Arthur Caplan has argued that the presumptive naturalness, universality, and inevitability of aging are no obstacles to conceptualizing aging as a disease since those traits are themselves merely contingent. Moreover, aging lends itself to discussion in terms of diagnostic symptomatology and etiology. Is aging therefore a disease? I argue that aging need not be shown to be unnatural or a disease in order to make it the subject of biomedical interest. I suggest that rather than ask "Is aging a disease?", (...) the better point of philosophical departure would be to ask "Is aging objectionable such that its prevention and cure ought to be sought?". In this way, the moral issues at stake emerge more clearly. Chief among these issues are the potential results of curing aging and the implications for the prospect of meaningful human life without the de facto limitations that aging (and perhaps death) put upon it. A convincing argument that aging should be cured, therefore, would need to show that human significance warrants and possibly seeks such a cure and that the social costs of curing aging are morally acceptable. Keywords: aging, disease, cure, immortality CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

H. Tristram Engelhardt has said that “in the 1960s and 1970s... religious bioethics fell into the shadow of established secular bioethics. I don't think that religious bioethics has ever really...

Some commentators have criticized bioethics as failing to engage religion both as a matter of theory and practice. Bioethics should work toward understanding the influence of religion as it represents people's beliefs and practices, but bioethics should nevertheless observe limits in regard to religion as it does its normative work. Irreligious skepticism toward religious views about health, healthcare practices and institutions, and responses to biomedical innovations can yield important benefits to the field. Irreligious skepticism makes it possible to raise questions (...) that otherwise go unasked and to protect against the overreach of religion. In this sense, bioethics needs a vigorous irreligious outlook every bit as much as it needs descriptive understandings of religion. (shrink)

In some areas of clinical medicine, discussions about fertility preservation are routine, such as in the treatment of children and adolescents facing cancer treatments that will destroy their ability to produce gametes of their own. Certain professional organizations now offer guidelines for people who wish to modify their bodies and appearance in regard to sex traits, and these guidelines extend to recommendations about fertility preservation. Since the removal of testicles or ovaries will destroy the ability to have genetically related children (...) later on, it is imperative to counsel transgender people seeking body modifications about fertility preservation options. Fertility preservation with transgender people will, however, lead to unconventional outcomes. If transgender men and women use their ova and sperm, respectively, to have children, they will function as a mother or father in a gametic sense but will function in socially reversed parental identities. There is nothing, however, about fertility preservation with transgender men and women that is objectionable in its motives, practices, or outcomes that would justify closing off these options. In any case, novel reproductive technologies may extend this kind of role reversal in principle to all people, if sperm and ova can be derived from all human beings regardless of sex, as has happened with certain laboratory animals. (shrink)

Most advocates of biogenetic modification hope to amplify existing human traits in humans in order to increase the value of such traits as intelligence and resistance to disease. These advocates defend such enhancements as beneficial for the affected parties. By contrast, some commentators recommend certain biogenetic modifications to serve social goals. As Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu see things, human moral psychology is deficient relative to the most important risks facing humanity as a whole, including the prospect of Ultimate Harm, (...) the point at which worthwhile life is forever impossible on the planet. These risks can be mitigated, they say, by enhancing moral psychology in novel ways. Persson and Savulescu argue that some parents should modify the underlying biogenetics of their children's moral psychology, if such measures were safe and effective, but they admit these interventions may not decouple humanity from Ultimate Harm. Neither are these modifications the only options, they concede, for addressing risks to humanity. Even with these concessions, saving humanity from itself is a fairly poor reason to modify the moral psychology of children. In most ways, adults would be better candidates, morally speaking, for modifications of psychology. Even then, there is no direct link between morally enhanced human beings and the hoped-for effect of better protection from Ultimate Harm. Asserting a general duty of all to contribute to the avoidance of Ultimate Harm is a better moral strategy than intervening in the moral psychology of some, even though meeting that duty may involve substantial interference with the free exercise of one's interests. (shrink)

In this humane and graceful book, philosopher Timothy Murphy offers insight into our attempts--popular and academic, American and non-American, scientific and ...

An overview of the key debates in biomedical researchethics, presented through a wide-ranging selection of casestudies.

ABSTRACT In this essay the argument set forth by Michael Levin regarding the abnormality of homosexual behaviour is reviewed and criticized. Against his argument which holds that homosexual behaviour is abnormal because it constitutes an evolutionary aberration, I argue that Levin's and all similarly constructed arguments fail to show that evolutionary origins of sexual behaviour have any significant normative force. I contend that his notion of homosexuality is confused and that he fails to consider alternative methods of how homosexuality might (...) have indeed served evolutionary adaptive purposes or been the result of surplus adaptations. I argue, too, that Levin's linking of unhappiness with homosexual behaviour is spurious and ill‐supported. Consequently, I reject Levin's claims that public policy ought to do what it can to minimize the incidence of such behaviour. I argue by contrast that if happiness is the end of public policy decisions, then society ought to take what measures it can to protect persons in respect of their homosexual behaviour and identities. (shrink)

