Ethicists fear erosion of moral center with advance of science

From Newsroom, a place online which reports “the religious dimension of the news,” I thought this might stimulate discussion:

Note to the mods: The article is free to use as long as there is attribution to Newsroom, FYI. I would have simply linked it, but you have to sign up for access to the site, something I encourage people to do whether they’re members of the media or not (it is free).


Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions

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I suppose we could start with the odd tendency, especially among moralists, to equate ethics and morals.

Or, of course, we could begin with the peculiar notion that some have that they are different – particularly among those who righteously proclaim, “I have ‘ethics’; you, you poor slob, merely have ‘morals’”.

So something could be ethical but immoral? or moral but unethical? I don’t have a dictionary handy but I’d like to see how these are defined.
(since everyone at the SDMB loves to split hairs)

As a means of firing this thing up lets consider the example posed in Brave New World where people are engineered from conception to perform specific tasks. How is this then different than say creating an entity that has specific traits to fulfill a specific purpose. “Yes Jenny we love you to but the main reason we had you created was because we needed your stem cells to help save your brothers life, now go back to your room in the basement and don’t come back out ‘til May”

To me this is unfortunately another of the ‘slippery slope’ arguments. I see it as an eventual path to disposable humans – that is humans created to fulfill a requirement. Some will try to appease the ‘moralists’ by arguing that these ‘bodies’ could be created without brains and therefore never alive, in essence a life sized tissue donor without consciousness and therefore no soul. I personally feel that Pandora’s box has already been opened and we are already playing God.

In the religious sense (Judiasm, Muslim, Christian, etc…) this is certainlt immoral. Take all religion out of the argument (God is fiction, doesn’t exist, never did) and you still have a completely ‘unethical’ practice.

While hairs can possibly be split, I’m not the one to split them. I think for this discussion there is no appreciable difference between morals and ethics–both mean “in accord with principles or rules of right or good conduct.” I could be wrong.

Akats, forgive me. I confess, I was trolling for just such a response.

The problem is that one’s ethics and morals are correct, and others’ are not. This usually manifests int he derivation of those morals and ethics. That is, the religious moralist claims his views are the right ones because of the authority of their religious derivation. The professional ethicist (legal, scientific, etc) claim their ethics are correct because of their pragmatic basis.

I think most people equate morals with personal behavior and ethics with behavior in the business/government realm. Of course, there is certain amount of crossover between the two.

I agree with the premise of the article. I also think, and I know Satan, among others, will disagree with me, I hope not too violently, that the decline in religious beliefs has greatly contributed to the decline in both morals and ethics. (Yes, I know a lot of religious people are unethical and immoral slimebuckets, but that’s another debate.)

I don’t necessarily agree that advances in scientific knowlege and technology have created moral ambiguities, but I’m not sure that on a moral/ethical level, we as a society are equipped to deal with these advances.

I always thought morality had to do with the objective good of a goal, and ethics had to do with the way the goal was achieved.

But, in a bigger sense, doesn’t every technological advance create moral or ethical questions? As we increase our understanding of the world, or our ability to manipulate it, the advance comes up against the old moral and ethical code.

Why I oughtta… :wink:

Seriously, I disagree and I think I have some statistics to back me up. Did you know that we as a nation are more religious than we ever have been? Polls show that more Americans attend church regularly than ever before, and more Americans affiliate themselves with a religion of some type (mostly Christian, of course).


Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions

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Or perhaps the difference lies in morality being personal and interpersonal, with ethics being social and/or civic?

A very difficult topic to discuss even when the terms are well-defined. People have been wrestling with the definition of these words since the time of Socrates and before.

But, back to the OP (under the loosely defined terms above).
Taking into consideration that all scientific knowledge in the realm of medicine has the single purpose of extending and improving the quality of human life, could we not say that our short-term ethically dubious research and activity should be secondary to the long-term goals which would positively affect all of humanity?

Or, if the methods are in an ethically grey area, and the ultimate goal is undeniably a social benefit, shouldn’t we be prepared to compromise our morality and ethics for this goal?

If I’m not mistaking, I have heard news stories about the possibility of growing organs. (Am I just way out of it, and this is already possible?) If that is the case (or becomes possible in the future), this poses a question of another sort - we are not ‘growing’ and ‘using’ a human being, just an organ. Is this also immoral/unethical?

BTW - Satan, thanks for that article. I studied with Rabbi Lipner, and it’s a kick to see his quotes. His manner has not changed a bit, and I remember him as a patient and kind man.

So the ends justify the means, blessedwolf?

sili, no–vat-grown human organs are not yet a possibility. They will be soon. And some of the same objections will be raised, although perhaps less vociferously.

In a situation where the means are merely unsettling due only to “ethics” which are poorly defined and the ends are universally accepted as beneficial, yes.

