Jason Eberl

Like its predecessor, Contemporary Controversies in Catholic Bioethics, this volume gathers together an array of Catholic scholars with expertise in theology, philosophy, medicine, ethics, health administration, and pastoral care. Expanding the range of bioethical issues from the previous volume, the topics treated within this volume include transgender identity, disability, public and global health, and artificial intelligence, as well as specific controversies that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic concerning the allocation of scarce life-sustaining resources and vaccination policies. Drawing upon the Catholic Church’s intellectual tradition and more recent bioethical teachings, two chapters address each topic representing diverse, sometimes divergent, perspectives. This volume will be a valuable resource for scholars in bioethics or Catholic studies, who will benefit from the nuanced arguments offered based on the latest research. This volume will also be instructive for students entering the field to become aware of the founding philosophical and theological principles informing the Catholic bioethical worldview.

This symposium includes twelve personal narratives from parents of children with Down syndrome. These narratives foster better understanding of these parents' experiences of learning that their child has Down syndrome, navigating sometimes labrynthine medical, educational, and social services bureaucracy, and contending with an implicitly—and sometimes explicitly—ableist culture. Four commentaries on these narratives are also included, authored by experts and scholars in bioethics, disability studies, health and science communication, and public advocacy. The goal of this symposium is to call attention to the ways in which the lived experiences of parents raising children with Down syndrome often differ from broader public perception, media portrayals, or even how Down syndrome is viewed and discussed among healthcare professionals and bioethicists.

We argue that the current American Academy of Neurology (AAN) guideline for determining death by neurological criteria is consistent with the Church’s teaching and the Catholic moral tradition. We outline the basic principles of Catholic anthropology that underlie our argument in light of relevant medical facts, with particular attention given to the purported role of neuroendocrine function in bodily integration. In so doing, we will articulate various points of agreement between ourselves and our fellow Catholic scholars who oppose the use of neurological criteria to determine death either altogether or with modification of the current AAN guideline to rule out persistent neuroendocrine function, and critically engage with them on several metaphysical, moral, medical, and neurobiological points of disagreement.

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in English ; abstract also in Chinese. 在西方與東方的哲學和宗教思想中，人類尋求道德上的提升有著悠久傳統。然而，一些生命倫理學家認為，在面臨可能導致人類滅絕或近乎滅絕的重大威脅時——例如核戰、環境破壞及迅速擴大的社會經濟差距等，傳統的道德提升方法顯得不足。因此，他們常基於美德倫理學，提出通過促進和利用生物技術介入來改變人類道德行動者的認知和情感能力以及性情，以作為傳統方法的替代或補充。本文將比較分析如亞里士多德的德性理論中所推薦的在家庭和更廣泛的社會中進行道德教育等傳統的間接的道德增強手段，以及如藥物、神經刺激或基因介入等直接的生物技術手段。可通過生物技術進行操作的認知和情感因素包括：資訊處理和推理、記憶、認知偏見、侵襲性、仇外、自我中心主義、共情或同情、誠實、團結、和諧、利他主義、感恩、公平、羞愧、寛恕及對誘惑的抵抗。我們提出了幾個關於直接生物技術方法的憂慮，例如他們對自主性、真實性和能動性的潛在影響，並呼籲通過有意社會設計來增強道德教育的傳統方法，以引導行動者作出更好的道德決策和培養美德性情。我們認為某些生物技術的道德增強方法能夠在不損害個體能動性、自主性與真實性的前提下，通過協調其一階與二階欲望，從而克服意志薄弱的問題。然而，即便從原則上存在支持甚至鼓勵道德生物增強的依據，但一旦這類技術手段進入公開市場，仍會面臨諸多或難逾越的現實挑戰：其一，需開展相關倫理研究以推動這類生物技術干預手段的開發；其二，要確保最能從中獲益的群體能以非隱蔽、非脅迫的方式獲取該技術；其三，必須保障此類干預手段能有效促使個體在認知與情感層面的道德傾向產生穩定且積極的轉變。 The quest to morally enhance human beings has a long tradition in both Western and Eastern philosophical and religious thought. Yet some bioethicists have argued that traditional approaches to moral enhancement are inadequate in the face of threats such as nuclear war, environmental devastation, and exponentially increasing socio-economic gaps, which may result in the extinction or near-extinction of humankind. Often using the language of virtue ethics, they have thus promoted the development and utilisation of biotechnological interventions to alter human moral agents’ cognitive and emotive capacities and dispositions as either a replacement for or a complement to traditional approaches to moral enhancement. In this article, we analytically compare traditional indirect means of moral enhancement, such as moral education within families and wider societies, as recommended within Aristotelian virtue theory, with direct biotechnological means such as pharmaceutical, neurostimulatory, or genetic interventions. Cognitive and emotive factors that may be amenable to biotechnological manipulation include information processing and reasoning, memory, cognitive biases, aggression, xenophobia, ego-centredness, empathy/sympathy, truthfulness, solidarity, agreeableness, altruism, gratitude, fairness, shame, forgiveness, and resistance to temptation. We raise several concerns with respect to direct biotechnological methods, such as their potential harmful impact on autonomy, authenticity, and agency, and call for the enhancement of traditional methods of moral education by devising more intentional social designs to nudge agents towards better moral decision-making and the cultivation of virtuous dispositions. Nevertheless, we contend that certain biotechnological methods of moral enhancement could facilitate – without undermining – individuals’ agency, autonomy, and authenticity by aligning their first- and second-order desires to overcome the moral ‘weakness of will’ problem. However, even if there are principled reasons to allow, or even encourage, moral bioenhancement, various practical concerns could prove insurmountable if such means were made available on the open market, including the need for ethical research to develop these biotechnological interventions; the need to ensure their accessibility to those who would most benefit, without covertness or coercion; and the need to ensure their effectiveness in creating stable, positive alterations to an agent’s cognitive and emotive moral disposition.

Alongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas’s views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life – questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media such as: When does a human person’s life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person’s death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? _Thomistic Principles and Bioethics_ presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern.

This third brand-new 'Star Wars & Philosophy' title once again takes a fresh look at the franchise with all-new chapters. The focus of this volume is the more recent entries into the franchise, including hit TV shows such as THe Mandalorian. Modern applied philosophy is also used to analyse the Star Wars universe: In addition to thorny metaphysical questions about the nature of time and free will, this volume highlights the staggering cultural impact of George Lucas's universe. The newest Star Wars narratives tackle ethnicity on alien worlds and how love and sex with a droid like L3-37 would work ("It works"). The connections between the Separatist Freedom Movement and the struggle for social justice in the USA in the 21st century are brought to light. And philosophical second looks at Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi prove there is much more to this controversial entry in the Skywalker saga.

Debate regarding the validity of the use of neurological criteria to determine death – so-called “brain death” – has been central to the field of bioethics since its inception. At the root of this debate are several philosophical claims regarding the definition of human personhood and criterion of personal identity, concepts such as “organism as a whole” and “irreversibility,” and whether death should be understood as a strictly biological or a partially socially constructed fact. Springer’s “Philosophy and Medicine” series took up this topic with two volumes published in 1988 and 2000, comprising essays that examined the questions at hand from historical, conceptual, legal, and cultural vantage points authored by physicians, philosophers, and theologians representing international perspectives from the U.S., U.K., Europe, and Japan. A quarter-century later, the brain death debate has been re-energized by recent cases involving apparent post-brain death survival, calls to revise the Uniform Determination of Death Act, and the development of a novel means of organ procurement known as normothermic regional perfusion following circulatory determination of death. This chapter revisits the arguments for and against brain death, defending not only the conceptual validity of brain death, but also its marking the true death of a human being.

_PHILOSOPHY/POP CULTURE_ _“The contributors to_ Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy _strive to make things relevant to fans of the show, and they put their information out in a way that is accessible to folks who wouldn't know Heidegger from Heineken.”_ Green Man Review, Spring 2009 _"The writers are well versed in their subjects…The book is most effective at making the reader rethink what they thought they knew."_ _Neo-opsis_ What’s the point of living after your world has been destroyed? This is one of many questions raised by the Sci-Fi Channel’s critically acclaimed series _Battlestar Galactica_. More than just an action-packed “space opera,” each episode offers a dramatic character study of the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers as they confront existential, moral, metaphysical, theological, and political crises. This volume addresses some of the key questions to which the Colonials won’t find easy answers, even when they reach Earth: Are Cylons persons? Is Baltar’s scientific worldview superior to Six’s religious faith? Can Starbuck be free if she has a special destiny? Is it ethical to cut one’s losses and leave people behind? Is collaboration with the enemy ever the right move? Is humanity a “flawed creation?” Should we share the Cylon goal of “transhumanism?” Is it really a big deal that Starbuck’s a woman?

Alongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas’s views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life – questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media such as: When does a human person’s life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person’s death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? _Thomistic Principles and Bioethics_ presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern.

Perhaps no question in bioethics has been more vehemently contested than the moral status of human embryos and fetuses. Originally, this question primarily related to the ethical permissibility of deliberately procured abortion, particularly leading up and in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions in 1973 that legalized the provision of abortion services. In these decisions, the Court explicitly avoided addressing the question of whether an embryo or fetus counts as a constitutionally protected “person” who enjoys an inalienable right to life. Nevertheless, the Court acknowledged the diversity of philosophical and religious views on this question, as well as that the “potentiality of human life” possessed by embryos and fetuses merits a degree of legal protection. As a result, the Court affirmed the legal permissibility of abortion within the first trimester of pregnancy, allowed for state-level restrictions of abortion during the second trimester if the mother’s health is implicated, and allowed for a greater degree of state-level restrictions during the third trimester in order to protect “potential life.”

