"Stem Cells
& Our Moral Culture."
By Dennis P. Hollinger
In the midst of the debate over using embryonic
stem cells in research, a more fundamental issue has often been
overlooked. It is a reality that will not only affect the outcome
of this debate, but of numerous moral quandaries in the days ahead.
It is the issue of our moral culture--that is, how we think about
and seek to resolve moral issues. Our moral culture is ultimately
more significant than is a given moral issue because it directly
influences the decisions that are made regarding all such issues.
It serves as the lens through which we understand much of life
and our sense of goodness, justice and the morally right. It impacts
not only individuals' thinking, but the larger cultural ethos
and its perspectives on a myriad of moral issues.
If we listen closely to the moral discourse arguing
that embryonic stem cells should be employed in medical research,
we get a glimpse into the prevailing moral culture of our time.
At its heart is a utilitarian calculus, combined with an unlimited
emphasis on the virtue of compassion and undergirded by a worldview
of what we might call "spiritualistic naturalism."
Utilitarian Calculus
In addition to being a conscious commitment of
certain ethicists, utilitarianism is also a subconscious commitment
of the masses and a powerful moral impetus that will likely shape
thinking and action for years to come. Utilitarianism emerged
in the nineteenth century as an attempt to establish the field
of ethics as a scientific exercise distinct from religion or any
worldview commitments. Contrasting their ethical system with the
prevailing "principle ethics" of the day, people like
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill argued that the foundation
for ethics was consequences of a particular kind: namely, the
greatest good (defined as happiness or pleasure) for the greatest
number of people. In this formulation, ethics could actually be
quantified and freed from dependence on any prior commitment to
ethical norms (such as love, justice, or human dignity) or metaphysical
outlooks, including religious ones. Here was an ethic for the
entire society that could unite all peoples, whatever their religious
or worldview commitments.
When we look at the arguments supporting the
use of embryonic stem cells, they invariably incorporate utilitarian
sentiments. Using both sophisticated and populist argumentation,
proponents contend that the end result of sacrificing embryos
to harvest their stem cells would be so overwhelmingly positive
for a large number of suffering people that it must be the right
thing to do. The moral calculus points to the alleged potential
good of treating or healing illnesses such as Parkinson's disease,
Alzheimer's disease, or diabetes. According to a commonly-heard
argument, without the use of embryonic stem cells critical research
cannot move forward, and the amelioration of human suffering and
the saving of lives will be thwarted. The end goal of healing
justifies the destruction of human embryos to procure stem cells.
Healing is regarded as the "greatest good" which will
usher in the most happiness or pleasure for the greatest number
of people. Therefore, it should be pursued at the expense of embryonic
life.
At the popular level the utilitarian argument
is evident in the following statement by a 41-year-old man who
has fought diabetes for 23 years: "It seems to me that it's
an easy choice to make--take a shot at saving lives and making
life easier for people" (Associated Press, 7-11-01) The utilitarian
calculus is at the heart of a letter from the Association of American
Medical Colleges to President Bush. While acknowledging that some
people consider embryonic stem cell research to be wrong because
of the ethical issues it raises, the AAMC states, "We are
persuaded otherwise by what we believe is an equally compelling
ethical consideration, namely that it would be tragic to waste
the unique potential afforded by embryonic stem cells, destined
to be discarded in any case, to alleviate human suffering and
enhance the quality of life" (http://www.aamc.org/research/stemcell,
5-10-01).
Utilitarianism, however, has always faced some
critical problems and objections. First, it is not at all evident
why human happiness or pleasure for the greatest number of people
should be regarded as the defining end of moral action. Utilitarianism
purports to rely upon an amoral criterion in weighing the consequences
of human action, but happiness is hardly an amoral criterion.
Second, this approach to ethics argues that the sought end (happiness
or pleasure for the greatest number of people) justifies the means
of achieving that end. The problem with this is that some means
to obtaining this goal are clearly morally suspect. In the late
18th century, Thomas Malthus justified the dying off of large
numbers of poor and hungry people for the good end of curbing
population growth. Utilitarians assume that no means are problematic
as long as the end result justifies them. And third, utilitarianism
has to make some difficult factual judgments when it comes to
calculating the greatest good for the greatest number. It assumes
an objectivity in making this assessment. With regard to embryonic
stem cell research, it assumes that embryonic stem cells will
prove to have significant therapeutic value; however, this is
still only a projection (though not without some warrant given
the animal research done thus far). Also of interest is the fact
that proponents tend to downplay the potential of adult stem cells,
which have already proven to be therapeutic in clinical trials.
This should tell us something about the objectivity (or lack thereof)
of weighing consequences.
The Virtue of Compassion
The second major approach to defending the use
of human embryos for harvesting stem cells extols the virtue of
compassion. Virtue ethics tends to focus less on moral actions
and more on internal moral dispositions or character, from which
actions naturally flow. For a number of ethical issues today (e.g.,
abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and homosexuality), compassion
as a virtue has become the moral trump card. It is heralded as
the virtue above all virtues, for to subjugate compassion to any
other moral claim is to exhibit an insensitivity toward and a
lack of empathy for others.
