John Terence Harris

The panic occasioned by the birth of Dolly sent international and national bodies and their representatives scurrying for principles with which to allay imagined public anxiety. It is instructive to note that principles are things of which such people and bodies so often seem to be bereft. The search for appropriate principles turned out to be difficult since so many aspects of the Dolly case were unprecedented. In the end, some fascinating examples of more or less plausible candidates for the status of moral principles were identified; central to many of them is the idea of human dignity and how it might be affected by human mitotic reproduction

When children are too young to make their ownautonomous decisions, decisions have to be madefor them. In certain contexts we allow parentsand others to make these decisions, and do notinterfere unless the decision clearly violatesthe best interest of the child. In othercontexts we put a priori limits on whatkind of decisions parents can make, and/or whatkinds of considerations they have to take intoaccount. Consent to medical research currentlyfalls into the second group mentioned here. Wewant to consider and ultimately reject one ofthe arguments put forward for putting medicalresearch into the second category. We willargue that some objections to children'sparticipation in research are either based onan implausibly restrictive conception of whatis in fact in the child's best interests orthat there is an implicit and false premisehidden in this argument; i.e., the premise thatour children have so deeply fallen into moralturpitude that we must assume that they wouldnot want to fulfill their moral obligations,or, that they will grow up to be morallydeficient and will then wish not to have actedwell while a child.

In a number of papers, including the one published in this journal, Robert Sparrow has mounted attacks on consequentialism using principally what he takes to be an important fact, which he believes constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of consequentialism in its many forms and of this author's approach to enhancement and disability in particular (see page 276). This fact is the current longer life expectancy of women when compared with men. Here the author argues that Sparrow's arguments and entire approach utterly fail. In doing so the author hopes to shed further light on the role of normalcy, normal species functioning and species-typical functioning in debates about enhancement and disability

This paper identifies human enhancement as one of the most significant areas of bioethical interest in the last twenty years. It discusses in more detail one area, namely moral enhancement, which is generating significant contemporary interest. The author argues that so far from being susceptible to new forms of high tech manipulation, either genetic, chemical, surgical or neurological, the only reliable methods of moral enhancement, either now or for the foreseeable future, are either those that have been in human and animal use for millennia, namely socialization, education and parental supervision or those high tech methods that are general in their application. By that is meant those forms of cognitive enhancement that operate across a wide range of cognitive abilities and do not target specifically ‘ethical’ capacities. The paper analyses the work of some of the leading contemporary advocates of moral enhancement and finds that in so far as they identify moral qualities or moral emotions for enhancement they have little prospect of success

In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes an ethical case for biotechnology that is both forthright and rigorous. Human enhancement, Harris argues, is a good thing--good morally, good for individuals, good as social policy, and good for a genetic heritage that needs serious improvement. Enhancing Evolution defends biotechnological interventions that could allow us to live longer, healthier, and even happier lives by, for example, providing us with immunity from cancer and HIV/AIDS. Further, Harris champions the possibility of influencing the very course of evolution to give us increased mental and physical powers--from reasoning, concentration, and memory to strength, stamina, and reaction speed. Indeed, he says, it's not only morally defensible to enhance ourselves; in some cases, it's morally obligatory. In a new preface, Harris offers a glimpse at the new science and technology to come, equipping readers with the knowledge to assess the ethics and policy dimensions of future forms of human enhancement.

This article looks at some of the chance discoveries and elegant ideas that were borne out through the availability of archived tissue samples. It then discusses some of the planned changes to the method and purpose of tissue storage and collection. The changes are in the form of new types of tissue bank, or biobank as they are conceived. These banks are part of a trend to move towards a preventative approach to public health rather than the current costly interventionist model. This approach is not without its problems and it is these that threaten the unfettered continuation of the tissue archive. The sophistication of new research tools can uncover information about individuals that may have a detrimental effect on their well-being in various ways. The article analyses these possibilities in the context of how health care might develop.

