Sat., May 22, our local newspaper ran an article in which a spokesman for the Catholic Church responded to J. Craig Venter’s claim (“Science” mag.) that his research team has produced a synthetic cell. As you could have guessed, the title of the article was “Don’t Play God!” In the article the spokesman for the Church declared that only God creates life, the the making of the cell reveals our God-given intelligence and that such research projects can be used for good or evil.
The Church can no longer threaten scientists with imprisonment as it did to Galileo. Yet, it continues to assert that it is the sole guardian of, and interpreter of a God-ordained, universal moral code. Set this assertion alongside secular, moral relativism and you can see why many people prefer not to be “a law unto themselves” and opt for beliefs that appear closed to controversy.
The problem raised in this thread is how to answer the question of whether or not any code of ethics can be seen as universal or at least as ultimate in the sense of not being open to socially-conditioned reinterpretations. What would prompt anyone to declare that certain scientific research projects are going too far?
Approaches to a “universal” moral code include the Golden Rule, Kant’s moral imperative and the Wiccan adage: “Do as you will so long as it harms no one.” These approaches should apply to the theologian, the scientist or the man on the street. From what I can see, and my seeing is based on some misanthropy, is that the approaches are generally not put into practice anywhere, but are ideals shelved for reference in times of disaster.
Potential immoral use of the results. All sorts of people, religious or not, may protest at, and have protested at, say, the development of nuclear weapons. When it comes to biological nuclei, understanding potential outcomes is perhaps less clear; at any rate, debate needs more nuance than is presently evident, imv.
What is being referred to, in case anyone reading along is wondering, is synthetic M. mycoides (properly, M. mycoides JCVI-syn1.0; but also includes variants Mycoplasma genitalium, Mycoplasma capricolum); accomplished by the JCVI Institute and the subject of a press release on May 20th, 2010.
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You can read about it from their website here: jcvi.org/cms/research/projec … /overview/
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You can watch the press release here: jcvi.org/cms/research/projec … ell/video/
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You can read the press release here: jcvi.org/cms/press/press-rel … esearcher/
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You can read about Mycoplasma mycoides, in general, at Wikipedia’s entry here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_mycoides
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You can read about Mycoplasma genitalium, in general, at Wikipedia’s entry here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_genitalium
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You can read about Mycoplasma capricolum, in general, at Wikipedia’s entry here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_capricolum
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On to the starter of the conversation regarding the God authority.
Well; it’s not even in jeapordy yet:
From JCVI website:
In regards to the good or evil capacity:
In regard to the review of ethics:
More elaborately:
Fact Sheet: Ethical and Societal Implications/Policy Discussions about Synthetic Genomics Research: PDF
The Ethical findings were released in December 1999 in the Science magazine (Cho et al., Science December 1999:Vol. 286. no. 5447, pp. 2087 – 2090)
Here is a link to the article itself: sciencemag.org/cgi/content/s … /5447/2087
(this costs $15 for a 24 hour pass to access the full article unless you already have a membership - student being the cheapest, otherwise over $100)
The overall conclusion was:
In regards to what kinds of panels or groups are involved in deciding such ethical cases:
And…
To list a few predominant panels regarding the ethics involved.
You can read more official ethical discussions at the following reports and papers:
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As well, there are many, many more such on-going and otherwise inclusive reports on this subject; of which all can be found in the Fact Sheet mentioned previously: jcvi.org/cms/fileadmin/site/ … sheet1.pdf
Thanks, Stumps, for those great references. But do you really think the folks here need to be spoonfed pertinent information? Also, what of the usurpation of the thread–is that allowed here?
We still have the Catholic Church’s “official” reaction to contend with.
I don’t see it as a deviation from the thread, but a resource for consideration while pondering your posit.
I don’t intend to suggest that no one should think for themselves, but I do think that on the ground of ethics, it is good to have as many resources as there are available from the source of the provocation on the subject matter in question when they have also considered much the same.
I think it counts for consideration what those that are responsible think ethically about their accomplishment.
This helps when considering other responses, such as the Catholic response officially.
Some threads from Nat. Sci. worth considering:
Sorry, I posted that in the wrong thread. But the two are related, so I’ll let it slide.
Heartfelt apologies. Send me a crow and I’ll eat it! Late in the evening I got to thinking about what I had posted and began to wonder, “What if Stumps takes my ‘usurpation’ comment as meant for him?” It was not. It was meant for a spinoff thread that seems to have popped up before this one got underway. I’m going to have to reread what I post! While I appreciated your references, I thought they were overkill.
What I had hoped to get into here is bioethics in general–who sets the standards and why?
Thanks for the references. Two similar threads do invite such mistakes. Your comments are always welcome.
Right, that’s why I wanted to give an examination of who set the standards on this case.
Albeit a bit much, true, a vice of mine is thoroughness. 
No fault in that. My point, not expressed well, is that if all has been said here or in Wikipedia, why do the thread?
Bioethics:
Quoting Hindu scripture, J. Robert Oppenheimer opined, “I have become a destroyer of worlds”. (Kali) Expressing such qualms, he was denied security clearance for his own research project. Did Einstein have such qualms?
