Genetic Essentialisim and Embroy Identitiy.

This is a difficult position to defend, even from a standpoint to embryonic identity. However this situation only worsens when we begin to consider things other than embryo’s. It seems difficult to suggest that a persons identity is constituted by his genome and whenever there is a mutation or alteration in it occurs then his identity changes. This seems strange, if this was the case then our identity would change regularly, I would not be the same person on a regular basis. Admittedly Zohars attempts to limit his claims to embryo’s but even here there appears to be problems. Yes he is right in that if a small portion of genetic material is changed or mutated from one moment to the next with and embryo that the embryo’s are no longer strictly identical, in the sense that everything about them is the same. Almost everything about them is identical to what it was previously, they are continuous spatio-temporally and are still perform the same functions as they did previously.As with persons changes, even some quite radical changes, such as the loss of limbs or sight do not by themselves change a persons identity from what it was previously.

Genetic Essentialisim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no history or continuity that we can point to with respect to embryo’s who thinks that this conception “can be of little help in determining embryonic identity through genetic alteration.” He therefore seeks to find an alternative viewpoint on identity that he can apply to the issue of embryonic identity. To begin this search Zohar considers the tale of the ship of Theseus his contention that “what primarily characterizes this ship is the particulars of how it runs, how it specifically functions as a ship." His claim is that the fact that we consider the ship to be the same ship despite the replacement of parts of it “is grounded in the primacy of functional organization.”He then goes on to suggest that if the ship was a self constructing unit with its own built in blueprints, then these blueprints would be central to its identity. This he claims is similar genetic makeup; “is not genetic makeup such an enhanced set of blueprints.”He does however acknowledge that in postnatal humans that while geneotype is an important part of a persons identity it is not the only one. This is not the case he claims with embryo’s “at the embryonic stage, all we have to go by is the genotype. If there is any sense at all in which considering the embryo’s existence to be the beginning (or: origin) of a particular human life, then it surely comes down to the fact that once the genotype has been specified, personal identity has been significantly determined.”It is Zohars claim that what is the important and relevant factor for embryonic identity is a persons genome.

Human Clonning and "The Matter of Whiteness"

The article "The Matter of Whiteness" by Richard Dyer, brings up some very important points about the way we treat the topic of race. It is true that it is always in play with how we think and how we make certain decisions. Do I think it is right? Absolutely not. I do believe that to a certain extent, we can't help it. As humans, we naturally categorize people and make judgements, not to be mean, but to better understand our surroundings. So in essence, everyone is a little bit racist. However, the line is drawn at saying negative comments or letting the aspect of race to be a deterent on decisions. One claim that I absolutely disagree with in this article is that being white means that we are non-raced. I can not count how many times I've been called a "white girl" or a white women. Just because that is not as frequent of an occurence in our society doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. Being a racist is not just a white thing. In my personal experience, I have been judged and spoke badly of for my color than I have ever done to a person of a different race. I do admit that the terms like "black" are used to describe people and I am not innocent of refering to people like that.

Genetic Engineering can cope with diversity...

Personally, I think the content in this article is highly controversial and it will be something that is argued about for decades. Even as the science becomes available, I do not think that it will be accepted. Both of the therapies discussed in the article are, in my opinion, opening a can of worms. The germ line therapy is the one that I believe has more ramifications. The idea is that you can essentially alter all of the genetic “errors” in an unborn child. The problem is who will decide what the errors really are. Some will view the errors as the serious and life threatening diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and Down syndrome. What about the people that view a certain race as a genetic error? Are we really going to allow the elimination of a race because someone views it as an error? Another part of the article that really struck a nerve was the decision of the parents to alter their unborn child. The fact that if they decide not to alter their child it would be considered as child abuse or as a heinous crime really bothers me. It is a parent’s decision whether or not to change their child.

Genetic engineering and Human Clonning

Hypothermia particularly in severe cases is rightly considered a malady in Bio Technology

An important part of the definition offered by Gert is that for a condition to be considered a malady there must be an absence of an external distinct sustaining cause. There must not be a cause that is linked to the condition in such a way that the harm or evil associated with the condition is only present when the cause is and if the cause is removed then so too is the harm or evil associated with the condition. For a condition to count as a malady, the harm caused by the condition must still be present even if the cause of the condition is removed. For example, suppose I apply an electrical current to you cause to pain without doing any actual damage to you either mentally or physically. Furthermore this pain does not remain after the removal of the current. Even though while I was administering the current you would be suffering pain, which as has been shown is a harm or evil, which should be avoided, you could not be said to be suffering from a malady. For as soon as I removed the current, the pain would also cease. The harmful condition pain, would have a distinct sustaining cause, that of the electricity that I am passing through your body. If, however, by passing an electrical current through your body on a number of occasions, I caused a harmful condition, either physical (there was actual damage to parts of your body, such as burn, or organs whose activities were compromised) or mental (a rational fear of being in a room with strangers with electrical cables) that continued after the current stopped, then you could be suffering from a malady. A more problematic example may be that of hypothermia, where it could be suggested that the sustaining cause is intense cold and if that is removed then so is the hypothermia, and so hypothermia does not count as a malady. This however is not entirely correct, unlike in the case of non-harmful electroshock, when a person is removed from intense cold, the condition does not abate immediately. In fact hypothermia may actually cause long-term damage to the person’s body. It is possible therefore that hypothermia particularly in severe cases is rightly considered a malady.

