Gardar Arnason

In my two case studies that follow this chapter, I rely heavily on Foucault’s analysis of power/knowledge relations as I attempt to practice the sort of critique which I am here calling politics of truth. This chapter will therefore be focused on Foucault’s idea of power, the relation between power and knowledge, the application of power/knowledge analysis to natural sciences, and the “politics of truth.” In the first section I consider the development of the concept of power in Foucault’s work of the early seventies and then how Foucault used it in Discipline and Punish to analyse the practice of incarceration and in The History of Sexuality to analyse attitudes toward sexuality. The second section is concerned with the relation between knowledge and power. I argue that although power/knowledge relations are diverse and must be studied in their particular and concrete details, there are two general (overlapping) types of power/knowledge relations that can be identified in Foucault’s historical analyses. One has to do with how humans are classified, labelled and studied; the other has to do with biopower, i.e., how, on one hand, populations are managed (“bio-politics of the population”), and, on the other hand, how individuals are disciplined (“anatomo-politics of the human body”).

In this book I have attempted to develop a critical approach to science, which I call “politics of truth,” and apply it to two cases, namely the scientific studies of left-handers and Icelanders. In way of conclusion, let me look back and draw together what I have done so far. Following the first chapter’s introduction, I discuss in the second chapter Foucault’s archaeology, somewhat as a prelude. I argued that Foucault only applied archaeology, as an explicit method, in The Order of Things, and, following a critical overview of Foucault’s Archaeology of Method, I concluded that archaeology is poorly served by discussing it purely on a theoretical level. Archaeology stands and falls with its application in concrete historical cases.

In this chapter I discuss plans that were made in Iceland to establish a database with health, genetic and genealogical data for the entire nation. I first describe these plans in some detail and then discuss their relation to the discredited eugenics discourse and how that discourse together with the promises of a genetics revolution was deployed to produce a docile research population. In this case the Foucauldian biopolitics of the population is concentrated on a population of a single nation as a research population, for the benefit of science and the economy.

Scientific knowledge has all sorts of effects on us. It can, for instance, change how we see ourselves, our relations to each other and how we relate to the environment. We can call these effects of scientific knowledge “power effects,” and we can call scientific discourses “discourses of truth”—in so far as scientific knowledge makes a greater claim to truth than anything else in our times. When we are under pressure to change how we see ourselves, our relations to each other or how we relate to the environment, then it may very well be the case that this pressure gets its force from the authority of science as a discourse of truth. Sometimes we are subjugated by a discourse of truth, perhaps because we happily, apathetically or uncritically accept its authority and power, perhaps because we just do not know how to resist it. We may get particularly worried if the scientific knowledge in question is knowledge about us, or about a set of individuals to which we belong.

In this chapter and the next I engage in two case studies. The first concerns left-handed people and studies aimed at answering the question of whether left-handers have reduced longevity compared to right-handers. (A version of this chapter has appeared as “Biopolitics and the Longevity of Left-Handers” (Árnason 2017), where I discuss the research on left-handers and longevity in a slightly different context.) In the first section I shall begin by briefly discussing the history of left-handedness and, in the second section, how this phenomenon emerged as an object of scientific study. In the third section, I shall discuss in some detail three studies on the longevity of left-handers. In the fourth and last section I discuss the production of knowledge about left-handers in the context of the modern régime of truth.

​This book offers a clear analysis of Foucault’s work on scientific knowledge and its relationship to individuals and society. It suggests a way of using Foucault’s tools for science criticism and resistance, while avoiding the pitfalls of vulgar relativism or irrational anti-science views. Two cases of scientific conflict are considered. The first considers left-handers as subjects of science, in particular studies which purport to show that left-handers die on average younger than right-handers. The second case considers Icelanders as subjects of science in the context of a partly failed attempt to construct a genetic database encompassing the entire nation.The book will be of interest to bioethicists and philosophers who are concerned with the interaction between science and its human subjects, as well as scholars concerned with Foucault’s work on science.