According to an almost axiomatic standard in bioethics, moral commitment should ground parents’ relationship with their children, rather than biogenetic relatedness. This standard has been used lately to express skepticism about extending existing assisted reproductive treatments (ARTs) to same‐sex couples and to research into novel fertility interventions for those couples, but this skepticism is misplaced on several grounds. As a matter of access and equity, same‐sex couples seem presumptively entitled to genetic relatedness to their children as far as possible both (...) in regard to existing ARTs and to novel ARTs under investigation. For those worried about the effects of trying to secure biogenetic relatedness for same‐sex couples, it may be noted that same‐sex couples will only ever be a fraction of the parents implicated in propping up “biologism,” as the expectation of biogenetic relatedness it is sometimes called. The cultural force of biologism would survive almost intact even if no same‐sex couples were ever to have genetically related children. It is therefore hard to see why same‐sex couples should forfeit aspirations to biogenetic relationships with their children or enjoy less subsidy for ARTs than the subsidy given to different‐sex couples. As matter of moral consistency, the full implications of the biologism critique have yet to be evaluated relative to different‐sex couples. (shrink)

Some commentators confer the right to children on those who gestate them because of the personal intimate relationship they say obtains in gestation.1 Benjamin Lange criticises two variants of that argument.2 He argues against the view that gestation creates a sui generis relationship that in its distinctiveness confers the right to the child on its gestator and the right of the child to its gestator. He also argues against the view that gestation involves a relationship whose dissolution necessarily causes morally (...) significant harm. I do not dispute these lines of reasoning, but the analysis goes further than Lange indicates. The reasons that Lange deploy to reject the relationship involved in gestation as conferring any kind of proprietary right to children also undercut that relationship as a ground of a presumptive duty towards those children. In the first instance, Lange disputes the idea that gestation produces a non-instrumental good that both the gestator and child have an interest in maintaining. In part, he argues that this kind of relationship lacks the emotional complexity, intimacy and intensity that underwrite other kinds of relationships, namely the very qualities that constitute the value of those relationships. More tellingly, he says, there is no unambiguous evidence that …. (shrink)

Professional standards in medicine and psychology treat concurrent sexual relationships with patients as violations of fiduciary trust, and they sometimes rule out sexual relationships even after a clinical relationship is over. These standards also rule out sex with research subjects who are also patients, but what about nonclinical relationships where there are not always parallels to the standards of clinical medicine? One way to treat sex in nonclinical research relationships is to treat it as sex is treated elsewhere among adults, (...) as a matter of individual choice and responsibility. Alternately, one could ask oversight bodies to draw lines between research that can safely accommodate sexual relationships and research that cannot. One could even ask researchers to avoid all concurrent sexual relationships with their research participants, as happens in clinical medicine. Each of these options has drawbacks that undermine its value as a definitive solution. The deficiencies of these options highlight the need for a professional code of conduct for nonclinical researchers. (shrink)

Researchers are pursuing various ways to synthesise human male and female gametes, which would be useful for people facing infertility. Some people are unable to conceive children with their partner because one of them is infertile in the sense of having an anatomical or physiological deficit. Other people—in same sex couples—may not be individually infertile but situationally infertile in relation to one another. Segers et al have described a pathway towards synthetic gametes that would rely on embryonic stem cells, rather (...) than somatic cells. This pathway would be advantageous, they say, for same-sex couples even though it would not offer those couples 50%–50% shared genetics in their children but only 50%–25%. It is unclear, however, why this approach should be preferred morally speaking since it represents a falling off from the kind of shared genetics in children that are functionally a gold standard in parents' expectations generally. Despite raising concerns about whether genetic relatedness is necessary or sufficient as a condition of parental interest in children, Segers et al cede the sociocultural importance of that standard. If so, same-sex couples seem entitled to press a case for some measure of research priority that would offer the same level of access to that social good as everyone else. (shrink)

In the face of growing public sentiment that AIDS is getting more than its share of media attention, resources, and social indulgence, we do well to remember that HIV remains a highly lethal, communicable virus.

Queer perspectives have typically emerged from sexual minorities as a way of repudiating flawed views of sexuality, mischaracterized relationships, and objectionable social treatment of people with atypical sexuality or gender expression. In this vein, one commentator offers a queer critique of the conceptualization of children in regard to their value for people's identities and relationships. According to this account, children are morally problematic given the values that make them desirable, their displacement of other beings and things entitled to moral protection, (...) not to mention the damaging environmental effects that follow in the wake of population growth. Objectionable views of children are said even to have colonized the view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people who – with the enthusiastic endorsement of bioethics – increasingly turn to assisted reproductive treatments to have children. In the face of these outcomes, it is better – according to this account – that people reconsider their interest in children. This account is not, however, ultimately strong enough to override people's interest in having children, relative to the benefits they confer and relative to the benefits conferred on children themselves. It is certainly not strong enough to justify differential treatment of LGBT people in matters of assisted reproductive treatments. Environmental threats in the wake of population growth might be managed in ways other than devaluing children as such. Moreover, this account ultimately damages the interests of LGBT people in matters of access, equity, and children, which outcome is paradoxical, given the origins of queer perspectives as efforts to assert and defend the social interests of sexual and gender minorities. (shrink)