Increased risk of suffering harms and evils associated with the condition...

An analogous situation would be a person who has been infected by AIDS, but has not yet developed symptoms of the condition, that is they are HIV positive. People who are HIV positive are and rightly should be considered to be suffering from a malady, even though they have not developed any symptoms. This is because they are at an increased risk of suffering harms and evils associated with the condition. Another condition that should be considered to be a malady and mirrors the situation of Huntington disease closely is high blood pressure. People are routinely considered to be suffering from a malady if they have high blood pressure. This is at least in part due to the increased risks of developing other conditions, such as heart attack, which will cause them considerable suffering. It is clear that if we consider a person who is HIV positive or someone who has high blood pressure to be suffering from a malady, then a person who has the gene for Huntington disease should also be considered to have a malady: a genetic malady. This being the case, if there were genetic interventions that would stop or greatly reduce the risk of a person with the Huntington gene from developing the condition, which were safe, effective and morally permissible, then the person with the Huntington gene would have a similar call for medical assistance that those persons who are HIV positive or who have high blood pressure have in relation to their respective conditions.

Can rightly be said to be suffering from a genetic malady....

We can also unproblematically classify a large portion of conditions that have a genetic base as not being maladies. If we consider eye colour as an example, the difference between a genetic malady and a characteristic that simply has a genetic basis can clearly be seen. Eye colour does not have a distinct sustaining cause, since it is the result of the genetic makeup of the person in question. However unlike Tay-Sachs or sickle cell anaemia there is neither suffering nor an increased risk of suffering, harm or evil as a result of the colour of a person’s eyes. So, even though eye colouration is something that is determined by genetic makeup, the fact that it does not cause suffering or increased risk of suffering a harm or evil, means that it cannot be defined as a genetic malady.

While the difference between Tay-Sachs and sickle cell anaemia and eye colour in relation to their status as maladies can clearly be seen, the situation is not as clear with other conditions that have a genetic basis. Take, for example, a person who develops Huntington disease. There is no doubt they are suffering from a malady and, as it is caused by the person’s genetic structure it can be classified as a genetic malady. What of the person who through screening in their late teens or early twenties discovers they have the gene that causes Huntington disease? It would appear that we can correctly say that this person is suffering from a genetic malady. This is because a person with the Huntington’s gene has a far greater risk of developing the disease and therefore suffering the harms and evils associated with it than does the general population. There is also no distinct sustaining cause of the suffering it results from his or her genetic makeup. Therefore it is the case that someone who has the gene for Huntington disease but has not yet developed the disease can rightly be said to be suffering from a genetic malady.

What is a Genetic maladies...

There are a number of conditions it seems fairly unproblematic to classify as being genetic maladies; such as Tay-Sachs disease or sickle cell anaemia. These conditions are already considered to be maladies and their occurrence is directly related to the person’s genetic makeup. Someone with a disease such as Tay-Sachs or sickle cell anaemia will suffer considerable harms or evils, the harm is not a result of the person’s rational beliefs or desires and there is not distinct external sustaining cause. It is the internal genetic makeup of the person that is the cause of the disease; therefore the person has a malady, a genetic malady.

A little to stop individuals undergoing genetic interventions...

Before moving on to this however, it is necessary to point out that with respect to enhancements, if our technology developed in such a way as to allow somatic cell interventions that could be contained within the recipient with a high degree of certainty, then there would be little to stop individuals undergoing genetic interventions that would otherwise by considered unacceptable. There is a caveat on this suggestion however, and that is that in most cases interventions that were of a radical nature, say growing extra arms or having skin that changed colour at varying intervals would and should not be paid for out of the public purse. Anyone who wanted an intervention that was of this nature would have to be willing to pay for the procedures themselves. Public funding for genetic interventions should in my view whether or not they are somatic or germ-line be restricted to those interventions that fall within the boundary of treatment and those that are publicly acceptable forms of enhancement. This position will be further discussed later when the issues of social justice and the effects of germ-line interventions are considered.

acceptable and unacceptable forms of enhancement of Bio Technology...

