significant inequality requires good reasons. Under this view, actions that predictably produce greater inequality have the burden of proof against them.
This is a form of weak egalitarianism. A stronger form of equalitarianism would claim that justice requires that people receive more or less equal benefits and burdens. Some theorists would weaken this claim a bit by saying that all significant social groups, blacks and whites, males and females, labor and management, should have equal benefits and burdens, not in terms of individual members, but in terms of group standing.
Utilitarians tend not to value equality. Instead they hold that a just society is the society that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
Entitlement theory also disregards equality. Under the entitlement theory, people are entitled to the things that they earned provided they did not get those things by fraud, deception, or cheating.
Under the entitlement theory, enhancing the intelligence of one’s children would not be a matter for concern.
John Rawls, a philosopher from Harvard who recently died, presented a very influential theory of justice called justice as fairness.
He argued that free, rational and initially equal people would only accept a principles of justice that would protect equality. The views of such imaginary people become the testing points of proposed principles of justice. Equality however might come at a price. It might reduce the well-being of everyone, say by eliminating incentives. Understanding this, Rawls presented his famous “difference principle.” The difference principle holds that all social groups should be equal unless inequality benefits the least well off group.
According to Rawls’ difference principle, there may be good reasons to object to some people, those who already are well off, having genetic enhancements that the least well off cannot have. However, if this results in having more intelligence and it allows them to create cures for diseases, a better economic system, better arts and education, and so on, then having such advantages might satisfy the demands of Rawls’ difference principle.
Some of the issues involved in a moral evaluation of biotechnology involve questions about who is to decide.
For example, who should decide whether warning labels should be on genetically manipulated food products? Who is to decide whether the level of risk of some new technology is too high?
Social contract theory tries to resolve all such issues by evaluating decisions based on considering what people would agree to under ideal conditions. This is an agreement by people who bargain in an original position of social equality. No one has power over anyone else. All are free and equal.
The social contract theorist would consider a proposed policy, say on labeling food products, and ask whether free and equal people would accept that policy.
Whether or not you accept social contract theory, this is a good exercise. Imagine free and equal people, with no one in power over anyone else, all with equal knowledge, coming together on a social policy. What would they decide? We might disagree about what they would decide, but the exercise might help us to consider the strengths and weaknesses of a proposed policy, say the policy banning the use of federal money on experiments involving certain stem cell lines.