This editorial delves into the conceptual and ethical challenges related to research on neural organoids and neural chimeras. Neural organoids—three-dimensional models of (parts of) the human brain derived from human stem cells—are used to study brain development, diseases, and potential therapies. These advances have led to significant ethical, epistemic and governance issues being raised, most notably regarding the potential for consciousness and the attribution of moral status to artificially created entities. The contributions to this collection examine a broad range of conceptual, ethical and legal questions. Key epistemic issues include the fundamental question of whether and how consciousness or sentience could emerge in organoids, and what criteria should be used to define and detect such states. Apart from theoretical models of consciousness, the role of similarity-based views in precautionary ethics, as well as conditions and implications of moral status ascription to neural organoids and chimeras are explored. Furthermore, the ethical dimensions of neural organoid transplantation in animals, and the potential need for particular ethical guidelines and legal regulations for neural organoid and chimera research, including concerns with regard to the patentability of organoids with consciousness-like features are discussed. This collection underscores the necessity of integrating epistemological and ethical insights and the importance of broad interdisciplinary discourse to navigate the ethical landscape of neural organoid and chimera research.

Is there any justification for the common practice of allocating expensive medical resources to rescue a few from rare diseases, when those resources could be used to treat devastating diseases that affect the many? Does the use of Prozac and other anti-depressants make us inauthentic beings? Is it immoral and irrational to have children? What is the force of examples and counterexamples in bioethics? What are the relevance of moral intuition and the role of empirical evidence in bioethical argument? What notion of “function” underlies accounts of the distinction between normality and disease and between therapy and enhancement? Is there an inherent conflict between research aimed at therapy and research aimed at gaining knowledge, such that the very notion of “therapeutic research” is an oxymoron? The twenty-one chapters in this volume strive, through the use of high quality argument and analysis, to get a good deal clearer concerning a range of issues _in _bioethics, and a range of issues_ about _bioethics. The essays are provocative, indeed, some quite radical and disturbing, as they call into question many common methodological and substantive assumptions in bioethics.

Brain research in neuroscience and related fields is changing our understanding of the brain and its relation to the mind and to human behavior, giving a new impetus to the problem of free will and moral responsibility. The reactions have covered the entire range, from claims to the effect that neuroscientific research is showing that our folkrnason, Ph.D., is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Social and Moral Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests include bioethics, neuroethics, and the philosophy of science. He coedited The Ethics and Governance of Human Genetic Databases and Blood and Data: Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Human Genetic Databases.FootnotesThe research for this paper was conducted as a part of Neuroscience and Norms: Ethical and Legal Aspects of Norms in Neuroimaging / Ethical Concepts and Norms, a project funded by the Academy of Finland

The Weatherall report on the use of non-human primates in research was published in 2006. Its main conclusion was that there is a strong scientific case for the use of non-human primates in some cases, but the report stressed the importance of evaluating each case in the light of the availability of alternatives. In addition to arguing for the scientific necessity of using non-human primates in research, the report also provided an ethical justification. As could be expected, the report was harshly criticised by animal rights groups, but in the academic literature, only two critical replies appeared. In what follows, I will describe the ethical justification for non-human primate research as it is laid out in the Weatherall report and then consider the criticism in the academic literature. I conclude that the report’s ethical justification for the use of non-human primates in research, in particular in basic neuroscientific research, has not been convincingly challenged by its critics. Since the criticism of the report is limited and represents only a small part of the academic discussion about the use of non-human primates in research, and a still smaller part of the ethical discussion about animal research, it is important that the discussion continue both at the academic and social level.

Following the Second Summit on Human Gene Editing in Hong Kong in 2018, where the birth of two girls with germline genome editing was revealed, the need for a responsible pathway to the clinical application of human germline genome editing has been repeatedly emphasised. This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion on research ethics issues in germline genome editing by exploring key issues related to the initial applications of CRISPR in reproductive medicine. Following an overview of the current discussion on bringing germline genome editing into clinical practice, we outline the specific challenges associated with such interventions and the features that distinguish them from conventional clinical testing of new medical treatments. We then review proposed ethical requirements for initial heritable genome editing, such as the absence of reasonable alternatives, the existence of sufficient and reliable preclinical data, appropriate informed consent, requirements related to safety, and long-term follow-up.

