There are many risks involved in genetic engineering. The release of genetically altered organisms in the environment can increase human suffering, decrease animal welfare, and lead to ecological disasters. The containment of biotechnological material in laboratories and industrial plants contributes to the risk of accidental release, especially if the handling and storage are inadequate. The purely political dangers include intensified economic inequality, the possibility of large-scale eugenic programs, and totalitarian control over human lives. How should the acceptability of these risks (...) be determined? We argue that the assessment should be left to those who can be harmed by the decisions in question. Economic risks are acceptable, if they are condoned by the corporations and governments who take them. The risks imposed on laboratory personnel by the containment of dangerous materials ought to be evaluated by the laboratory personnel themselves. All other risks are more or less universal, and should therefore be assessed as democratically as possible. If risk-taking is based on the choices of those who can be harmed by the consequences, then, even if the undesired outcome is realized, the risk is acceptable, because it is embedded in their own system of ethical and epistemic values. (shrink)

Recent developments in biology have made it possible to acquire more and more precise information concerning our genetic makeup. There are four groups of people who may want to know about our genes. First, we ourselves can have an interest in being aware of own health status. Second, there are people who are genetically linked with us, and who can have an interest in the knowledge. Third, individuals with whom we have contracts and economic arrangements may have an interest in (...) knowing about our genetic makeup. Fourth, society as a whole can have an interest in the composition of our genes. As regards the question of motivation, the term ‘should’ can be interpreted in three ways. Prudentially speaking, to say that individuals should act in a certain manner is to say that the actions in question promote the longterm self-interest of these individuals. From the viewpoint of morality, we should do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong. When it comes to legal thinking, it is held in most liberal societies that grave other-regarding harm should be the primary justification for the use of coercion and constraint. In the paper, all these aspects are examined in more detail. (shrink)

BackgroundDebates around euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are ongoing around the globe. Public support has been mounting in Western countries, while some decline has been observed in the USA and Eastern Europe. Physicians’ support for euthanasia and PAS has been lower than that of the general public, but a trend toward higher acceptance among physicians has been seen in recent years. The aim of this study was to examine the current attitudes of Finnish physicians toward euthanasia and PAS and whether there (...) have been changes in these attitudes over three decades.MethodsA questionnaire survey was conducted with all Finnish physicians of working age in 2020 and the results were compared to previous studies conducted in 1993, 2003 and 2013.ResultsThe proportions of physicians fully agreeing and fully disagreeing with the legalization of euthanasia increased from 1993 to 2020. The number of physicians, who expressed no opinion for or against euthanasia decreased from 19 to 5% during the same period. The proportion of physicians having no opinion of whether a physician should be punished for assisting in a suicide decreased from 20 to 10%.ConclusionsThis study shows that Finnish physicians’ ambivalence toward euthanasia and PAS has decreased. The ongoing debate has probably forced physicians to form more solid opinions on these matters. Our study highlights that attitudes toward euthanasia and PAS are still divided within the medical profession. (shrink)

Within the latter half of the 30-year history of bioethics there has been an increasing pressure to address bioethical issues globally. Bioethics is not traditionally a theory-based enterprise, rather the focus has been problem related. With the introduction of the global perspective, theory has, however, become more important. One of the best known, probably the best known, theory of bioethics is the one presented by Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress in their PrinciplesofBiomedicalEthics in 1979. This theory is known (...) as the or the approach or It is the attempt to create a global framework for bioethics on the four principlesthat I will scrutinize in this paper. (shrink)

The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a summer school and conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in June 2023, on the theme of “Religion: Memory and Innovation”. The event was organized jointly by the Polin Institute for Theological Research (Åbo Akademi University), the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (University of Turku) and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. The aim was to bring together doctoral candidates and researchers from various academic fields that engage (...) with the study of religion, such as theology, religious studies, history, philosophy, the arts, social and political sciences, and so forth. At this seminar, papers were presented that engaged with the theme of religion, memory and innovation from both historical and contemporary perspectives, looking also to the future where possible. In the current issue, therefore, we understand memory and innovation both as dramatic breaking points in history and as slowly evolving transformations, and we address past, present and emerging trends and trajectories within culture, society and the scholarly community. The societal relevance and impact of research in this field have also arisen as central themes in the presentations. (shrink)