The Roman Catholic Church has had a significant impact upon the formulation and application of bioethical values and principles. As the discipline of bioethics has evolved throughout the late twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, broader cultural and intercultural understanding has emerged and a non-sectarian set of principles has been formulated and put into wide practice (Beauchamp and Childress 2013). Meanwhile, Catholic bioethics, while still influential, has become largely understood as a set of proscriptions regarding issues such as abortion, human embryonic stem cell research, and physician-assisted suicide. Both official documents promulgated by the Church’s magisterial authority and various volumes published by Catholic bioethicists have elucidated, and marshalled supportive arguments for, the Church’s defined positions on these and other issues.

In November, 2009, a 27 year-old woman was admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. She was in her 11th week of pregnancy with her fifth child and was suffering pulmonary hypertension. According to her physicians, her risk of dying if she were to continue with the pregnancy was “close to 100 percent” (Hagerty 2010). Sr. Margaret McBride, a member of the hospital’s ethics committee, consulted on the case and approved termination of the pregnancy in order to save the mother’s life. The abortion was carried out and the mother survived. Sr. McBride was later informed that she had been automatically (latae sententiae) excommunicated from the Catholic Church in accordance with the Code of Canon Law §1398 and §1329.2, which together impose such a penalty upon anyone who procures or is a willing accomplice to a completed, directly intended abortion.

Catholic healthcare services have been an integral part of the U.S. and other healthcare systems throughout the world. Ascension Health, for example, is the largest non-profit private healthcare provider in the U.S. with 75 short-term, acute-care hospitals as of June 2015 (Marshall 2015). The past several decades, however, have witnessed the popularization of various medical practices that the Catholic Church considers to be intrinsically immoral and thereby illicit for Catholic healthcare providers—whether hospitals or individual physicians—to offer their patients.

Organ donation in the U.S. and several other countries—such as Canada and Great Britain—is characterized by a system of fair access. In the U.S., patients are ranked on a national waiting list administered by the federally-funded United Network for Organ Sharing [UNOS] based on objective medical criteria, such as blood type, tissue type, size of the organ, medical urgency of the patient as well as time already spent on the waiting list, and distance between donor and recipient. UNOS then facilitates the procurement and transport of organs by hospitals and state-level agencies. The principal legislation that governs organ donation in the U.S. is the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act [UAGA]. The first version of the UAGA was promulgated in 1968; in 2006, a revised UAGA was promulgated. In addition to the UAGA, the primary governing ethical principle of organ donation is the “dead donor rule” [DDR], which states that vital organ procurement should never kill a patient and may begin only after the donor has been declared dead (Robertson 2000).

Transhumanists aim at immortality, or at least radical longevity, using various forms of cyber/biotechnology. The metaphysical possibility of each proposed means depends on which ontology of the human person one accepts as valid. Ethically, we must ask whether radical longevity or technologically-mediated immortality would be conducive to a human person’s flourishing or well-being. This article summarizes the competing anthropologies that animate this discussion, and then critiques the Transhumanist ambition toward immortality, as contrasted by the Christian belief in eternal life. The article concludes with reasons supporting the value of increased longevity, but not radical life-extension aimed at temporal immortality using certain means favored by Transhumanists. Throughout the discussion, the philosophical and theological thought of Thomas Aquinas is taken as the foundational touchstone.

Bioethicists aim to provide moral guidance in policy, research, and clinical contexts using methods of moral analysis (e.g., principlism, casuistry, and narrative ethics) that aim to satisfy the constraints of public reason. Among other objections, some critics have argued that public reason lacks the moral content needed to resolve bioethical controversies because discursive reason simply cannot justify any substantive moral claims in a pluralistic society. In this paper, the authors defend public reason from this criticism by showing that it contains sufficient content to address one of the perennial controversies in bioethics—the permissibility and limits of clinician conscientious objection. They develop a “reasonability view” grounded in public reason and apply it to some recent examples of conscientious objection.

Public bioethics aims to provide moral guidance on questions of public policy, research, and clinical ethics. However, Alasdair MacIntyre famously opened his seminal work, _After Virtue_, with a ‘disquieting suggestion’ that contemporary moral language is in such a state of disorder that securing authoritative moral guidance will not be possible. In _Ethics After Babel,_ Jeffrey Stout responds to MacIntyre’s pessimistic description of contemporary moral discourse by developing the idea of _moral bricolage_, which involves taking stock of the ethical questions that need answering, the available conceptual resources at hand from a variety of traditions (e.g., philosophies, theologies, law), and then reworking them to create a solution. In this essay, we draw upon MacIntyre’s insight about tradition and Stout’s metaphor of moral bricolage to argue that _some_ works of bioethical consensus are appropriately described as works of moral bricolage that, when analyzed, reveal theoretical insights about an emerging tradition of secular bioethics.