1. PHIL242: MEDICAL ETHICS SUM2014, M-F, 9:40-10:40, SAV 156
INSTRUCTOR: BENJAMIN HOLE
OFFICE HOURS: M-F, 10:40-11 

2. Agenda Clicker Quiz Finish Discussing Brock
Leon Kass, “The Wisdom of Repugnance”
Please set your Turning Technology Clicker to channel 41
Press “Ch”, then “41”, then “Ch”

3. Which of the following is/are (an) example(S) of Brock’s “non Person-affecting principle”?
M “Those individuals responsible for a child’s, or other dependent person’s, welfare are morally required not to let it suffer a serious harm or handicap that they could have prevented without imposing substantial burdens or costs on themselves or others.”
N “Individuals are morally required not to let any possible child or other dependent person for whose welfare they are responsible experience serious suffering or limited opportunity if they can act so that, without imposing substantial burdens or costs on themselves or others, any alternative possible child or other dependent person for whose welfare they would be responsible will not experience serious suffering or limited opportunity.”
N’ “It is morally good to act in a way that results in less suffering and less limited opportunity in the world
B&C

4. Kass describes the “Wisdom of repugnance” as:
intense revulsion that reveals internally logical inconsistencies about the deepest commitments of the person experiencing such revulsion
humanity’s natural tendency to act in accordance with divine revelation and against scientific intervention
the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power to fully articulate it
A formal argument against the morality of unnatural biomedical interventions

5. Kass attributes to “feminism and the gay rights movement”:
The perspective of “cloning in the context of rights”
The popular view “that natural heterosexual difference and its preeminence is a cultural construction”
“serious issues of identity and individuality.”

6. “The Non-Identity Problem & genetic Harms – the Case of Wrongful Handicaps”
Dan Brock

7. Non-Identity Problem Barbara wronged Billy
If Barbara wronged Billy, the only way she could have done it was by harming him.
The only way she could have harmed him is by making him worse off than he would have been otherwise.
Barbara did not make Billy worse off than he would have been otherwise.

8. Non Person-Affecting Principles
“Individuals are morally required not to let any possible child or other dependent person for whose welfare they are responsible experience serious suffering or limited opportunity if they can act so that, without imposing substantial burdens or costs on themselves or others, any alternative possible child or other dependent person for whose welfare they would be responsible will not experience serious suffering or limited opportunity.” N’
“It is morally good to act in a way that results in less suffering and less limited opportunity in the world.”
Identifies no specific person
Does not depend on “being worse off otherwise” for the very same person
It is “worse off” than another possible person.

9. Non Person-Affecting Principles
Objection
Response
“fails to identify the victim of the harm done”
Accept the non-identity problem…
Brock: “appeal to any person-affecting moral principles in cases of wrongful handicap … will mischaracterize the wrong done… Non person-affecting principles are correct for wrongful handicap cases because the non-identity problem at the heart of those cases makes the wrong that is done not done to the child and the handicap not a loss that is suffered by anyone.”

10. A non person-affecting principle is the best way to address the “wrongful handicap Case”
Strongly Agree
Agree
Somewhat Agree
Neutral
Somewhat Disagree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree

11. Which claim can you reject?
Barbara wronged Billy
If Barbara wronged Billy, the only way she could have done it was by harming him.
The only way she could have harmed him is by making him worse off than he would have been otherwise.
Barbara did not make Billy worse off than he would have been otherwise.

12. “The Wisdom of Repugnance”
Leon Kass

13. Leon Kass Writing in response to Dolly
Led George W. Bush’s The President's Council on Bioethics
Replaced Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission

14. Leon Kass
Not an academic philosopher (and does not always identify as a bioethicist)
Physician, public intellectual, policy, educator
Opponent of: abortion, euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, many biomedical enhancements (like life extension), and so on.
Common argument:
X is repugnant
Repugnance is evidence of unnaturalness
Unnaturalness is wrong
Therefore X is wrong.
First, we will discuss unnaturalness, then we will discuss repugnance.

15. The Wisdom of Repugnance
unnaturalness
Cloning is repugnant
Repugnance is evidence of unnaturalness
The wisdom of repugnance: “the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power to fully articulate it.”
Therefore cloning is unnatural.
NLT: “An action is right if and only if (and because) in performing the action one does not directly violate any of the basic values”:​ ​
Human Life​
Human Procreation (which includes raising children)​
Human Knowledge​
Human Sociability

16. The Wisdom of Repugnance
unnaturalness
Cloning is repugnant
Repugnance is evidence of unnaturalness
The wisdom of repugnance: “the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power to fully articulate it.”
Therefore cloning is unnatural.
If X is unnatural (in violating NLT values), then X is wrong.
X is unnatural
Therefore, X is wrong.
X: cloning, abortion, homosexuality, life extension, etc.

17. Unnatural?
A preference for naturalness used to be uncontroversial, but no longer, with cultural chances (like gay rights, feminism, science, bioethics, and popular culture). Cloning is unnatural (-- describes cloning technology) THE PROFUNDITY OF SEX “if sex has no intrinsic connection to generating babies, babies have no necessary connection to … the inherent procreative teleology of sex.”
1. If cloning violates NLT values, then X cloning wrong.
2. Cloning violates NLT values
3. Therefore, X is wrong.
Human Life​
Human Procreation (which includes raising children)​
Human Knowledge​
Human Sociability

18. The Wisdom of Repugnance
Repugnance argument
Cloning is repugnant
Repugnance is evidence of unnaturalness
The wisdom of repugnance: “the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power to fully articulate it.”
Therefore cloning is unnatural.

19. The Wisdom of Repugnance
Repugnance argument
Cloning is repugnant
Repugnance is evidence of unnaturalness
The wisdom of repugnance: “the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power to fully articulate it.”
Therefore cloning is unnatural.
Harris: “there is no necessary connection between phenomena, attitudes, or actions that make us uneasy, or even those that disgust us, and those phenomena, attitudes, and actions that there are good reasons for judging unethical. Nor does it follow that those things we are confident are unethical must be prohibited by legislation or regulation.”
Clones, Genes, and Immortality: Ethics and the Genetic Revolution

20. The Repugnance argument
Strongly Agree
Agree
Somewhat Agree
Neutral
Somewhat Disagree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree