In this retitled and revised version of Harris's original text Wonderwoman and Superman, the author discusses the ethics of human biotechnology and its implications relative to human evolution and destiny.

Ernst Mayr has argued that Darwinian theory discredited essentialist modes of thought and replaced them with what he has called "population thinking". In this paper, I characterize essentialism as embodying a certain conception of how variation in nature is to be explained, and show how this conception was undermined by evolutionary theory. The Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary gradualism makes it impossible to say exactly where one species ends and another begins; such line-drawing problems are often taken to be the decisive (...) reason for thinking that essentialism is untenable. However, according to the view of essentialism I suggest, this familiar objection is not fatal to essentialism. It is rather the essentialist's use of what I call the natural state model for explaining variation which clashes with evolutionary theory. This model implemented the essentialist's requirement that properties of populations be defined in terms of properties of member organisms. Requiring such constituent definitions is reductionistic in spirit; additionally, evolutionary theory shows that such definitions are not available, and, moreover, that they are not needed to legitimize population-level concepts. Population thinking involves the thesis that population concepts may be legitimized by showing their connections with each other, even when they are not reducible to concepts applying at lower levels of organization. In the paper, I develop these points by describing Aristotle's ideas on the origins of biological variation; they are a classic formulation of the natural state model. I also describe how the development of statistical ideas in the 19th century involved an abandoning of the natural state model. (shrink)

I defend a view of the species category, pluralistic realism, which is designed to do justice to the insights of many different groups of systematists. After arguing that species are sets and not individuals, I proceed to outline briefly some defects of the biological species concept. I draw the general moral that similar shortcomings arise for other popular views of the nature of species. These shortcomings arise because the legitimate interests of biology are diverse, and these diverse interests are reflected (...) in different legitimate approaches to the classification of organisms. In the final section, I show briefly how the pluralistic approach can help to illuminate some areas of biological and philosophical dispute. (shrink)

: There appears to be a consensus in the general community that reproductive cloning is an immoral technology that should be banned. It may, however, be argued, at least from the perspective of the Jewish tradition, that reproductive cloning has many positive benefits. It is thus essential that one carefully weigh the costs and the benefits before deciding on a definitive course of action.

If species are the things that evolve at least in large part through the action of natural selection, then both genetic and phenotypic variability are essential to biological species. If all species are variable, then Homo sapiens must be variable. Hence, it is very unlikely that the human species as a biological species can be characterized by a set of invariable traits. It might be the case that at this moment in evolutionary history, all human beings happen to possess a (...) particular set of traits, but if so, this will be in large part an evolutionary accident. As a result, anyone who proposes to base anything, including ethics, on human nature is basing it on historical happenstance. (shrink)

The Development of Modern Taxonomy Taxonomy has a long history, going back to the ancient Greeks and to forerunners even less sophisticated in systematics. Our interest here is centered on modern taxonomy itself, and we shall largely ...

One foundational question in contemporarybiology is how to `rejoin evolution anddevelopment. The emerging research program(evolutionary developmental biology or`evo-devo) requires a meshing of disciplines,concepts, and explanations that have beendeveloped largely in independence over the pastcentury. In the attempt to comprehend thepresent separation between evolution anddevelopment much attention has been paid to thesplit between genetics and embryology in theearly part of the 20th century with itscodification in the exclusion of embryologyfrom the Modern Synthesis. This encourages acharacterization of evolutionary developmentalbiology as the marriage (...) of evolutionary theoryand embryology via developmental genetics. Butthere remains a largely untold story about thesignificance of morphology and comparativeanatomy (also minimized in the ModernSynthesis). Functional and evolutionarymorphology are critical for understanding thedevelopment of a concept central toevolutionary developmental biology,evolutionary innovation. Highlighting thediscipline of morphology and the concepts ofinnovation and novelty provides an alternativeway of conceptualizing the `evo and the `devoto be synthesized. (shrink)

