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But GM also has a component that goes beyond IVF. There is potential health benefits for the infant. At some point the ethical dilemna may be "Why shouldn't we". For example, if you see someone pass out and stop breathing due to a massive myocardial infarction you feel compelled to give them CPR. So what happens when we have the ability to prevent dwarfism, hemophilia, etc.? Wouldn't we also feel compelled to prevent this disease if it is within our power? What then of physical "shortcomings" such as height or eye color? Why not make everyone's blood type O negative so that everyone can donate blood to everyone else?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Yeah, and what happens when they decide they want to raise children who have a better chance of getting in the NBA?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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But GM also has a component that goes beyond IVF. There is potential health benefits for the infant. At some point the ethical dilemna may be "Why shouldn't we". For example, if you see someone pass out and stop breathing due to a massive myocardial infarction you feel compelled to give them CPR. So what happens when we have the ability to prevent dwarfism, hemophilia, etc.? Wouldn't we also feel compelled to prevent this disease if it is within our power? What then of physical "shortcomings" such as height or eye color? Why not make everyone's blood type O negative so that everyone can donate blood to everyone else?

Yeah, and what happens when they decide they want to raise children who have a better chance of getting in the NBA?

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Or a poorer chance of being a jockey?;)

I didn't choose my height, and neither did you. So that wouldn't change. If the increase in hieght does not affect the health of the child I really don't see anything wrong with it. I would draw the line at cosmetic changes which worsen the health of the child. Being 6'6" does not inherently cause health problems, but being 8' certainly does.

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I think it depends on how its used.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
How would you draw the line?

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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I think it depends on how its used.

Yes, I recall the concept of utilitarian ethics. It was used widely to promote slavery throughout England and America 250 years ago. Who would have thought such a thing could exist today. Thanks for the reminder, drj!

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As I said in the previous post, I would draw the line at cosmetic changes which worsen the health of the child.

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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I think it depends on how its used.

Yes, I recall the concept of utilitarian ethics. It was used widely to promote slavery throughout England and America 250 years ago. Who would have thought such a thing could exist today. Thanks for the reminder, drj!

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ORIGINAL: Method

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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I think it depends on how its used.

Yes, I recall the concept of utilitarian ethics. It was used widely to promote slavery throughout England and America 250 years ago. Who would have thought such a thing could exist today. Thanks for the reminder, drj!

Should we expect a Nazi reference in your next post?
Is there any well that you won't poison?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
So, health is your criteria?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I think harvesting organs from prisoners (against their will) should be forbidden. On what basis? It is part of my personal system of ethics. I think it's wrong. I don't see how I can answer your question with anything other than 'ethics'.

Well, again, you 'personal' system of ethics is only useful here if you are the king, or if it is based on some objectively identified common foundation by which we can derive some understanding of ethics that can be universally applied. You seem to be confirming that neither is true, so it is no different than saying 'my science says...'

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You can't say on one hand that 'this isn't a matter of science, but ethics' and then have guidelines drawn up by groups of scientists.

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How is this case any different from stem cell research, cloning, test-tube babies, or any of the other ethical quandaries that science has placed in our laps? Society debates the issue, ethics are proposed, morality is argued, laws are passed, protests are held, laws may be changed or modified.

Exactly!!!

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In almost everyone of these cases the prevailing sentiment has invariably turned on the presumed scientific benefits or the temporary desires of the person in charge. There is longer an 'ethical ' concern.

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And the reason is, because the arguments that you have made, which are reflective of those emanating from the science and secular communities, are so anemic, so spineless, so lacking in robust objective criteria

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Atheists and their weak, amoral, religious fellow travelers have so gutted the substance of the notions of ethics and moral considerations that they are effectively worthless. This is why you are utterly incapable of eking out the even a minimal argument against the practice of modifying human embryos, other than the barely thought out, "I just don't like it". Pathetic - it's like watching Neville Chamberlain oppose the scientific establishment while giving ground at every challenge.

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ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes
I can easily imagine medical benefits, such as the elimination of particular genetic defects. I think this should be pursued.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
There is no scientific or naturalistic basis for such ethics.

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Drmark:
Almost all mutations produce "freakish babies", R_S. Why get sqeamish over the putative mechanism of common descent?

