GenEthics and Religion - Группа авторов

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· Klaus Lindpaintnerb

      Playing God?

      Human gene technology or human gene engineering is a diverse and rapidly developing sphere of research and advanced medical technology. It includes stem cell research, genetic testing, therapeutic or reproductive cloning. Since genes are something like the blueprints of organisms, genetic engineering is a challenge to our understanding of human nature. Thus, from the early days of genetic research, projects have been watched carefully and often suspiciously by ethicists. Among this new caste of bioethicists dealing with these problems theologians have played a prominent role. Not surprisingly: as fundamental questions are raised with regard to whether human beings should be allowed to manipulate their own species, a religious dimension of human actions seems to be touched. Is genetic engineering by definition playing God? And if so, why is it fundamentally different from other areas where human ingenuity profoundly affects our lives?

      The volume examines questions pertaining to the complex relationship between the ethics of gene technology (moniker: genethics) and religion. It does so in a critical and multidisciplinary way, and with reference to several of the major world religions. The volume contains contributions by philosophers, by scholars of divinity, and by bioethicists with Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and Buddhist background.

      In this introduction, use has been made of unpublished abstracts which were submitted for the conference by the following authors: J. Childress, H.T. Engelhardt Jr., S.N.M. Nor, P. Ratanakul, and C. Rehmann-Sutter. Note that this text, in part, contains literal quotes from these abstracts as well as from the authors’ articles contained in this volume; for ease of reading, these quotes have not been set in quotation marks.

      Foundations: Hermeneutic and Conceptional Reflections

      Ethical evaluations should start with hermeneutical reflections, particularly if the genome is the object of interpretation. This is at least the suggestion of Christoph Rehmann-Sutter. The operative function of the genome for the organism is both a biological and a descriptive problem. The respective terminology, used not only by journalists but also by scientists, is full of metaphors. Textual metaphors are most common: genes are described as texts, instructions, messages, blueprints or programs. The textual imagery, however, seems to be misleading: the genome is not an author-subject, neither is it – as at least some of these metaphors suggest – strictly prescriptive or deterministic. Thus, Rehmann-Sutter pleads for a shift towards a new metaphor: systems. A systems approach to genomics opens the way for new images: DNA as a big library that can be used in many different ways and whose content depends on the context of use; or the multifunctionality of genes being compared to words that have different meanings. He argues that the transition from program genomics to systems genomics has implications for central topics of bioethics like genetic testing and counseling, or the moral perception of human embryos.

      Critical reflection must also be used regarding the normative concepts of genethics. One of the most frequently used normative concepts is human dignity. The concept suggests an absolute, intrinsic, and ontological value of human beings and their nature. Opponents argue that this is a classical proof of naturalistic fallacy or of an overabundance of normative rhetoric. In order to avoid both, James Childress proposes a clear analysis of the concept. He distinguishes between (1) human dignity as a standard of rights and duties, and (2) human dignity as a standard of virtue. The first concept often goes along with the Kantian prohibition of instrumentalization. While the first would refer more to the person as the object of a gene-technological manipulation or treatment, the second is more focused on the character – the virtues or vices – of the users or providers of human engineering.

      Although Childress himself favors a reflected and cautious use of the first understanding of the concept, he highlights at least to two problems: what is the added value of the concept compared, e.g., with more rational concepts such as autonomy? And how does the concept work as a normative ethical instrument in answering concrete bioethical questions? For instance: it is hard to make the case that human reproductive cloning necessarily involves the kind of instrumentalization that human dignity excludes. Human reproductive cloning does not necessarily involve treating offspring merely as means or instruments to other ends. The argument shows that it seems to be difficult to concentrate on the perspective of the object-person.

      Concerning the virtue-concept Childress refers strongly to Leon Kass and the (US) President's Council on Bioethics (during the Bush Administration, suspended in 2009 by President Obama). In Kass’ concept human dignity and its violation is based on a fundamentally human pre-reflective moral wisdom of repugnance. Examples of wise repugnance include bestiality, cannibalism, mutilation of a corpse, and raping or murdering another human being. Repugnance is sufficient to condemn these actions; without rational justification, the repugnance at human cloning belongs in this category. In this understanding human dignity seems to work as a fundamental moral taboo, referring to a religious dimension of morality. This concept of human dignity is therefore suspected to smuggle in religious and theological concepts without having to acknowledge them as such. As similar observations could be made in the field of ethical debates on human genetic enhancement, Childress pleads for a public precautionary process in which society's basic values and the public's reflective preferences are carefully debated and idiomatic manipulations minimized.

      The Function of Religion in GenEthical Debates: Critical Analyses

      H. Tristram Engelhardt and Friedrich Wilhelm Graf agree with James Childress that the common tendencies to involve religious arguments in genethical debates have to do with the pressing character of the moral problems at hand. However, they appear to be less confident regarding the potential chances of success of the public precautionary process that Childress advocates.

      For H. Tristram Engelhardt the possibility of human genetic engineering functions like a Rorschach test that discloses foundational disagreements regarding the nature of morality, human flourishing, and the significance of human existence. It discloses our deep moral disagreements. The human condition is characterized by culture wars, by foundational disputes about how humans should live, and about how they should apply technologies such as human genetic engineering. Thus, in his chapter Engelhardt argues that there is no common, secular morality that can rationally establish a single canonical, content-rich, global code of bioethics to guide our emerging human gene-technology capacities. Second, he contends that there is no way to set aside these secular moral disagreements through rational argument. Third, he attributes the fact that there are still claims of moral consensus mostly to wishful thinking or to political and other interests.

      Engelhardt seems to be convinced that the impossibility of a true moral consensus on secular grounds is the logical consequence of the absence of an ultimate metaphysical principle of life and of our existence. However, he is aware that in the realm of religion moral pluralism, particularly with regard to human genetic engineering, is all but overcome. On the contrary, mutual religious anathematism rather intensifies than appeases moral dissent in genethics.

      Nevertheless, these findings are viewed as encouraging rather than preventing moral statements based on outspoken confessional-religious background. A self-professed member of the Christian Orthodox church, Engelhardt therefore sketches Orthodoxy's understandings of the norms that should guide human genetic engineering so as to offer a more complete view of the moral diversity that characterizes our condition, as well as to present a theologically grounded approach to human genetic engineering that is, in the main, very positive. The reason for Christian Orthodoxy's surprising openness towards modern gene technology is, according to Engelhardt, the fact that orthodox religious ethic is oriented towards Eden before the Fall; therefore human enhancement is considered to be of vital necessity for all human beings in the present stage, i.e., after the fall.

      The

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