The growing interest in bioethics has given rise to a new group of experts: experts in bioethics. They come from different walks of life and their motives, claims, and qualifications for expertise are manifold. Various academic disciplines can be said to contribute to one's status as an expert in bioethics. Studies and research in, say, philosophy, law, anthropology, history, theology, and sociology with an emphasis on bioethical matters are often thought of as suitably qualifying a person as a bioethicist. In (...) addition to these academic qualifications there are two routes to becoming a bioethicist. I will call these the self-nomination and the through-work-experience routes. Self-nominated expertise is most common with medics who have strong religious or other ideological views about ethical matters. Another path to self-nominated expertise starts with strongly held ideological views with interest in bioethical matters. For this category of bioethical experts there does not have to be any institutional acknowledgment of their status; they are experts because they think they are. The other nonacademic type of expert in bioethics emerges through administrative channels. When the various ethics committees and regulatory bodies that now abound were first founded, there were no experts in bioethics to sit on these committees. People became experts by serving in these institutions for sufficiently long periods of time. This still happens with ethics committees in which just a few of the members are experts in ethics. People join the committees as experts of other fields, but are thought to have become experts through the fact that they have served on such committees. (shrink)

In discussions among nonphilosophers, the ethical argument from naturalness frequently comes up. “Of course, cloning should be banned—it is unnatural.” “Surely you cannot deny that homosexuality is unnatural.” “The immorality of gene technology is apparent because things like that do not happen in nature. Genes do not jump between species and crossbreeding produces infertile offspring.” Even those who come from a philosophical background can catch themselves thinking, “That is unnatural!” and finding grounds for suspicion from the thought. But what do (...) we mean when we talk about morality and naturalness? What interpretations can be given to the ideas of natural and unnatural in ethical discussions? What are the implications of these interpretations? Are there good grounds for assuming that naturalness is morally better than its opposite? a. (shrink)

Within the past 40 years, feminist studies/women’s studies/gender studies/studies in gender and sexuality has effectively grown into a globally practised academic discipline while simultaneously resisting the notion of disciplinarity and strongly advocating multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity. In this article, I argue that gaining identity through refusing an identity can be viewed as being a constitutive paradox of gender studies. Through exploring gender studies as a transdisciplinary intellectual discipline, which came into existence in very particular multidisciplinary historical conditions of the feminist (...) movement, I suggest that transdisciplinarity within gender studies takes on a meaning which results in a radical problematization of the academic goal of ‘knowledge production’. Instead of such ‘knowledge production’, transdisciplinarity in gender studies promotes intervention which reaches beyond the concepts of accountability, innovation and corporate management. I argue that Jacques Derrida’s promotion of the Collège International de Philosophie in 1982 in its particular relationship to the tradition of philosophy provides a parallel example of such an attitude. Adding to Joan Scott’s and Clare Hemmings’s insights on gender studies in terms of critique and transformation, I argue that transdisciplinarity as practice of ‘intervention’ is crucial for the construction of gender studies disciplinary identity, based upon apparent non-identity. (shrink)

In this book the author confronts the transcendental subject-assumptions of modern political theory in both its liberal and Hegelian-Marxian form. She argues that both traditions are bound by subject-philosophy which the postmodern thought needs to question in order to fight the modern universalism and in order to address difference.

Creating one's identity is an on-going process, which is greatly dependent on language. Having this idea as a starting point in the study of religiosity, sharing self-reported experiences can be seen as an integral part in constructing one's religious identity and personal conviction. In this article, I would like to present the idea of bringing together narrative research and the psychological approach to the study of religious experience with the help of personal experience stories about God's guidance told by Christian (...) believers who are members of a charismatic revival movement. (shrink)

WHAT IS BIOETHICS ALL ABOUT? A START Matti Hayry and Tuija Takala. A Start What is bioethics all about? Is it only about medicine, nursing, and healthcare? ...

In this article on Elizabeth Grosz's philosophy and its implications for discussions about feminist theory, I first suggest that Charles Darwin plays a particular role in Grosz's recent ontological thought. This role is to provide help in joining together two incompatible sources in her work: Gilles Deleuze's monistic ontology of a constant flow of new differentiations, on the one hand, and Luce Irigaray's thought of sexual difference as the primary ontological difference, on the other. I argue that Grosz's intellectual project (...) has developed into a grand general theory of change in which both Darwin and Irigaray are turned into ontologists in a Deleuzian vein. I then point out that Grosz's ontology also includes a political aspect, which manifests in the fact that Grosz redescribes Darwin through interpreting him primarily as a theorist of “event” and the unexpected. However, through an analysis of the discussion on Grosz between Luciana Parisi and Jami Weinstein, I speculate whether Grosz's ambition to provide a total and complete explanation of change encourages the tone of feminist discussion toward one of explanation rather than intervention. (shrink)