In another site someone asked me, "Do the ends justify the means? If Mengele had come across some great life-saving finds in his experiments on Jews, would his use of humans in experiments be somehow exonerated? " I’ve read neuroscientists who lament the fact that that they are not allowed to experiment on humans.
Diodge, in “The Brain That Changes Itself”, a fine book on neuroplasticity, tells of radical animal rights organizations stopping experiments done on chimps. There seems to be no such concern about rats.
In the good old USA mentally ill patients have been sterilized and lobotomized.
So, who sets the standards of bioethics and why? Do we assume there is some standard of ethics, of right and wrong, that is a matter of choice and not interpretation?
I suppose because I don’t trust people to find the resources for something that was this new; the wiki isn’t the synthetic’s; just the biological.
BTW, Thursday on the Science Channel, they are doing an exclusive special on this interviewing JCV and others: titled simply “Creating Synthetic Life”.
To answer the original questions you posited, however, which seem to be these two questions critically:
There is a universal code of ethics, but it’s not in words; instead it is in emotion and empathy.
Generally speaking; the universal ethical code of human beings is that a thing feels wrong.
There’s no guideline for this; it’s just base human behavior.
They feel wrong, disturbed, or frightened in some way.
A bioethics committee, one that scrutinizes scientific research projects and their applications, may not be primarily concerned with whether or not only God can create life. Its concerns may be more practical. And, unfortunately, practicality often includes how the market values the research.
Concerns may be about cruelty to animals, humans used in “test studies” and what to do with persons incapable of contributing to the social economy. The question then is who determines the standards of ethics under which such committees operate? Answers such as agreement of values based on polls assumes that those polled are fully aware of all aspects of the research situation and that other opinions on the matter have little merit.
Nietzsche thought that everything was a matter of “taste and tasting”. Other philosophers, notably the sentimentalists (including Hume, Mills, and many others), think the same. I think it makes sense to think that our aesthetic disposition is an extension of our sentimentments. Wang Yangming thought that everyone had an innate sense of the good and that if we were honest with ourselves, our aesthetic sensibilities would generate correct action. He isn’t the only one, of course. The Horak debate between Yulgok and T’oegye centered around this innate moral sense. A more contemporary example would be Leon Kass bases his bioethical principles on what he describes as the “ick factor” arguing that those things which repulse us ought give us pause and we should consider them carefully before heedlessly surpassing those boundaries that “thinking with our gut” establishes.
The problem becomes how to distinguish our cultural inheritance from our innate sense of the good. This is usually circumvented by 1) assuming that people are more alike than not alike so our dispositions ought be relatively similar in a cross-cultural manner (I think this assumption holds relatively well) which is then coupled with the nativist argument that the philosopher’s culture (or in some cases the philosopher themselves) is the best and most pure expression of human dispositions (errr, this one tends not to hold out so well). Engaging in (1) without falling into the trap of (2) is really tricky. Personally, I think the most fruitful approach is to examine what aspects of human culture do seem to be universal (or near universal) and work from there, addressing contradictions as they arise. Naturally, this method of analysis has some serious flaws. Most of them involve the assumptions we bring to the table that lead to us making the mistake found in (2). That and various iterations of the is/ought fallacy which can be really problematic. Kass is a pretty good example of someone who really embraces the is/ought fallacy with disastrous consequences.
I think it is important that we identify what the moral emotion within us means. It is clearly a trigger, right at the gut level. It is after that trigger has been tripped that we can begin to investigate the fuller story; however, trying to construct a story without that reaction leads to absurdity.
Sometimes the gut-reaction should lead the reactor to look within themselves as well as at the situation. That is, IMHO, where Kass’s notion of the “ick-factor” fails. He suggests that when we have this visceral reaction we should stop and consider the thing we are reacting to, I think we need to consider our relationship to the thing to see where the problem arises.
After all, the ick-factor itself is defeated by the notion of things like racial integration. Plenty of whites would have felt something very “wrong” about eating in the same section as blacks prior to desegregation, but I don’t think a sound argument can be constructed from that feeling that integration is wrong. The reaction demonstrates racism, something we deem to be bad.
So, people are getting an “ick-factor” due to this synthetic life. If that is the reaction, we ought look inside of ourselves to examine why we have this feeling of uneasiness as opposed to merely recognizing that it is there.
Xun,
Thanks for the clear distnctions and good references. In considering that, I’m reminded of actress Francis (Fanny) Farmer who was lobotomized because of her bizarre behavior. The doctor who performed these operations ( Dr. Walter Freeman–1940s-50s ) thought he was doing both society and the patient much good. Dr. Karl Pribram was among the neuroscientists who challenged Freeman’s claims. Did the challenge come too late? Did the good Dr. not feel the “ick” factor because he was absorbed by his belief in ends justifying means? The gut gringes over what people do to people or animals in the name of science appears to pale before considerations of social or economic benefits. I wish I had as tolerable a view of human nature as your references seem to have. I see altruism as way behind accumulation of wealth except in times of natural disasters such as our current Gulf crisis. I wish I were wrong. Meanwhile, when all this karma has worked itself out, it has left a trail of destruction and sorrow.