Biomedical research involving human participants is highly regulated and subject to stringent ethical requirements. Clinical research ethics, regulation and policy have tended to focus almost exclusively on the protection of participants' interests against harms that might result from taking part in research. Less consideration, however, has been given to the interests that patients may themselves have in research participation, even in trials that may be beyond the bounds of current clinical research practice. In this paper, we consider the case of a suggested extension to clinical trial protocols to explore the ethics of participation in ‘risky’ research. We argue that patients may have a strong interest in taking part in research, and that even when greater-than-usual risks may be present, such research can be both ethically and scientifically justified. Finally, we suggest that there might be scope in some cases to assert a right to participate in research, and that the possibility of such a right merits further consideration.

John Harris has previously proposed that there is a moral duty to participate in scientific research. This concept has recently been challenged by Iain Brassington, who asserts that the principles cited by Harris in support of the duty to research fail to establish its existence. In this paper we address these criticisms and provide new arguments for the existence of a moral obligation to research participation. This obligation, we argue, arises from two separate but related principles. The principle of fairness obliges us to support the social institutions which sustain us, of which research is one; while the principle of beneficence, or the duty of rescue, imposes upon us a duty to prevent harm to others, including by supporting potentially beneficial, even life-saving research. We argue that both these lines of argument support the duty to research, and explore further aspects of this duty, such as to whom it is owed and how it might be discharged.

The legitimacy of embryo research, use, and destruction is among the most important issues facing contemporary bioethics. In the preceding paper, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu took up an argument of John Harris and tried to find some new ways of avoiding its dramatic consequences. They noted that: “John Harris has argued that if … it is morally permissible to engage in reproduction … despite knowledge that a large number of embryos will fail to implant and quickly die, then … it is morally permissible to produce embryos for other purposes that involve killing them, for instance, to harvest stem cells” and suggest that this argument fails.

In this paper the permissibility of stem cell research on early human embryos is defended. It is argued that, in order to have moral status, an individual must have an interest in its own wellbeing. Sentience is a prerequisite for having an interest in avoiding pain, and personhood is a prerequisite for having an interest in the continuation of one's own existence. Early human embryos are not sentient and therefore they are not recipients of direct moral consideration. Early human embryos do not satisfy the requirements for personhood, but there are arguments to the effect that they should be treated as persons nonetheless. These are the arguments from potentiality, symbolic value and the principle of human dignity. These arguments are challenged in this paper and it is claimed that they offer us no good reason to believe that early human embryos should be treated as persons.

:In a recent paper in Nature1 entitled The Moral Machine Experiment, Edmond Awad, et al. make a number of breathtakingly reckless assumptions, both about the decisionmaking capacities of current so-called “autonomous vehicles” and about the nature of morality and the law. Accepting their bizarre premise that the holy grail is to find out how to obtain cognizance of public morality and then program driverless vehicles accordingly, the following are the four steps to the Moral Machinists argument:1)Find out what “public morality” will prefer to see happen.2)On the basis of this discovery, claim both popular acceptance of the preferences and persuade would-be owners and manufacturers that the vehicles are programmed with the best solutions to any survival dilemmas they might face.3)Citizen agreement thus characterized is then presumed to deliver moral license for the chosen preferences.4)This yields “permission” to program vehicles to spare or condemn those outside the vehicles when their deaths will preserve vehicle and occupants.This paper argues that the Moral Machine Experiment fails dramatically on all four counts.

The Future of Human Reproduction brings together new work, by an international group of contributors from various fields and perspectives, on ethical, social, and legal issues raised by recent advances in reproductive technology. These advances have put us in a position to choose what kindsof children and parents there should be; the aim of the essays is to illuminate how we should deal with these possibilities for choice. Topics discussed include gender and race selection, genetic engineering, fertility treatment, ovarian tissue transfer, and post-menopausal pregnancy. The centralfocus of the volume is the interface between reproductive choice and public regulation.