A recurring objection to the exploration, development and deployment of radical new technologies is based on their implications with regards to social justice. In this article, using synthetic biology as an example, I explore this line of objection and how we ought to think about justice in the context of the development and introduction of radically new technologies. I argue that contrary to popular opinion, justice rarely provides a reason not to investigate, develop and introduce radical new technologies, although it (...) may have significant implications for how they ought to be introduced. In particular I focus on the time dependency of justice objections and argue that often these function by looking only at the implications of the introduction of the technology at the point of introduction, rather than the more important long-term impact on patterns of distribution and opportunity. (shrink)

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released its first report, New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies, on December 16, 2010.1 President Barack Obama had requested this report following the announcement last year that the J. Craig Venter Institute had created the world’s first self-replicating bacterial cell with a completely synthetic genome. The Venter group’s announcement marked a significant scientific milestone in synthetic biology, an emerging field of research that aims to combine the knowledge (...) and methods of biology, engineering, and related disciplines in the design of chemically synthesized DNA to create organisms with novel or enhanced .. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Public health authorities sometimes have to make decisions about the use of preventive medical measures—e.g. vaccination programmes—which could, if realised, save millions of lives, but could also kill a certain (small) number of those subjected to the measures. According to a rough‐and‐ready utilitarian calculation, such measures should be taken, but there are also possible objections to this view. A liberal objection to the use of mandatory preventive measures which might harm human beings is that people have a right to (...) decide for themselves whether or not they want to participate in the programme. A further objection is based on the claims that first, the authorities are directly killing those who die because of, say, vaccination programmes, and second, directly killing human beings is forbidden (since every human being has a right to live). The latter objection is discussed at length in the present paper. The validity of three doctrines, the doctrines of the double effect, of acts and omissions, and of killing and letting die, are considered with reference to the use of preventive measures, and found inapplicable. The objection is, however, refuted by comparing some hypothetical examples, and the initial utilitarian calculation is reinforced. (shrink)

Two protechnology arguments, the “hopeful principle” and the “automatic escalator”, often used in bioethics, are identified and critically analysed in this paper. It is shown that the hopeful principle is closely related to the problematic precautionary principle, and the automatic escalator argument has close affinities to the often criticised empirical slippery slope argument. The hopeful principle is shown to be really hopeless as an argument, and automatic escalator arguments often lead nowhere when critically analysed. These arguments should therefore only be (...) used with great caution. (shrink)

There is a growing feeling in many Western countries that every human being has a right to health, or a right to health care. This feeling is reflected in a declaration of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1976, which states: The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. Our intention in the following is to use the WHO (...) declaration as a basis for considering the allocation of resources in health care. We shall first argue that most of the criteria suggested as grounds for fair allocation of scarce medical resources have their difficulties if one tries to apply them one by one to medical practices. We shall then go on to claim that, if we take the right of all human beings to health or health care even moderately seriously, increasing the resources would in most cases be more ethical than attempting to allocate them ‘fairly’. (shrink)