Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- 1 The Waxing and Waning of Faith in Science
- 2 Scientific Ideology and “Value Free” Science
- 3 What Is Ethics?
- 4 Ethics and Research on Human Beings
- 5 Animal Research
- 6 Biotechnology and Ethics I: Is Genetic Engineering Intrinsically Wrong?
- 7 Biotechnology and Ethics II: Rampaging Monsters and Suffering Animals
- 8 Biotechnology and Ethics III: Cloning, Xenotransplantation, and Stem Cells
- 9 Pain and Ethics
- 10 Ethics in Science
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Biotechnology and Ethics III: Cloning, Xenotransplantation, and Stem Cells
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- 1 The Waxing and Waning of Faith in Science
- 2 Scientific Ideology and “Value Free” Science
- 3 What Is Ethics?
- 4 Ethics and Research on Human Beings
- 5 Animal Research
- 6 Biotechnology and Ethics I: Is Genetic Engineering Intrinsically Wrong?
- 7 Biotechnology and Ethics II: Rampaging Monsters and Suffering Animals
- 8 Biotechnology and Ethics III: Cloning, Xenotransplantation, and Stem Cells
- 9 Pain and Ethics
- 10 Ethics in Science
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The template we have developed for discussing genetic engineering, wherein we distinguished three possible types of issues – intrinsic wrongness, bad results, and harm to the object of biotechnological ministrations – can be used to analyze all other areas of biotechnology as well.
As remarked earlier, there is no area of biotechnology that better illustrates our Gresham's law for ethics than cloning. Indeed, the failure of the scientific community to prepare the public in advance to discuss rationally the ethical issues involved in cloning, or even to discuss such issues when the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep was in fact announced, resulted in the proliferation of bad ethics and in those ideas becoming ensconced in the public discussion.
Although the cloning of Dolly was enthusiastically acclaimed by most biologists, such was not the case in society in general. Theologians predictably condemned humans usurping the role of God and called for a ban on such research. But the general public too expressed fear, revulsion, and “ethical concern,” prompting the British government to cut off additional funding to related research. According to a CNN/Time magazine survey of 1,005 adult Americans released one week after Dolly's birth announcement, “most Americans think it is morally unacceptable to clone either animals or humans, and that new cloning techniques will create more problems than they solve.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Science and Ethics , pp. 185 - 214Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006