The question of cognitive endowment in animals has been fiercely debated in the scientific community during the last couple of decades (for example, in cognitive ethology and behaviourism), and indeed, all throughout the long history of natural philosophy (from Plato and Aristotle, via Descartes, to Darwin). The scientific quest for an empirical, evolutionary account of the development and emergence of cognition has met with many philosophical objections, blind alleys and epistemological quandaries. I will argue that we are dealing with conflicting (...) philosophical world views as well as conflicting empirical paradigms of research. After looking at some examples from the relevant literature of animal studies to elucidate the nature of the conflicts that arise, I propose, in strict Darwinian orthodoxy, that cognitive endowments in nature are subject to the sort of continuum and gradation that natural selection of fit variant forms tends to generate. Somewhere between the myth of “free” humans and the myth of “behaviourally conditioned” animals lies the reality of animal behaviour and cognition. In the end, I hope to have softened up some of those deep-seated philosophical problems (and many quasi-problems) that puzzle and dazzle laymen, scientists and philosophers alike in their quest for knowledge about the natural world. (shrink)

The question of cognitive endowment in animals has been fiercely debated in the scientific community during the last couple of decades (for example, in cognitive ethology and behaviourism), and indeed, all throughout the long history of natural philosophy (from Plato and Aristotle, via Descartes, to Darwin). The scientific quest for an empirical, evolutionary account of the development and emergence of cognition has met with many philosophical objections, blind alleys and epistemological quandaries. I will argue that we are dealing with conflicting (...) philosophical world views as well as conflicting empirical paradigms of research. After looking at some examples from the relevant literature of animal studies to elucidate the nature of the conflicts that arise, I propose, in strict Darwinian orthodoxy, that cognitive endowments in nature are subject to the sort of continuum and gradation that natural selection of fit variant forms tends to generate. Somewhere between the myth of “free” humans and the myth of “behaviourally conditioned” animals lies the reality of animal behaviour and cognition. In the end, I hope to have softened up some of those deep-seated philosophical problems (and many quasi-problems) that puzzle and dazzle laymen, scientists and philosophers alike in their quest for knowledge about the natural world. (shrink)

(1996). Rahel's way: One does not escape pariahdom. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 427-432.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the logic and morality of the German Stem Cell Act of 2002. After a brief description of the law's scope and intent, its ethical dimensions are analysed in terms of symbolic threats, indirect consequences, and the encouragement of immorality. The conclusions are twofold. For those who want to accept the law, the arguments for its rationality and morality can be sound. For others, the emphasis on the uniqueness of the German experience, the combination of absolute and (...) qualified value judgments, and the lingering questions of indirect encouragement of immoral activities will probably be too much. (shrink)

Finland is a country in Northern Europe with a population of approximately 5.1 million people. It lies between Sweden and Russia and has a border with Norway too. It is part of the European Union and also belongs to the European Monetary Union. It is a welfare state in the sense that healthcare services, schools, universities, and social services are for the most part paid for by tax-based funding. In terms of basic healthcare, the state, through local municipalities, provides comprehensive (...) coverage to all residents, and this is utilized by both the wealthy and the poor. (shrink)

I think that utilitarianism is a good moral theory, and definitely better than its rivals, deontology and teleology. For practical purposes in multicultural contexts, at least, I think that no one should overlook a theory that is able to take into account a variety of ethical views and accommodate the ever-changing facts of the material world. But utilitarianism has a bad reputation in bioethics. It is often seen as the inhumane theory that allows the sacrifice of minorities, the killing of (...) the innocent, and simplistic calculations on the value of life. Hardly anyone cares to remember that most formulations of the theory do not allow these actions. The economic doctrine sometimes labeled as utilitarianism could be guilty as charged, but ethics and economy are not interchangeable words. Also as a theory that can actually propose answers to no-win situations, utilitarianism has been an easy target for criticism. (shrink)

Sustainability, properly understood, is an existential moral ideal. The United Nations, however, defines it in terms of 17 indivisible sustainable development goals. This definition changes the core idea of the concept. It turns sustainability from a moral ideal into a set of economy-based political aspirations. The European Union’s bioeconomy strategy demonstrates the shift aptly and reveals its main problem. When economy is prioritized, social and ecological concerns become secondary. This has been the United Nations line since the Brundtland Commission’s report, (...) Our Common Future in 1987. Considerations of justice illustrate the inadequacy of the approach. Equality and justice require that all those affected by decisions are heard in making them. Under the current operationalization, decisions related to the natural environment and climate change are currently being made without hearing voices that advocate deeper social and ecological equality. After an explication of the problem and the state of the art as outlined above, a new notion of justainability is introduced and it is argued that assuming it would be a step in the right direction in taking also noneconomic values properly into account in international decision making. (shrink)