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How little intelligence in a being makes geno-manipulation ethical? How would you quantitate this degree of intelligence for ethical purposes?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Well, again, you 'personal' system of ethics is only useful here if you are the king, or if it is based on some objectively identified common foundation by which we can derive some understanding of ethics that can be universally applied. You seem to be confirming that neither is true, so it is no different than saying 'my science says...'

Except that most people get their morals from the society they live in. Odd are that any given person's "personal morality" will be approximately the same as another persons. It's not like there's a morality slot-machine that you spin upon being born. A lot of morality is learned from those around us. As mentioned before, some morals seem to be intrinsic to human populations (and indeed, we can see the same sorts of rules in many animal populations). Those that aren't universal are indeed fluid, but are usually drawn from an understanding of the universal ones.

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Exactly!!! In almost everyone of these cases the prevailing sentiment has invariably turned on the presumed scientific benefits or the temporary desires of the person in charge. There is longer an 'ethical ' concern.

There is no 'moral' basis by which the science community operates or is constrained - in less than a decade, every one of these issues, including the creation of modified embryos, including chimeras, will be inevitably accepted.

And the reason is, because the arguments that you have made, which are reflective of those emanating from the science and secular communities, are so anemic, so spineless, so lacking in robust objective criteria for determining the great moral considerations of our day, that they inevitably fall under the tread of any scientific initiative no matter how offensive it might be to our notion of what it means to be human.

They will not be accepted if they produce excess harm. If we can find a way to properly engineer our genetics without mucking things up too much, they will be accepted because they will give benefit without causing undue harm. One hundred years ago I would not have, ethically, accepted hundreds of people being loaded into small containers and hurled through the air, simply because the technology available would have caused undue harm to those people. We now have stable aircraft that can reliably do this, and so it is acceptable to do so. In the same manner, it is, today, unethical to allow the creation of genetically modified humans because it will cause undue harm. If we can make the technology better, it will cease to be unethical because it will provide benefit without undue harm.

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Atheists and their weak, amoral, religious fellow travelers have so gutted the substance of the notions of ethics and moral considerations that they are effectively worthless. This is why you are utterly incapable of eking out the even a minimal argument against the practice of modifying human embryos, other than the barely thought out, "I just don't like it". Pathetic - it's like watching Neville Chamberlain oppose the scientific establishment while giving ground at every challenge.

People, generally, are people. Here's a conversation I heard online earlier tonight. These two quotes are from the same person. "I can't be racist, I'm Christian. "Sorry, my brain's going slow, I'm so high right now."
People are people, and generally no group is better than another. Most people, no matter what group, draw the bulk of their morals from a common source; society. One group or another might have the high-ground in theory, because they have better rules, but the individuals of that group are likely to act just like everyone else. (This is excluding isolated communities, because they don't interact as much with modern society.)

I don't have an argument against modifying human embryos because I don't believe it to be wrong.
I believe it to be wrong currently, because it will cause harm that can be avoided. I believe that causing harm that can be avoided is wrong because, basically, I don't want unnecessary harm to come to myself or my family and friends. I believe undue harm is morally wrong because if we all caused unnecessary harm, society could not exist. I believe that society is good because it has helped the human race survive.
Good enough?

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ORIGINAL: Method
Even then there are ethical dilemnas. Should a child whose parents refused genetic modification be denied health insurance? This is already a dilemna for the health industry given easy and (relatively) inexpensive DNA sequencing technologies. There is a real risk that in the near future health insurance premiums will be assessed based on specific genetic risk factors. There is also a risk that employment and acceptance into universities will be based on certain genetic markers.

Just the ability to sequence our DNA is full of ethical dilemnas before we even consider changing that sequence.

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Should we expect a Nazi reference in your next post?

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Holocaust survivor sues Bayer AG:

On February 17, 1999, a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District on behalf of Eva Mozes Kor, one of 180 surviving twin children (out of 1,500) who had been subjected to medical experiments at Auschwitz. The suit charged Bayer, of collaborating with Dr. Josef Mengele (the "Angel of Death") to commit medical atrocities for profit. The suit claimed that Auschwitz inmates were injected with toxic chemicals and germs provided by Bayer "to intentionally make them sick in order to test the effectiveness of its experimental medicines." And the suit claimed that Bayer officials personally monitored and supervised some of the experiments. According to Irwin B. Levin, one of several lawyers who handled the class action suit for the plaintiffs, Bayer paid Nazi officials to gain access to those confined in the death camps and collaborated in Nazi experiments as a form of "research and development."

