Should we change the human genome?

Should we change the human genome? The most general arguments against changing the human genome are here in focus. Distinctions are made between positive and negative gene therapy, between germ-line and somatic therapy, and between therapy where the intention is to benefit a particular individual (a future child) and where the intention is to benefit the human gene-pool. Some standard arguments against gene-therapy are dismissed. Negative somatic therapy is not controversial. Even negative, germ-line therapy is endorsed, if the intention is to cure a certain individual (a future child). In rare cases, positive therapy on somatic cells may be warranted. Germ-line therapy may become a valuable method of preventing harm, through ‘genetic vaccination’. If safe methods evolve, it is harmless (though vain), to try to achieve more ambitious goals. Prospective parents should not be prevented from exercising this harmless kind of parental authority. The paper concludes: Thereis a moral limit to how much we ought to manipulate the human genome, however. We ought not to jeopardize the continued existence of mankind. We ought not to develop methods of germ-line therapy intended in a radical manner to improve human nature, and we ought to leave to prospective parents to decide in individual cases what kind of intervention shall take place.     

Should we study the Hippocratic Oath?

In this commentary on a study by H. Steven Moffic, et al., of the current status of the Hippocratic Oath in medical education, Veatch discusses the relation of the oath to ethical conduct, the meaning of primum non nocere ("do no harm"), and the limitations of practicing Hippocratic ethics.     

What Should we Hope?

Philosophia - In this paper I propose an interpretation of Kant’s notion of the highest good which bears political, ethical, and religious layers simultaneously. I argue that a proper...     

When Should we Regret?

In this paper, I develop and defend the ‘Justified Decision Perspective’ (JDP) in answer to the question of when we should regret the things we have done. I claim that one should not regret a past decision one has made so long as it was justified in relation to the kind of person one was at the time of acting. On this time-indexing account, judging a decision to be justified – at least for the purposes of assessing one’s regrets – is a matter of identifying the practical reasons that were epistemically available to the agent when she was deliberating about what to do. Accordingly, when responding to her regrets, an agent should not invoke (a) reasons that existed but were epistemically unavailable to her when she was deliberating; or (b) reasons that only came into existence after she acted. The JDP has important implications for prospective regret. In particular, it implies we should worry less about experiencing regret in the future than many of us do. Thus, my overall aim is to show that we often have reason to reject our regrets, which means that regret should play a less prominent and painful role in our lives than it does currently.     

Should we ration health care?

Journal of Medical Humanities - The paper begins by drawing a distinction between “allocation” — the distribution of resources between different categories, and...     

Should we design our descendants?

Rapid breakthroughs in genetic research spurred by the Human Genome Project, advances in molecular biology, and new reproductive technologies are raising the prospect that we may eventually have the technical capacity to modify genes that are transmitted to future generations not only to treat or eliminate diseases but also to "enhance" normal human characteristics beyond what is necessary to sustain or restore good health. This paper explores the ethical and justice implications of such genetic modifications. It argues against developing these technologies primarily because it will not be possible to counter the deleterious justice impacts. It recommends the need for public education and public discussion, preferably with the religious community taking an active role, to shape decisions about future genetic research and applications, and for better regulation of genetic technologies with the potential for inheritable genetic alterations.     

Did Pearson reject the Neyman-Pearson philosophy of statistics?

I document some of the main evidence showing that E. S. Pearson rejected the key features of the behavioral-decision philosophy that became associated with the Neyman-Pearson Theory of statistics (NPT). I argue that NPT principles arose not out of behavioral aims, where the concern is solely with behaving correctly sufficiently often in some long run, but out of the epistemological aim of learning about causes of experimental results (e.g., distinguishing genuine from spurious effects). The view Pearson did hold gives a deeper understanding of NPT tests than their typical formulation as accept-reject routines, against which criticisms of NPT are really directed. The Pearsonian view that emerges suggests how NPT tests may avoid these criticisms while still retaining what is central to these methods: the control of error probabilities.A portion of this research was carried out during tenure of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Fellowship; I gratefully acknowledge that support. A version of this paper was presented at the 1987 meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy. This paper benefited from discussions and communications with George Barnard and Isaac Levi. I thank Harlan Miller for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Characterizing typographic expertise: Do we process typefaces like faces?

Studies of face recognition and discrimination provide a rich source of data and debate on the nature of their processing, in particular through using inverted faces. This study draws parallels between the features of typefaces and faces, as letters share a basic configuration, regardless of typeface, that could be seen as similar to faces. Typeface discrimination is compared using paragraphs of upright letters and inverted letters at three viewing durations. Based on previously reported effects of expertise, the prediction that designers would be less accurate when letters are inverted, whereas nondesigners would have similar performance in both orientations, was confirmed. A proposal is made as to which spatial relations between typeface components constitute holistic and configural processing, posited as the basis for better discrimination of the typefaces of upright letters. Such processing may characterize designers' perceptual abilities, acquired through training.     

Should the probabilities count?

When facing a choice between saving one person and saving many, some people have argued that fairness requires us to decide without aggregating numbers; rather we should decide by coin toss or some form of lottery, or alternatively we should straightforwardly save the greater number but justify this in a non-aggregating contractualist way. This paper expands the debate beyond well-known number cases to previously under-considered probability cases, in which not (only) the numbers of people, but (also) the probabilities of success for saving people vary. It is shown that, in these latter cases, both the coin toss and the lottery lead to what is called an awkward conclusion, which makes probabilities count in a problematic way. Attempts to avoid this conclusion are shown to lead into difficulties as well. Finally, it is shown that while the greater number method cannot be justified on contractualist grounds for probability cases, it may be replaced by another decision method which is so justified. This decision method is extensionally equivalent to maximising expected value and seems to be the least problematic way of dealing with probability cases in a non-aggregating manner.