In a contribution to The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy , Professor Rosamond Rhodes argues that individuals sometimes have an obligation to know about their genetic disorders, because this is required by their status as autonomous persons. Her analysis, which is based on Kant's concept of autonomy and Aristotle's notion of friendship, is extended here to consequentialist concerns. These are of paramount importance if, as we believe and Professor Rhodes herself implies, the Kantian and Aristotelian doctrines can be helpful only (...) in the sphere of private morality, not in the public realm. Better tools for assessing the right to genetic ignorance as an issue of public policy can, we contend, be found in Mill's ideas concerning liberty and the prevention of harm. Our own conclusion, based on the Millian way of thinking, is that individuals probably do have the right to remain in ignorance in the cases Professor Rhodes presents as examples of a duty to know. (shrink)

The on-going space settlement debate has raised questions whether it is possible to settle other planets, and if it was, is it something humans should do. The problem with this space ethical discussion is that it can easily become too vague. To avoid this problem, we suggest a framework for identifying relevant variables that affect the feasibility constraints and desirability factors of establishing space settlements. The variables we focus on include the settlement stage, scale and time frame. Based on the (...) relevant literature, we take mission cost, survival, habitation, water, in situ resources for food, oxygen and fuel energy and dependence on Earth as feasibility constraints that are relevant for the framework. None of them are hard constraints, but rather soft feasibility constraints that make it difficult to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars in the near- to medium-term future. However, in the past, humanity has achieved goals that first seemed infeasible. To justify the costs and effort, the goal must be highly morally desirable. We discuss five different desirability factors that could help justify the effort but as each framework has unique feasibility constraints, not all of these factors are sufficient or necessary to justify this effort. We argue that some of the desirability factors prominent in space ethical literature are not sufficient or necessary in our framework, and thus, we conclude that the normative grounds for establishing a permanent Mars settlement in the foreseeable future are weak. (shrink)

:This article examines the moralistic language and arguments used in relation to genetics. The focus is on three practices: the claims that there is a duty to know about one’s own genetic makeup, assertions that genetic information should be used to inform reproductive decisions, and the proposition that there are moral reasons to participate in biobank research. With these three, the author contends that there are equally good, if not better, arguments to challenge them from a Millian perspective. Furthermore, especially (...) in the current political climate, there is a need to respect people’s privacy concerns. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper explores how Finnish research ethics deals with matters of justice on the levels of practical regulation, political morality, and theoretical studies. The bioethical sets of principles introduced by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress in the United States and Jacob Dahl Rendtorff and Peter Kemp in Europe provide the conceptual background, together with a recently introduced conceptual map of theories of justice and their dimensions. The most striking finding is that the internationally recognized requirement of informed consent for research (...) on humans can be ideologically tricky in a Scandinavian welfare state setting. (shrink)

The question concerning an individual''s rightto remain in ignorance regarding her owngenetic makeup is central to debates aboutgenetic information. Whatever is decided onthis matter has a weighty bearing on all of therelated third-party issues, such as whetherfamily members or employers should be toldabout an individual''s genetic makeup. Thosearguing that no right to genetic ignoranceexists tend to argue from a viewpoint I havecalled in this paper reasonablepaternalism. It is an appealing position whichrests on widely shared intuitions on reasonablechoices, but which, in (...) the end, smugglespaternalism back to medical practice. (shrink)

One of the much debated issues around the evolving human genetics is the question of the right to know versus the right not to know. The core question of this theme is whether an individual has the right to know about her own genetic constitution and further, does she also have the right to remain in ignorance. Within liberal traditions it is usually held that people, if they so wish, have the right to all the knowledge available about themselves. This (...) right is based on the value of autonomy or on the right of self‐determination, and it is sometimes partly justified as a countermeasure to the authorities' control over people. I do not wish to deny the right to genetic knowledge (about oneself). I think that its existence is self‐evident. The argument I want to put forth in this paper is that in liberal societies we should acknowledge people’s right to remain in ignorance as well. The only reason for not doing this would be that grave harm to others would follow if people were allowed to make these seemingly self‐regarding decisions. Arguments presented against the right to ignorance are twofold. First there are those arguing against the right to ignorance on the grounds of harm to others, that is, philosophers who do not deny people’s right to ignorance in self‐related matters but wish to state that genetic ignorance causes harm to others, and this is one of the most commonly accepted reason for restricting people’s freedom. The other line of argument flows from the Kantian view that not even merely self‐regarding foolishness (in the eyes of others) should be allowed. (shrink)

In her thorough and thoughtful contribution to the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics titled “Medical Ethics: Common or Uncommon Morality” Rosamond Rhodes argues that contrary to American mainstream bioethics, medical ethics is not, and should not be, based on common morality, but rather, that the medical profession requires its own distinctive morality.1 She goes on to list sixteen duties that, according to her, form the core of medical ethics proper.

