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Naturalness and Unnaturalness in Contemporary Bioethics Anna Smajdor 57 Artikkel Samtale & Kritikk Spalter Brev

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Naturalness and Unnaturalness in Contemporary Bioethics Anna Smajdor 57 Artikkel Samtale & Kritikk Spalter Brev ARTIKKEL SAMTALE & KRITIKK SPALTER BREV Meta-ethical and methodological considerations The is/ought distinction and the naturalistic fallacy FRA FORSKNINGSFRONTEN Nature appears in bioethics in a number of guises and con- There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has texts. At the most basic level, people may feel that it is mo- not been hailed as an insult to some god. But if every rally wrong to alter, distort or subvert natural processes. physical and chemical invention is a blasphemy, every NATURALNESS AND Leon Kass, for example, argues that an intuitive recoiling biological invention is a perversion. There is hardly one from interventions such as cloning that distort or frag- which, on first being brought to the notice of an observer ment the natural processes of reproduction, is a powerful from any nation which had not previously heard of their UNNATURALNESS IN indicator that such interventions are unethical (1998:3– existence, would not appear to him as indecent and un- 61). These are perhaps the most obvious occasions when natural. (Haldane 1924) nature plays an explicit role in informing moral reaso- CONTEMPORARY ning in bioethics. However, there are many other ways in Peter Singer and Deane Wells state categorically that “… which nature colours the concepts and themes employed there is no valid argument from ‘unnatural’ to ‘wrong’ in bioethical deliberation. For example, bioethicists may (2006:9-26). Similar views can be found in the work of BIOETHICS be concerned with the natural world, or nature, especially many bioethicists. A report on the ethics of grafting hu- in terms of our moral responsibility to the environment. man brain tissue into primates (whose authors include Nature also plays a part in determining the ways in which a number of mainstream bioethicists1) asserts: “…stipu- This is a shortened version of a report published by The Nuffield Council of Bioethics in 2015. bioethicists believe society should be constructed and in lating that research is “unnatural” says nothing about its which legislation should function. Ideas of what is natural ethics.” Gregory Pence dismisses those who would ar- By Anna Smajdor for individual humans, for families, and for states often gue that natural gestation is morally important because play into arguments about disease, healthcare, and our we evolved that way: “Unfortunately, authors who argue moral rights and responsibilities towards one another. this way usually commit (what I call) the Evolved Implies When we seek to understand the world of nature, we do so It sets out the bioethical issues that tend to generate most The role of nature in bioethical deliberation cannot be Ought fallacy which states that because human evolution at least partly in the hope that this will enable us to live explicit discussion about the role of nature, and shows the understood without considering the wider philosophical to date involved practice X, therefore, practice X is moral” within it more comfortably. (Frankfurt 2004) ways in which the concept of nature feeds implicitly into debates about how if at all nature can inform ethical ana- (2006:78). other aspects of bioethical discourse. It considers the ways lysis. These meta-ethical questions about the relationship There are two ways in which this supposed fallacy can ioethics is often concerned with novel processes and in which the use of, or repudiation of, concepts of nature, between morality and nature are particularly pressing for be understood. G.E. Moore’s use of the term ‘naturalistic entities. IVF, genetic modification of crops and ani- are associated with specific epistemological or value-based B bioethics, given the subject matter of bioethical enquiry. fallacy’ rests on the idea that terms such as ‘good’ or ‘right’ mals, reproductive cloning and xenotransplantation are standpoints. The paper also considers how nature features Moral beliefs vary widely even within cultures, and they are not reducible to other properties (1993)2. Hume’s is/ examples of the actualities and possibilities with which in moral arguments and concerns raised in the media. change over time. It has been suggested that a fear of moral ought distinction3, on the other hand, refers to the habit bioethics must grapple. These developments give human There is controversy about what constitutes bioethi- relativism may impel bioethicists to seek absolute and uni- of deriving a normative conclusion from a statement of beings the possibility of changing things that were pre- cal methodology (Harris 2004:4). Nevertheless, there is versal moral principles (e.g. Buchanan et al 2000: 372). fact. For example, even if it is a biological fact that human viously beyond their control. Accordingly, it might seem general agreement that bioethics is an interdisciplinary Consequentialists too have to grapple with questions