Stephen Napier

Contemporary philosophical discussion on human embryonic stem cell research has focused primarily on the metaphysical and meta-ethical issues suchresearch raises. Though these discussions are interesting, largely ignored are arguments rooted in the secular research ethics tradition already informing humansubject research. This tradition countenances the notion of vulnerability and that vulnerable human subjects (of which human embryos are likely members)ought to be protected from research-related harms. This is the basic idea behind the argument from vulnerability, and it enjoys prima facie plausibility. This articlepresents the vulnerability argument and then focuses critically on several lines of attack including: (1) twinning and totipotency arguments, (2) embryo-rescuearguments, and (3) natural loss arguments. The article concludes that there is no good defeater for the vulnerability argument, and, therefore, we have undefeated reasons for protecting human embryos from research related harms.

Most philosophers will grant that on some issues and in some circumstances, we can acquire knowledge from another. But when it comes to moral knowledge, the presumption is on the side of autonomy; we must not rely on others for our moral beliefs. I argue here for the surprising thesis that in some circumstances we must rely on others in order to acquire moral knowledge. I believe that this, or something trivially different, is a position that Leibniz would hold. When woven together, his comments on teaching, authority, errors of conscience, and testimony provide concrescent support for this surprising thesis.

It is common in bioethical discussion to present thought experiments or cases in order to construct an argument. Some thought experiments are quite illuminating, and ethical theorizing will often appeal at some point to one’s intuitions. But there are cases in which thought experiments are useless or do not contribute to the argument. This article considers cases presented in the context of stem cell research that are destructive of human embryos. I argue that certain popular cases that are meant to motivate the view that such research is permissible either are dialectically useless or do not contribute to the argument. By dialectically useless, I mean that the cases analyzed here yield intuitions in people who are already committed to the permissibility of such research. I end with some reflections that challenge the reliability of our intuitions on applied ethics issues by suggesting that thought experiments in this field are dubious from the start. My argument should not be read to support moral skepticism but to urge that our inquiries on applied issues requires certain intellectual virtues.

There is debate among virtue epistemologists concerning what is the nature of an intellectual virtue. Linda Zagzebski in Virtues of the Mind , for instance, argues that an intellectual virtue has both a success and motivational component. Furthermore, Zagzebski defines knowledge with reference to acts of intellectual virtue. An agent S knows p iff S performs an act of intellectual virtue in forming the belief that p. This means that Zagzebski is committed to the counter-intuitive claim that low-grade knowledge requires the agent to be epistemically motivated to form such low-grade beliefs. In this project I look at empirical research in cognitive psychology which suggests that epistemic motivations are involved in low-grade processing. Research on the role of attention in vision and memory suggests that attentional focus is necessary in order to have low-grade knowledge. And research on the relationship between motivation and attentional processing suggests that motivation informs attentional operations. The next step in the argument aims to show that such motivations are epistemic in that they are motivations to attain a cognitive state whose value is alethically related. Thus, one's epistemic motivations are necessary for low-grade knowledge. The second half of my project turns to higher-grade knowledge, i.e., testimony. It is here that I apply Zagzebski's account of knowledge to testimony. I do this to give a heretofore counterexample free definition of testimonial knowledge. Altogether, the project shows how Zagzebski's theory can account for the major modes by which we acquire empirical knowledge.