Benefiting from past wrongdoing, human embryonic stem cell lines, and the fragility of the German legal position

Causation, Responsibility, and Harm: How the Discursive Shift from Law and Ethics to Social Justice Sealed the Plight of Nonhuman Animals

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the determination with which societies seek responsibility for human harm to the relative indifference with which law and morality react to nonhuman harm. When harm is inflicted on humans, policies concerning negligence and duty of care and principles such as the 'but for' rule and the doctrine of double effect are easily introduced. When harm is inflicted on nonhumans, this does not happen, at least not any more. As an explanation for the changed situation, the article offers a shift in discussion and its basic terminology. Simple ethical considerations supported the case for nonhuman animals, but many philosophers moved on to debate different views on political justice instead. This allowed the creation of many conflicting views that are justifiable on their own presuppositions. In the absence of a shared foundation, this fragments the discussion, focuses it on humans, and ignores or marginalizes nonhuman animals.

Ethics and cloning

BACKGROUND

Scientists have cloned animals since the late 19th century, but the crucial step for ethics was the cloning of the first mammal by somatic cell nuclear transfer in 1997. This suggested that scientists could also clone, and possibly enhance, human beings.

SOURCES OF DATA

This survey examines ethical literature on cloning since the 1960s.

AREAS OF AGREEMENT

The one ethical area of agreement in this issue is that we should not try to create new human beings by somatic cell nuclear transfer now.

AREAS OF CONTROVERSY

Ethicists disagree, however, on what justifies this norm. Some appeal to preference satisfaction and freedom from external constraints, others question this approach by more profound religious and moral considerations.

GROWING POINTS

The discussion is currently not progressing, as the same arguments have been in use since the 1970s.

AREAS TIMELY FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH

Philosophers should prepare deeper analyses of the presuppositions of the ethical arguments used in the discussion before the issue surfaces again.

Playing God

This article describes and introduces a new innovative tool for bioethics education: a rock opera on the ethics of genetics written by two academics and a drummer legend. The origin of the idea, the characters and their development, and the themes and approaches as well as initial responses to the music and the show are described, and the various educational usages are explored.

Complicity in stem cell research: the case of induced pluripotent stem cells

Many who object to human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research because they believe it involves complicity in embryo destruction have welcomed induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research as an ethical alternative. This opinion article aims to show that complicity arguments against hESC research are prima facie inconsistent with accepting iPSC research as it is currently done. Those who oppose hESC research on grounds of complicity should either (i) oppose iPSC research as well, (ii) advocate a radical change in the way iPSC research is done, (iii) demonstrate that complicity arguments against iPSC research are weaker than those against hESC research or (iv) reject complicity arguments against both hESC and iPSC research, either by adopting a more limited conception of complicity that allows acceptance of some hESC research, or by accepting that destroying embryos for important scientific research is not wrong.

"You are our only hope": trading metaphorical "magic bullets" for stem cell "superheroes"

In the wake of two recent developments in stem cell research, it is a fitting time to reassess the claim that stem cells will radically transform the concept and function of medicine. The first is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's decision in January 2009 to approve Geron Corporation's Phase I clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells for patients with spinal cord injuries. The second is the National Institutes of Health's decision to permit federal funding of research using donated IVF human embryos in their July 2009 Guidelines on Human Stem Cell Research. We are now poised to see whether stem cell research can deliver on what it promises. However, what exactly does it promise and how? Moreover, who is doing the promising? Turning to the use of metaphor can help us to answer these questions and enable us to develop a better appreciation of the unique features of promised stem cell therapies. Indeed, metaphors have exerted profound influence in medicine, and it is fitting that we seek new metaphors for new therapies where appropriate. In this case, other metaphors such as magic bullets or the Holy Grail cannot capture what is unique about stem cells. Accordingly, I propose a new metaphor: the stem cell superhero. Stem cell superheroes are characterized by the following traits: they are seemingly capable of fighting the evil of virtually all disease (unlike "magic bullets") and they seem to be our only hope of doing so, although to summon them we must make difficult moral choices. In the course of assessing the merits of three recent yet covert references to the superhero metaphor, I conclude that this powerful new paradigm employs a problematic logic (i.e., we cannot know that something is "our only hope"), but that the aspiration as such is a good one.

The context of embryonic development and its ethical relevance

Research on human stem cells and embryos creates ethical issues. Here I discuss ten frequently used arguments against research and point out their weaknesses. These arguments include the possessed potentiality of the embryo per se and, in contrast to other cell systems, the "slippery slope" argument, the right of disposal of parents, totipotency versus pluripotency, the burden of proof for research, natural versus artificial, and three arguments based on the precaution principle (the open biological questions, uncertainty regarding clinically applicable therapies, and the problem solving rule). I finally suggest a different answer to the ethical questions concerning research on human embryos and embryonic stem cells, which takes into consideration their biological context.