But for many it’s not a matter of “unsettling,” it’s a matter of pure-D evil. And if some folks believe that genetic testing of embryos leads to the dissolution of all ethics and morals, it’s hardly a universally accepted benefit.

andros admits:

Well, you got it. Happy to oblige :slight_smile:

Quite seriously, that might well be the topic of another thread here.

In Satan’s original quote, we read:

Now, I’ve stated before on at least one occasion that I have no semikhah, so it may be that my response to Rabbi Lipner shlit"a may not be considered authorative. However, it seems to be that he is not stating the issues altogether correctly.

An actual life is considered to be of greater value than a potential life. Thus, Orthodox Judaism not only permits therapeutic abortion, but would actually mandate in some cases; to do otherwise would be khillul haShem, a desecration of the Divine Name (and of the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself). There can be no doubt that the young girl in this case is an actual life.

Now, Jewish thought positively forbids euthanasia – the Talmud states that one cannot even move a dying man’s arms if to do so would hasten his death. At the same time, we are positively enjoined to allievate suffering; indeed, the closest approach to euthanasia is the stipulation that, if death is inevitable and further treatment or support would merely prolong suffering, it is permissible to refrain from such treatment or support.

Of course, it is permitted to violate any mitzvah if there is a reasonable chance of saving life by so doing – except for the mitzvot of refraining from murder, idolatry, and forbidden sexual relations. However, I think that we will agree that idolatry and forbidden sexual relations do not come into this matter. Thus, we must discuss the aspect of murder.

There is no question that the baby was not murdered, or even harmed in any objectively provable way. We still have to consider the possibilities for such harm.

We acknowledge that certain forms of child abuse may amount to, or may even be, murder. Such abuse, however, certainly does not appear to have taken place in the case of the young girl. We must consider, then, the possibility that they yey may happen to the baby. However, there is no report here that the parents utterly reject having a second child, that they lack the means to rear one, or anything of that nature. Rather, we must consider that saving the girl is only one of the reasons for having a second, healthy child.

Now, having reached this point, we must mention the embryos that were “eliminated” – a term that I presume is equivalent to “destroyed”. The Torah certainly views the elimination even of potential life dimly. OTOH, going back to my second point – Fanconi’s anemia certainly seems to make death inevitable, and I presume that the course of this disorder is not a pleasant one. Moreover, the embryo must be judged as potential, not actual life. Moreover, we note that the in vitro fertilization was designed to produce a baby whose cord blood could be used as a cure for this disorder. There would be a difference between saying in effect, “This child will be born with an incurable disease”, and, “This child will be born with a disease, but there is a cure”.

The “Pure-D Evil” is only evil because someone tells them it is. Let’s not get into “sheeple.” (sheople?) That’s another topic entirely. But many of them say “It’s wrong. I can’t tell you why, but I KNOW it’s wrong.”

'nuff said.

That’s the means, not the ends. The “universally accepted benefit” I was referring to is the increase in lifespans and overall health of the general population.

(Although, whether or not that is truly a benefit is a topic for a different thread, which I may start tonight.)

But I can see where you will come back by saying “the dissolution of all ethics and morals is not a benefit! Weren’t you listening to me you git?!?!” or something like that. Personally, I don’t have ethics and morals, so it doesn’t apply to me ;). At any rate, I see your point. It’s a trade-off, and can only be individually judged by personal opinion, and not by some universal standard.

I guess we’re all screwed.

I have a hard time seeing how to seperate out the discussion of what is “moral” or “ethical” from the discussion of what is “beneficial”, since all of these involve degrees of subjective judgement.

What worries me is basically ignorance, not morality.

There’s talk, for instance, about the use of genetic screening to weed out “bad” genes or what have you. Easy for the layperson to latch onto the idea that there’s something genetically “bad” that we can do something about now (in some cases this may be true). Little understanding in the lay community, however, about just how grey the definition of “bad” can be.

(I’m fond of using the example of the AIDS-resistant mutation, I’ll skip it here rather than repeat it for the nth time, but if I should repeat just tell me).

Also, even if the core issue is one of ethics, framing the argument that way seems (to me) to lead away from cogent debate.

What I mean is, the arguments of self-described “ethicists” and various religious authorities eventually seem to descend either into religious bickering or arguments about whether ethics are absolute or relative, all of which seems besides the point to me.

What I perceive as the greater issue is that we poorly understand the power of these tools, and we can easily get careless, especially when money is involved.

What does the D in “pure-D evil” stand for?
tracer, who hopes it’s a brassiere cup and not a flashlight battery or low classroom grade

No, tracer… that’s just our accented way of saying “pretty evil” down here in Texas :smiley:

I was always under the impression that it stood for “Damned.”

But I’ve been wrong before.

Wait a minute … you can’t be the real Captain Amazing!
The real Captain Amazing died when the Blue Raja threw that switch a second time!