On June 11, 1999, ABC News 20/20 reported that new documents not available to the tribunal at Nuremberg directly link Bayer to the Nazi experiments. The documents are chilling evidence of the culture of utilitarian ethics in which human beings had been reduced to commodities and referred to as "test objects" A letter in which Bayer sales director, Wilhelm Mann, praised Mengele's experiments and promised to discuss financing from the company: "I have enclosed the first check," Mann wrote. "Dr. Mengele's experiments should, as we both agreed, be pursued. Heil Hitler!" ABC reported that "Bayer says there's no evidence any money was actually sent." ABC's Brian Ross reported that a longtime Bayer employee, Dr. Helmut Vetter was involved in testing Bayer experimental vaccines and medicines on Auschwitz inmates. He was later executed for giving inmates fatal injections. Levin stated: "Bayer actually performed some of those atrocities." He went on to say, "this case represents the worst example of individual and corporate evil that the legal system may ever see."

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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Should we expect a Nazi reference in your next post?

Sorry, Method, but the Alliance for Human Research Protection already beat me to it! Here's a news article from this scientific, secular organization:

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Science doesn't speak about what is and is not moral. There is, however, a scientific explanation for morality. Not ethics, but the general principals which ethics seems to follow. Basically, without common moral ground, there could be no stable society. Without stable society, the human race would have been at a disadvantage to societal animals, who can easily overwhelm individuals. Basic moral rules grew up around this need for society. These rules are intrinsic in a greater portion of the population. The rules are basic, and generally are focused on in-group/out-group mentality. The rules are those such as: Do not kill a member of the in-group. Do not steal from a member of the in-group. Defer to higher ranking members of the in-group. Protect the in-group. etc...

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As for the fluid moral rules that we've seen shift over the past few centuries (slavery, capitol punishment, punishment of heretics, etc... The 'shifting moral zeitgeist') are, and this is just 'in my opinion' with no real backing, due to in-groups becoming larger as communication technologies have advanced. Personally, I believe that a perfect, real-time translation device would pretty much stop war, dissolve international boundaries, and unify humanity. This would be because, when you can understand everyone, everyone will be in some way connected to your in-group. This is pure speculation, however, as opposed to the well-known evolutionary basis for morality.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Well, other than the fact that this paragraph makes one assertion then goes onto disprove the assertion (leaving me little room for me to do so) I would say that you have articulated what I have regularly argued elsewhere; evolution wishes to encompass the whole of human experience, including being a basis for understanding morality. The problem of course is, there is an evolutionary justification for every human behavior, no matter how repugnant, so while ‘science’ claims to explain such things, it can provide no direction for our moral choices at all.

Interesting how you go from, Science doesn’t speak to morals…to science tells us how morals came about…to science tells us morals are irrelevant. It’s like this caricature of post modernist thinking.

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How is this any different from Chemistry or any other science? Chemistry certainly tells us that our impulses, thoughts, urges are just the results of chemical reactions... a few atoms mixing and matching with the others to simulate a particular experience. It most definitely allows for those who wish to devalue humanity to do so, as we are nothing more than clumps of atoms, no real purpose or point.

Certainly some sociologists and the like have begun to try to explain human social constructs and institutions through an evolutionary perspective. Such things are highly wishy-washy soft science however, and quite a distance removed from evolution as a biological explanation.

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Now please illustrate how my rather benign comment has any connection to this what-so-ever.

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Is it really wrong?

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I think it depends on how its used.

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ORIGINAL: drmark
Look, drj, I am not responsible for explaining to you your thought processes! Here is what you posted on the previous page:

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That is the precise definition of utilitarian ethics used to justify slavery and scientific experimentation on unwilling subjects. If you cannot make the connection, please excuse yourself from further embarrassing discussion.

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I don't consider a few days old embryo anything close to human life, nor do I think it's unethical do use them in research. Hence, no utilitarianism justifications are needed here.