The problem when considering drawing a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forms of enhancement is that of justification, given the plurality of views about what constitutes the good life and how one can best achieve this. There will lead to significant differences in what particular people consider to be acceptable forms of enhancement. Some might think that enhancements are acceptable are those that improve a person’s mental faculties, but find physical improvements to muscle size, strength, and flexibility are unacceptable, because the latter are not part of their conception of the good life. Another person may believe completely the opposite to be the case. For this reason, we need to develop a method of determining the moral acceptability that allows for individual conceptions of the good life to be encompassed, while protecting the rights of individuals that will be affected by these enhancements. This is of particular importance if these enhancements take the form of germ-line interventions aimed at passing on specific characteristics to future offspring who are also entitled to for their own views of what they choose to pursue in their lives

The second view is that virtually all enhancements are acceptable...

what is required of us is to use genetic interventions to produce the best possible people that can be produced. The first and most obvious objection to this kind of thinking is who decides what counts as the best? Is it something that should be decided on by individuals, for both themselves and their offspring or is it something that should be decided by societies or governments or specialist committees designed for the very purpose of determining what is good? It seems that everyone is entitled to decide for themselves, within certain limits what their conception of the Good Life is and to have the opportunity to live that. The view that not only are all enhancements acceptable but should be pursued goes against that idea, by restricting conceptions of the Good Life to those that fall into a tightly predetermined range. None of these options are without difficulties, including problems such as access to technologies and the possibility of nightmare like eugenic situation developing. The proponent of this sort of viewpoint has a large amount of work to do to convince us that such a Carte Blanc approach to genetic enhances is morally acceptable.

Genetic enhancements which are an opposite extremes....

Before coming to a conclusion about whether or not there are actually any conditions that can be considered to be legitimate targets for enhancement, we need to establish a methodology for determining what would be acceptable. Once we have established this it is then possible for us to assess various claims with respect to the status of conditions or procedures to determine whether they fall within the boundary of acceptable enhancements.
If we begin by considering two viewpoints on genetic enhancements which are an opposite extremes and that are seriously flawed, we will have a starting point from which a more sensible account can be constructed. The first view is that all enhancements are unacceptable. There are a number of problems with this view. The first is that there are some hard borderline cases. Let us for a moment suppose that IQ becomes something, as easy to alter as eye colour, and further that if a person has an IQ of under 60 they are considered to have a malady that should be corrected. In this case a number of problems arise for the advocates of the all enhancements are unacceptable view. Take for example a person who has an IQ of 50. Clearly they fall into the treatment category and should be able to access genetic interventions to correct their condition. What does correction mean in this case? Does it mean that, because enhancements are unacceptable, that the IQ of the person in question can only be raised to the minimum acceptable level; 60? If this is the case then, the value of the procedure as a treatment seems small. If treatments were only meant to bring people up a very minimal level of functionality, then a large number of medical procedures we take for granted today seem to be ruled out by this minimal functionality story, which is an unacceptable conclusion. A procedure as simple as that of setting a broken bone would become problematic under this minimal functionality position as a person with broken arm, but nothing else wrong with them would appear to still be minimally functional. There would appear to be no reason for us to need to properly fix the arm in question because the person would still be able to function reasonably well and probably somewhat more than minimally even if the arm was never attended to and as a result became unusable.

Somatic cell germ-line distinction is a problematic method...

The germ-line distinction is a problematic method of demarcating acceptable from unacceptable genetic interventions I suggest that we should adopt a method of demarcation that grows out of the concept of a malady discussed earlier. The distinction I will be showing to be both useful and justifiable will be one that is based around the treatment/enhancement model, using the definition of a malady for the determination of those interventions that fall into the category of treatments and those that do not. I will also show that on the enhancement side of the equation, not all enhancements should be treated as having the same morally problematic status. I will show that the distinction should in fact be a three part one with lines being drawn between treatments, acceptable enhancements, and unacceptable enhancements. It is this distinction between acceptable and unacceptable enhancements that will occupy the next section of this chapter. Once the ground for determining moral acceptability in terms of enhancements has been established, the entire schema will be brought together, so criticisms of it can be answered. The schema of distinctions will also be shown to be useful in assisting us with other problematic areas and criticisms of genetic interventions

Sorts of genetic interventions that are acceptable...

the treatment/enhancement distinction has been seen as a means of deciding between those sorts of genetic interventions that are acceptable and those that are not, it does not fully answer the questions asked about these procedures. With the use of the concept of genetic maladies, the treatment side of the distinction seems able to cope quite well with objections raised against it; it is the other side of the distinction that requires more work. There are a number of reasons for looking further at the enhancement side of the equation. The first of these is that there may be conditions or states of a person that, though not falling within the boundaries of genetic maladies may nevertheless be worthwhile candidates, both in terms of particular persons and for society in general, for genetic intervention. The second reason is that there may be disagreement between differing groups with respect to the status of certain procedures. It may be the case that treatment of certain conditions, such as deafness, which seem to fall within the domain of a malady, may be viewed by other groups, particularly a deaf societal community, as unacceptable both because they do not view it as a necessary treatment, or because they view being deaf vital with respect to their community because they do not regard it as malady. We need a method of determining those conditions, which are not candidates for treatment, but which are nonetheless legitimate targets for enhancement genetic intervention.