With regard to embryonic stem cell research,
the public campaign for federal funding was carried primarily
by actors such as Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox, who utilized
media blitzes to appeal to people's passions. Seeing Reeve in
his wheelchair hardly evoked solid ethical reflection, but instead
moved the masses to feel compassion for him. A letter to President
Bush signed by a group of Nobel Laureates urging funding for research
with human embryos exalted the virtue of compassion over all other
values. While it "recognized the legitimate ethical issues
raised by this research," it also asserted that "it
would be tragic to waste this opportunity to pursue the work that
could potentially alleviate human suffering" (http://www.washingtonpost.com,
2-21-01). Alleviating human suffering strikes a chord in American
culture, for in this "happiness-oriented land" we seek
above all else to wipe away pain and discomfort. Thus, as one
scientist put it, it really is quite simple to decide whether
to protect a "mass of cells in a dish" or to protect
a "43-year-old father of two" (Quoted by Amy Laura Hall,
"Letter to President Bush," 2-23-01).
While appeals to compassion are becoming increasingly
common in public debate, regarding compassion as the moral trump
card is problematic. Oliver O'Donovan of Oxford University rightly
reminds us that the virtue of compassion can never stand alone.
"Compassion is the virtue of being moved to action by the
sight of suffering.... It is a virtue that circumvents thought,
since it prompts us immediately to action. It is a virtue that
presupposes that an answer has already been found to the question,
'What needs to be done?'" (Begotten or Made, p. 11). The
appeal to compassion overlooks divine givens in which there are
inherent meaning and worth within the created realities of this
world. Compassion, conversely, brings its own meaning to the suffering
situation in such a way that all else becomes secondary, for it
appeals primarily to our emotions. Socrates was certainly right
when he warned us that ethics cannot be built on emotions--not
because they are unimportant, but because they alone cannot be
trusted to discover the human right and good within the perils
of human finitude and fallenness.
In the final analysis, compassion as the moral
trump card is one more example of how our culture seeks to determine
what is right, good and just on the basis of what will secure
self-enhancement or self-actualization. Of course, compassion
should indeed be reflected in the habits and actions of all persons.
We can never be indifferent to human need and must in fact seek
ethically legitimate solutions to disease and suffering. However,
when set apart from the moral givens of a loving, gracious Creator,
compassion will lead us to the abyss of moral nihilism. Spiritualistic
Naturalism
Underlying all moral principles and virtues is
a larger narrative or worldview. Humans never develop their ethical
norms in a vacuum, but always in relation to their understandings
of transcendence and human nature, perspectives on what is fundamentally
wrong in the world, beliefs about how that wrong should be rectified
(i.e., salvation), and perceptions of the course of human history.
How we put "our world" together invariably determines
which moral principles or virtues we espouse and which ones we
reject.
In contemporary American culture, we seem increasingly
to be reflecting a worldview that might be termed "spiritualistic
naturalism." Though institutional religion may be on the
decline, spirituality seems to be flourishing. Indeed many people
today say they are not religious, but are deeply spiritual. However,
their spirituality is often not grounded in a strong sense of
transcendence and divine givens. Rather, it is, as sociologist
Robert Wuthnow puts it, "a new spirituality of seeking...
[in which people] increasingly negotiate among competing glimpses
of the sacred, seeking partial knowledge and practical wisdom"
(After Heaven, p. 3). In their search for fleeting moments of
sacred encounter, today's spiritualists tend toward a fragmented
worldview which bears little resemblance to classical supernaturalism--which
holds that God not only created the world, but provided meaning,
significance and content to it. There is in the classical theistic
worldview a sense that God has spoken and that we must therefore
respond by seeking life's full meaning and the morally good.
In contrast, spiritualistic naturalism functions
without recourse to moral and world- view givens, seeking instead
experiences that engender a sense of spirituality with minimal
content, essence, and direction. In spiritualistic naturalism,
meaning is self-made and moral direction is derived from within
a self that defines the good, the right, and the just. Subjectivity
takes the place of providential design and direction. It is a
naturalism in that functional transcendence plays no meaningful
role in the moral direction of people's lives, but it is a spiritualism
in that spiritual experiences that evoke a sense that people are
not alone in this world--and that enhance their selfhood and compassion
for others--are sought. Utilitarianism flows from the naturalistic
side of this worldview and compassion from its spiritualistic
side.
Thus, in the moral discourse about embryonic
stem cells the utilitarian calculus and the virtue of compassion
emerge out of this particular worldview. The well-being of human
embryos has for many taken a backseat to the greatest happiness
of the whole, precisely because of an ethos that minimizes inherent
meaning in life and the existence of God-given directives. Compassion
has become the moral trump card because it is an emotional response
that reflects the "fleeting moments" spirituality of
our time.
Spiritualistic naturalism may well be the emerging
worldview of Western culture. Unlike old naturalisms it seeks
a spiritual ethos, albeit one in which God is functionally absent
in the formation of moral character and the adjudication of moral
decisions. Because of its spirituality, this form of naturalism
tends to blind us to its true reality--a worldview in which the
human subject reigns supreme and becomes the ultimate arbiter
of the good, the just, and the right. It is this worldview which
tends to render moral issues amoral, as when Panayiotis Zavos,
the aspiring cloner, told Time magazine, "Ethics is a wonderful
word, but we need to look beyond the ethical issues here [with
regard to cloning]. It's not an ethical issue. It's a medical
issue. We have a duty here. Some people need this to complete
the life cycle, to reproduce" (Time 2-19-01, p. 50). Similar
sentiments have led the masses of our culture to embrace the use
of embryonic stem cells for the greater good--out of a sense of
compassion--precisely because there are no perceived providential
renderings to order our lives.
This is the ethos in which we now find ourselves.
We must recognize it for what it is and bear witness to a better
way.
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