Over the past several decades, geneticists have succeeded in identifying the genetic mutations associated with disease. New strategies for treatment, including gene transfer and gene therapy, are under development. Although genetic science has been welcomed for its potential to predict and treat disease, interventions may become ethically objectionable if they threaten to alter characteristics that are distinctively human. Before we can determine whether or not a genetic technique carries this risk, we must clarify what it means to be “human”. This (...) paper inquires how “humanness” has been defined within various academic fields. The views of several legal theoreists, scientists, bioethicists, psychologists, philosophers and anthropologists whose works seem to best reflect how “humanness” is understood in their respective fields of study are considered. Our survey attempts to chart a path for a more detailed study on the meaning of “humanness” in the future. (shrink)

_Ideas of Human Nature_ presents twelve of the most influential Western thinkers on the topic of human nature. Roger Trigg examines the thinkers in their historical context and discusses their relevance to contemporary controversies.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) brings genetics and genetic knowledge to the point of paradoxical counterproductivity. Population-wide genetic screens, replacing specific tests intended for and useful to those at risk, become counterproductive when the HGP's "normal human " defines everybody as at risk. More over, the knowledge generated by the HGP disables those whom it is meant to serve: We are rendered impotent as a laity, subject to expertise regarding the truth of our being. The standard response here is that (...) we need more science education and easier access to scientific knowledge. But that is simply to beg the question. The question to ask about knowledge is not whether it is true or properly scientific (which it may very well be) but rather whether it is good. The good of knowledge must be demonstrated and not uncritically assumed. Thus, more education can, too, be paradoxically counterproductive. What, then, are our prospects? (shrink)

Research in genomics, human cloning, and transgenic technology has challenged bioethicists and scientists to rethink the definition of human beings as a species. For example, should the definition incorporate a genetic criterion and how does the capacity to genetically engineer human beings affect the definition of our species? In considering these contemporary bioethical dilemmas, we revisit an ancient source, the Talmud, and highlight how it provides specific biological, cultural, and genetic criteria to define the human species.

A fascinating study of moral languages and their discontents, Ethics after Babel explains the links that connect contemporary moral philosophy, religious ethics, and political thought in clear, cogent, even conversational prose. Princeton's paperback edition of this award-winning book includes a new postscript by the author that responds to the book's noted critics, Stanley Hauerwas and the late Alan Donagan. In answering his critics, Jeffrey Stout clarifies the book's arguments and offers fresh reasons for resisting despair over the prospects of democratic (...) discourse. (shrink)

Since 1990 it has been illegal in Britain to create human/animal hybrids. But what is the objection to hybrids? A proposal based on a fear of blurring conceptual boundaries is offered; this fear also seems to underlie several other of our deep-seated taboos, such as incest and bestiality, which are often explained in other, quite inappropriate, ways. The new law shows that the boundary between the human and the animal is still thought of as crucial and untransgressable in modern Britain, (...) yet it is not clear why; the world-views that in the past justified protecting this particular boundary are usually thought of as having been abandoned centuries ago. Thus it would seem that within our culture there are firmly entrenched taboos that are not readily justifiable from within that culture; the taboo against blurring the human/animal boundary is one such. This raises the question whether this human/animal boundary is one we should still want to protect in this way. (shrink)

The claim that chimpanzees make and use tools stands on two feet. One is a simplistic conception of tool; the other is a range of field observations, whose interpretation is not always as ingenuous and objective as their advocates suggest. An important difference little attended to by friends of the chimpanzee’s tool concerns how little their way of life seems to hang on their so-called tools. For us nearly everything does. Without tools, chimpanzees would find other things to eat. But (...) without our tools we are not a naked ape thrown back on its animal nature. We are an nonviable species rapidly heading for extinction. Tools belong to the very ecology of our evolved form of life. The myth of the chimpanzee’s tool has already proved damaging in the history and philosophy of technology. It obscures the unique contribution of technical culture to human ecology, which has no counterpart among chimpanzees. The myth has also inspired the bizarre idea that there is something arbitrary about technical culture — that in a sense we could do without it. That is certainly a mistake, and more serious than a specialist’s error, because any decision about the chimpanzee’s tool is replete with implications for understanding our humanness. (shrink)