Genetic engineering effects in the decision making role of a child...

If we are to believe the conception that children are simply miniature adults and have rights commensurate with this, then we are doing a disservice to both parents and children and putting unnecessary strain on the parent/child relationship. It does mean however that at least for a number of years, it is the parents who are in the decision-making role for the child, it is not until the child begins to speak and be able to express their wishes on certain things that negotiation with respect to the child’s wishes can even begin. Of course as the child matures and their ability to formulate and express their wishes and desires increases, then it makes sense that they should be allowed to have more input into their life choices, as they are after all the ones that have to live with these choices.

Clinical childhood obesity can treat through Bio Technology…

The first problem here is what is to be classified as neglect and this becomes particularly relevant when we consider the minimal expectations of parents put forward earlier. Obviously if a child is not being fed or the actions of the parents in some other way endanger the life of the child directly then there seems to be no problem. But what about the situation where a seven year old is left alone in his home every night after school, from 3.00pm until 7.00pm without any parental supervision. All of the other aspects of the child’s life are being catered for, they are being fed and clothed, it is just that the parent/s of the child are required to work until 7.00pm in the evening. Does leaving a child this young alone consistently satisfy a definition of neglect? Are the parents of children whose dietary habits are such that they become clinically obese at an early age and continue this trend as they mature to be considered to be neglecting their child, due to the problems associated later in life with clinical childhood obesity? If we think that there are problems with these cases, then if we accept the contention that governments should only intervene when there are cases of neglect or abandonment, then we will need to accept that while the parents of these children may be doing something we disapprove of, but that the government can not intervene as they are still within their rights as parents. If we are not willing to accept this then we will need to widen the view of what it means to neglect a child and doing this may have implications that include increasing government intervention in the parent/child relationship, into areas where we have clear intuitions that they should not intervene.

Bio technology can remove the disability some pros and cons…

Here suggesting that there are not cases where it is both obvious and necessary for young children to be removed from or be able to leave homes where they are subjected to abuse and neglect. No parent can claim the protection of some kind of right, in order to justify their ill treatment of their child. Neither however can we claim that parents do not have some rights in relation to the child. The twin conceptions of parental obligations and parental rights are not mutually exclusive, we can develop a model of the parent/child relationship, that both acknowledges the fact that parents have some very strong obligations to their children, but also acknowledges that this is not a one sides affair, that parents can and do have rights, particularly in relation to how these obligations are fulfilled and the depth of state interference in the process of parenting.

Oversimplify relationship Through Cloning between parent and child is lost...

Montague is right when he suggests that parents have obligations with respect to their children. They have the obligation to raise and nurture their children in such a way that they are able to enjoy meaningful lives both currently and as they mature towards their own adulthood. To say however, that these obligations are all that exists seems to oversimplify the relationship between parent and child. Intuitively at least we think that a child has done something wrong, or is at least ungrateful, when without justification, it strikes out against the well intention, good parent. We think there is something wrong when young teens are allowed to, by social systems, to leave homes were there is no abuse and where they have been cared and nurtured for over a decade by loving parents, and the parents are not allowed to even know where the child is. It is this intuition at the very least that leads me to think that Montague’s account is wrong. Surely Montague is not saying that he thinks it is appropriate for a ten year old child to decide that, despite the fact there home life has been better than average, they want to leave home and that we should accept and acknowledge this decision and commit resources to allowing it. Alternatively, perhaps under his conception of parental obligations, the parents would be forced, by the state, to continue to financially support their child even though the child had declined this support from within the home.

Is Genetic Engineering emphasis safety of a child…?

The motivation behind Montague’s concern in his paper is one of safety of children, from the obvious possible abuses of parents’, which he believes is or would be more prevalent under systems construing the relationship between parent and child in terms of parental rights. He quotes cases such as the 1982 “baby doe” case, the incident with the Branch Davidians at Waco and the “baby Jessica” adoption case as examples of the sorts of problems that can arise from a system based on parental rights. Montague says with respect to these cases that “if the parents involved in them are exercising parental rights, then it would appear that they have rights to act in ways that are detrimental to their children a result that is problematic at best.” One straightforward answer to the problem Montague raises is that in the cases he has outlined above, and in other cases of abuse and neglect, the parents may have overstepped the boundaries of their rights. Not many people would attempt to elucidate a theory of parental rights, or the parent/child relationship, where their parent had absolute and inviolable rights of the child. This view would be very similar if not identical to the ownership view that was discussed earlier and this view is one that is clearly not an appropriate model of the parent/child relationship.