What sex is permissible, if any, in non-clinical research relationships? In reply to my call for a code of conduct for non-clinical research, some commentators have called for more training in such matters, but this kind of training will not go very far without some kind of governing standards yet to be determined. It is not enough to assume that unarticulated opinions will suffice. Neither will approaches that involve even greater scrutiny over research, as if to divide research into two (...) categories: one in which sex with subjects is permissible and the other in which sex is impermissible. No practical solution to exploitation will be more important than having a code of ethics that guides decision-makers where institutional review bodies do not tread. (shrink)

Although Bastin et al. propose a useful model for thinking about the structure of memory and memory deficits, their distinction between entities and relational encoding is incompatible with data showing that even individual objects – prototypical “entities” – are made up of distinct features which require binding. Thus, “entity” and “relational” brain regions may need to solve fundamentally the same problems.

In many ways, we live in propitious times for gay and lesbian people. In 1996, the Supreme Court struck down Colorado law prohibiting any kind of protected status based on sexual orientation. In 2003, the Supreme Court held that states may not criminalize sexual conduct between consenting adults of the same sex in private, so long as no money changes hands. In 2010, the Congress repealed the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy that excluded openly gay men and lesbians from military (...) service. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down key elements of the Defense of Marriage Act that prohibited any federal recognition of same‐sex marriage. Most states do not allow same‐sex marriage, but more and more states are joining the fold. Likewise, most U.S. states do not forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation, but the number that does is increasing. Arguably, no other social minority has made as much legal progress in so short a time. Despite these advances, the story of gay and lesbian people and the law is not yet finished, and the meaning of homosexuality for bioethics is still being written too. Concerns about gay and lesbian people remain important to bioethics in key domains, especially in seeing to the conferral of optimal health care benefits and in sorting through the priorities and social effects of research. Progress in these domains still involves lifting certain burdens of medical and social misjudgments about same‐sex attraction. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Some commentators speak freely about genetics being poised to change human nature. Contrary to such rhetoric, Norman Daniels believes no such thing is plausible since ‘nature’ describes characteristic traits of human beings as a whole. Genetic interventions that do their work one individual at a time are unlikely to change the traits of human beings as a class. Even so, one can speculate about ways in which human beings as a whole could be genetically altered, and there is nothing about (...) that venture that could not be deliberated in the way other high-impact questions can be evaluated. There might well come a time when it would be defensible to use genetics to change human beings as a class, in order to protect people in the face of changed environmental circumstances or to enhance existing capacities. Moreover, if one understands human nature not in an empirically descriptive way but in a metaphysical way having implications about human behavior, it can make sense to talk about de-naturing individuals through genetic changes. Even under a metaphysical conception of human nature, however, one can still imagine that people in the future might want to alter their traits in pursuit of another normative idea of a good and valuable life, and genetic modifications might function as a pathway to that change. (shrink)

Bioconservative commentators argue that parents should not take steps to modify the genetics of their children even in the name of enhancement because of the damage they predict for values, identities and relationships. Some commentators have even said that adults should not modify themselves through genetic interventions. One commentator worries that genetic modifications chosen by adults for themselves will undermine moral agency, lead to less valuable experiences and fracture people's sense of self. These worries are not justified, however, since the (...) effects of modification will not undo moral agency as such. Adults can still have valuable experiences, even if some prior choices no longer seem meaningful. Changes at the genetic level will not always, either, alienate people from their own sense of self. On the contrary, genetic modifications can help amplify choice, enrich lives and consolidate identities. Ultimately, there is no moral requirement that people value their contingent genetic endowment to the exclusion of changes important to them in their future genetic identities. Through weighing risks and benefits, adults also have the power to consent to—and assume the risks of—genetic modifications for themselves in a way not possible in prenatal genetic interventions. (shrink)

Some commentators argue that conception signals the onset of human personhood and that moral responsibilities toward zygotic or embryonic persons begin at this point, not the least of which is to protect them from exposure to death. Critics of the conception threshold of personhood ask how it can be morally consistent to object to the embryo loss that occurs in fertility medicine and research but not object to the significant embryo loss that occurs through conception in vivo. Using that apparent (...) inconsistency as a starting point, they argue that if that embryo loss is tolerable as a way of conceiving children, it should be tolerable in fertility medicine and human embryonic research. Double-effect reasoning shows, by contrast, that conception in vivo is justified even if it involves the death of persons because the motives for wanting children are not inherently objectionable, because the embryo loss that occurs in unassisted conception is not the means by which successful conception occurs, and because the effect of having children is proportionate to the loss involved. A similar outcome holds true for in vitro fertilisation in fertility medicine but not for in vitro fertilisation for research involving human embryos. (shrink)