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. (shrink)

Neuroethics studies the ethical, social, and legal issues raised by actual or expected advances in neuroscience. The relevant fields in neuroscience include, but are not limited to, neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychopharmacology, neurogenetics, and neuropsychiatry. For many, neuroethics is best understood as a subcategory of bioethics, and although not all agree, for the purposes of the present collection of articles, this definition is assumed. Although bioethics as a field of study started in the early 1970s as a normative enterprise, mainly practiced (...) by philosophers and theologians, it has since become truly inter- and multidisciplinary, comprising also law, sociology, psychology, gender studies, disability studies, anthropology, history, and many other approaches. What we particularly wanted to do in this issue, however, was to find the most pertinent questions of neuroethics from the viewpoint of philosophy, and the call for papers was drafted accordingly.Tuija Takala, Ph.D., is Academy Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland and Adjunct Professor of Social and Moral Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is president-elect of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care and holds a number of international editorial positions. Her current research interests lie in the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical aspects of philosophical bioethics.FootnotesThe editorial work for this special issue was supported by my project Neuroscience and Norms: Ethical and Legal Aspects of Norms in Neuroimaging / Ethical Concepts and Norms funded by the Academy of Finland. (shrink)

This paper examines the logic and morality of the German Stem Cell Act of 2002. After a brief description of the law’s scope and intent, its ethical dimensions are analysed in terms of symbolic threats, indirect consequences, and the encouragement of immorality. The conclusions are twofold. For those who want to accept the law, the arguments for its rationality and morality can be sound. For others, the emphasis on the uniqueness of the German experience, the combination of absolute and qualified (...) value judgments, and the lingering questions of indirect encouragement of immoral activities will probably be too much. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of the six other contributions in the Neuroethics and Animals special section. In addition, it discusses the methodological and theoretical problems of interdisciplinary fields. The article suggests that interdisciplinary approaches without established methodological and theoretical bases are difficult to assess scientifically. This might cause these fields to expand without actually advancing.

This article deals with empty spacetime and the question of its physical reality. By “empty spacetime” we mean a collection of bare spacetime points, the remains of ridding spacetime of all matter and fields. We ask whether these geometric objects—themselves intrinsic to the concept of field—might be observable through some physical test. By taking quantum-mechanical notions into account, we challenge the negative conclusion drawn from the diffeomorphism invariance postulate of general relativity, and we propose new foundational ideas regarding the possible (...) observation—as well as conceptual overthrow—of this geometric ether. (shrink)

Many bioethical disputes are conceptual. This means that people quarrel about the use of words that they see as important. The underlying idea is that whoever wins the verbal argument will also be ethically right.

Among the many ethical problems brought about by the latest developments in medical sciences is the possibility of creating "designer" babies. In this paper I will look at one such a case from the viewpoint of the Kantian "humanity principle". The various aspects of treating people as a means that can be brought up in discussions about "designer" babies are scrutinised. These will obviously include treating the future child as a mere means, but the proper role of the mother and (...) others involved are also looked at. I will conclude by arguing that, contrary to the usual presuppositions, the humanity principle is of very limited use in discussions about designer babies, in this case and in others too. (shrink)

Part of the rationale behind public health measures is protecting the vulnerable. One of the groups most vulnerable to COVID-19 are the elderly and, consequently, many countries adopted public health measures that aimed to keep the elderly safe. The effectiveness and the consequences of those measures, however, leaves a lot to be desired. In my article, I will look at the steps that the Nordic countries took to protect their elderly and assess their success. I will further analyze those in (...) the light of standard ethical theories. Public health crises often call for choices between two evils. Selecting patients for intensive care is one such choice, and again, it seems that for the elderly, the outcome was less than favorable. Overall, from the point of view of ethics, many countries failed miserably when it came to the treatment of the elderly. I will end my paper by discussing the lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and suggests measures we need to take to offer genuine respect for the rights of the elderly. (shrink)