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Human Control of Life
Published in Robert M. Veatch, Laura K. Guidry-Grimes, The Basics of Bioethics, 2019
Robert M. Veatch, Laura K. Guidry-Grimes
When Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley created the story of Frankenstein in 1817, she provided an alternative title, The Modern Prometheus.1 Thus, she harkened back to the legend of the Greek god who not only molded the clay figures that became humans, but also stole fire from heaven to make it available to human beings, giving them powers they had never before possessed. The metaphor of “playing God” has become common in the era of the biological revolution.2 It is often used by those who fear that humans are going beyond appropriate limits in remolding or “recreating” the human’s nature. These critics suggest that genetic engineering and the “manufacture” or “fabrication” of new human beings take us beyond the normal mission of medicine—to save life, cure disease, and relieve suffering.3 They believe that we are on the verge of changing the species so radically that we can be said to be changing its fundamental nature.
Conclusions
Published in Ruth E. Groenhout, Care Ethics and Social Structures in Medicine, 2018
When real committees grapple with developing guidelines for medical expenditures, the policies they develop are rarely accepted by those to whom they are intended to apply. In some cases, committees that made decisions that seemed eminently the deliverances of common sense were seen by the public at large as deeply problematic. Consider, for example, the committee charged with deciding who would receive dialysis when it first became available. Given the extremely limited number of people they could accept into the program, the committee chose to allocate dialysis to the individuals who (among other characteristics) seemed the most deserving, either because they had children or were productive members of society. Because of this they were criticized harshly for ‘playing God’ (and nicknamed the Seattle God Committee), and many current guidelines for medical decision-making try to exclude what have come to be called social worth factors in their decision-making (Jonsen, 2007; Lockwood, 1988). Further, their processes and policies for making decisions were almost immediately overturned by media pressure.
Neuroenhancement and Therapy in National Defense Contexts
Published in L. Syd M Johnson, Karen S. Rommelfanger, The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics, 2017
Michael N. Tennison, Jonathan D. Moreno
Even in competitions without lethal stakes, enhancement raises myriad ethical issues (Bostrom and Sandberg, 2009). First, consider the athlete who uses performance-enhancing drugs to excel in sports. The enhancement not only optimizes the athlete’s performance but does so to the detriment of her or his opponents. This strikes many people as unfair. Further, not all athletes have access to the same top-of-the-line enhancements, raising concerns of distributive justice. Besides these positional inequalities, those who would otherwise remain drug free may feel unduly pressured to enhance themselves in order to remain competitive. Athletic enhancements may also pose short- and long-term risks to health and safety, such as the risk of anabolic steroids diminishing the body’s endogenous ability to produce testosterone naturally (Hartgens and Kuipers, 2004, 535). Critics of enhancement also argue that pharmacological and technological enhancements may interrupt the natural relationship between effort and accomplishment that builds character and virtue: “A drug that induces fearlessness does not produce courage” (President’s Council on Bioethics, 2003, 291). Some ethicists believe that the pursuit of such enhancement transgresses supernatural moral boundaries and constitutes “playing God” (President’s Council on Bioethics, 2003, 287). No matter what the context, when enhancements grant a positional advantage relative to others in a competitive situation, myriad ethical issues arise.
The Social Context of Religion in the Jurisdictions of Bioethics
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2020
One distinction is between two ways that theologians could express their ends or values in bioethics (Evans 2012, 8–9). The first is a “condensed translation” that takes a very elaborated, detailed end and creates a simplified, less precise and more general end that, among other things, abandons theological language. If we think of these as pegs in square holes, these are unbiased—they still accurately portray the core of the value or end being pursued, fitting right in the middle of the square. There is, of course, theological remainder (Eberl 2020). The second is “transmutation,” which takes a non-central piece of the original end or value that fits with an established value and declares the values to be congruent. This I describe as “biased.” Metaphorically, the peg is on one corner of the square hole. For example, in the early 1980s a government commission argued that a theological concern about “playing God” was “really” about the end of non-maleficence (safety). (Evans 2002, Ch. 4) That is a transmutation. One of the reasons theologians should not even pursue the first three jurisdictions is that they will ultimately have to engage in transmutation, not condensed translation, which would not just simplify but change their theology.
Merry and McCall Smith's Errors, Medicine and the Law Alan Merry and Warren Brookbanks (Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 2017, pp 412)
Published in Journal of Legal Medicine, 2018
Although action in negligence aligns broadly with blame at level three, this may not always be the case. There may be a finding of negligence where there is no moral culpability but where there is an error or, alternatively, where there is a deliberate and unjustifiable regard for principle where in fact the behavior is reckless. Blame at level 4 might be engendered by thrill seeking as, for example, with the surgeon, Ian Paterson, who undertook unnecessary mastectomies with hubris as though “playing God.”8BBC News, Breast Surgeon Ian Paterson Needlessly Harmed Patients (Apr. 28, 2017), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39748246. See also Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), 03 08 2017, Case Number 201702867 A4. Culpability of blame at level 5 would seem self-evident and the only possible debate might be around the meaning of harm; for example, in instances where euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide have been requested by the patient. The taxonomy of blame is helpful as a conceptual tool, but inevitably some overlap between groups can be expected.
“Living Robots”: Ethical Questions About Xenobots
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2020
Third, some people will claim that creating xenobots (or future biobots) involves “playing God” (Botkin-Kowacki 2020). Such a claim has multiple possible connotations (Dabrock 2009). It may reduce to the earlier mentioned issues of risk and intrinsic moral status. Alternatively, concerns about “playing God” may be akin to criticisms that engineering life “from the ground up” represents, or promotes, a disrespect for life (Boldt and Müller 2008). This type of criticism has been challenged (Douglas et al. 2013). Nevertheless, biobots may elicit this response on account of the range of features—from their AI-based design to their “from the ground up” modular construction—that prompts people to call them “programmable living robots.”