This article discusses the roles of ethicists in the governance of synthetic biology. I am particularly concerned with the idea of self-regulation of bioscience and its relationship to public discourse about ethical issues in bioscience. I will look at the role of philosophical ethicists at different levels and loci, from the “embedded ethicist” in the laboratory or research project, to ethicists’ impact on policy and public discourse. In a democratic society, the development of governance frameworks for emerging technologies, such as synthetic biology, needs to be guided by a well-informed public discourse. In the case of synthetic biology, the public discourse has to go further than merely considering technical issues of biosafety and biosecurity, or risk management, to consider more philosophical issues concerning the meaning and value of “life” between the natural and the synthetic. I argue that ethicists have moral expertise to bring to the public arena, which consists not only in guiding the debate but also in evaluating arguments and moral positions and making normative judgments. When ethicists make normative claims or moral judgments, they must be transparent about their theoretical positions and basic moral standpoints.

Prematurely born children who have underdeveloped lungs may suffer a potentially fatal condition called respiratory distress syndrome. A U.S. company developed a drug, called Surfaxin, to treat such poorly functioning lungs. A placebo-controlled study was planned in four Latin American countries. At the time, in 2001, four treatments were already on the market, although not available to the research populations used in the study. This case is usually discussed as part of the standard of care debate or offered as an example of exploitation. However, what concerns us in this case is rather the choice given to the parents of a prematurely born child under these circumstances: “You can give consent for your child's participation in this study. Half of the babies enrolled will receive sham air and are as likely to die as if they had not enrolled. The other half will receive an active treatment and are more likely to survive.” The parents can vastly increase their baby's chances of survival by participating in the study. Can the consent be voluntary? Do the parents have any meaningful choice?

About ten years ago, reports of lab-grown “mini brains” or “brains in a dish” appeared in the media, falling somewhere between the curious and the alarming. The trigger of these reports was a new method to grow three-dimensional neural tissue from human stem cells that recapitulates, to some degree, the early development of brain tissue. Despite their relatively small size and other limitations, such model systems capture in part the structure and functions of regions of the human brain and can also be combined to form so-called assembloids.

One of the most controversial areas of animal research is the use of nonhuman primates for fundamental research. At the centre of the controversy is the question of whether the benefits of research outweigh the harms. We argue that the evaluation of harms and benefits is highly problematic. We describe some common procedures in neurological research using nonhuman primates and the difficulties in evaluating the harm involved. Even if the harm could be quantified, it is unlikely that it could be meaningfully aggregated over different procedures, let alone different animals. A similar problem arises for evaluating benefits. It is not clear how benefits could be quantified, and even if they could be, values for different aspects of expected benefits cannot be simply added up. Sorting harms and benefits in three or four categories cannot avoid the charge of arbitrariness and runs the risk of imposing its structure on the moral decision. The metaphor of weighing or balancing harms and benefits is inappropriate for the moral decision about whether to use nonhuman primates for research. Arguing that the harms and benefits in this context are incommensurable, we suggest describing the moral consideration of harms and benefits as a coherent trade-off. Such a decision does not require commensurability. It must be well-informed about the suffering involved and the potential benefits, it must be consistent with the legal, regulatory and institutional framework within which it is made, and it must cohere with other judgments in relevant areas.

The ethics of using nonhuman animals in biomedical research is usually seen as a subfield of animal ethics. In recent years, however, the ethics of animal research has increasingly become a subfield within research ethics under the term “animal research ethics”. Consequently, ethical issues have become prominent that are familiar in the context of human research ethics, such as autonomy or self-determination, harms and benefits, justice, and vulnerability. After a brief overview of the development of the field and a discussion of relevant theoretical ethical frameworks, I consider two of these issues, namely autonomy and self-determination on the one hand, and harms and benefits on the other hand. My concern is with philosophical and ethical issues, rather than animal research oversight. I focus my discussion on nonhuman primates, as the most plausible nonhuman candidates for this approach. I conclude that the approach, although promising, depends strongly on the moral status of nonhuman research subjects.