teeth have evolved to eat meat, it does not follow that it it is precisely the ‘unnatural’ that generates the need for field that can allow for a variety of academic approaches of objectivity and external truth, since even if they agree is morally acceptable for humans to kill and eat animals. bioethical enquiry. It is paradoxical that despite this, bi- (Smajdor, Ives et al 2008:16). Because of this, people from that the task of morality is to maximise the good, there is In bioethics, both Hume’s and Moore’s points are often oethics is so polarised with respect to the moral signifi- many different academic and professional backgrounds still the problem of ascertaining what is the good – and conflated into a single term: the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ (De cance of the natural. The birth of Dolly the cloned sheep may contribute to the bioethics literature. This is partly whether there is any objective or natural answer to this. Vries & Gordijn 2009:193–201). is a good illustration of this. Dolly’s cloning was hailed what makes bioethics such a rich endeavour. However, Another way of seeking objective moral truth is through Wilson, Dietrich et al note that it is the Humean variously as a benign breakthrough of modern science it has drawbacks too. Bioethicists, even when speaking natural law theory - which explicitly endorses the idea version that is usually referred to in evolutionary psycho- (McLaren 2000:1775–80), and an assault on nature (Kass to each other, cannot always assume an in-depth know- that morality is immutable, and discoverable and can be logy as the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ (2003:669–682) and the 1998:3–61). ledge of any particular academic field on the part of their found through contemplation and reasoning (George & same is true of bioethics. That is, as R. De Vries and B. Many influential bioethicists who regard themselves as audience. They must therefore avoid jargon, and com- Tollefsen 2007) (Tierney 1997:1150–1625). Natural law Gordijn note, it is popularly accepted in bioethics that to quintessentially rational thinkers repudiate any suggestion plex arguments or references to arcane sources, theories theory is also often associated with natural rights, which on move from a statement of biological fact to a normative that ‘naturalness’ can or should play a part in moral eva- or concepts. In some instances, however, grappling with some views are also deemed to be discoverable and objec- conclusion is fallacious. It has been suggested, however, luations. Others hold that nature is an important conside- deep philosophical problems is an inescapable part of the tive (rather than constructs negotiated by human beings). that those bioethicists who invoke the naturalistic fallacy ration in moral deliberation. The motives for the use of, or project of bioethics. This is especially true of an analysis of The Catholic Church adopts a natural law approach to may be interpreting it wrongly, and that it is only a direct avoidance of, appeals to nature in bioethical reasoning, are the role of nature in bioethics: every line of enquiry leads bioethics, deeming that it can offer a ‘complementary re- move from biological fact to normative conclusion that is coloured by an array of disciplinary, territorial, religious to complex and sometimes bitter disputes, whose roots are lationship of faith and reason’ (Hehir 1996: 333–6). Most problematic. Laurence Landeweerd acknowledges that the and political convictions. entrenched in epistemological, theological and metaphy- of the bioethicists who apply natural law theory in their is/ought distinction and the naturalistic fallacy certainly This paper explores the ways in which concepts of the sical problems. (un)natural feature in contemporary bioethical reasoning. writings have religious affiliations. pose some serious problems for those who want to argue 54 55 ARTIKKEL SAMTALE & KRITIKK SPALTER BREV from nature. However, he suggests that “…this does not Oderberg is correct that the most powerful players in bio- Either it is devoid of content, since everything is natural, between human nature and bioethics would be severed. It mean that there cannot be a relation between descriptive ethics set the agenda in ways that make it difficult to argue and therefore we can accept everything that human beings would then be up to us to determine what sort of creatures accounts of our nature and ethics. It simply means that from nature, then it may be that some potential discussion do. Or it cuts out too much, since it implies that building we want to be. these relations are difficult to construe as causally infera- of nature and its role in bioethics is stifled or discouraged houses, or treating diabetes is unethical. Peter Singer and Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu embrace this ble” (2004:17–23). at the outset, leaving only the bravest or most ardent to Deane Wells touch on this when they state ‘[t]here is no possibility, arguing in favour of moral enhancement, by If one accepts Landeweerd’s contention, not everyone articulate the minority position.
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