Bioethics in Brief

When Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was first performed in Paris at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in 1913, it inspired a famous riot. The audience was not prepared for this new music. What we now recognize as a masterpiece was then interpreted as violent and chaotic. Over time, people have become comfortable with Stravinsky’s musical language and have grown to love what once seemed strange and even dangerous to that Paris audience almost a century ago. It is easy to think of other cases where we have become comfortable with what once seemed new and strange.

Discomfort with new technologies sometimes strikes us in a similar way. Many new technologies with which we are now quite comfortable initially inspired fear and mistrust. Often critics have proposed to regulate or prohibit technologies when they were afraid of them or found them repugnant. After Benjamin Franklin’s invention of the lightning rod, concerns were expressed that there might be something morally problematic about the desire to protect oneself from fire bolts from the heavens. Lightning strikes are often regarded as “acts of God.” (They are still identified in that language in some insurance policies!) So the installation of a lightning rod on one’s house or barn was initially interpreted by some people as an effort to escape the just punishment of almighty God. Other new technologies inspired similar resistance. Automobiles, airplanes, computers, telephones, and air-conditioners all met with significant resistance when they were introduced.

For the most part, we recognize these initial responses for what they were - irrational resistance to the new and unfamiliar. There may be good evolutionary reasons that explain the initial psychological resistance people feel when presented with objects or technologies or music that is novel and unfamiliar. We can also recognize that these initial reactions need to be carefully examined. We cannot simply trust them.

Wisdom of Repugnance?

It has sometimes been argued, however, that we should “trust our gut” when it comes to such reactions. Thus, Leon Kass, bioethics advisor to President G.W. Bush, famously argued that the initial repugnance we feel toward some technological advances reveal deep underlying moral insight. Kass urged that our felt repugnance should be taken as evidence that the object of our repugnance really is repugnant from the moral point of view. Kass used human reproductive cloning—cloning aimed at the creation of a cloned human baby—as an example to support his claim:

“The repugnance at human cloning belongs in this category. We are repelled by the prospect of cloning human beings not because of the strangeness or novelty of the undertaking, but because we intuit and feel immediately and without argument the violation of things that we rightfully hold dear. Repugnance, here as elsewhere, revolts against the excesses of human willfulness, warning us not to transgress what is unspeakably profound. Indeed, in this age in which everything is held to be permissible as long as it is freely done, in which our given human nature no longer commands respect, in which our bodies are regarded as mere instruments of our autonomous rational wills, repugnance may be the only voice left that speaks up to defend the central core of our humanity. Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.” (Kass, 2002/1997, p. 557)

It is important to distinguish Kass’s conclusion, that we should prohibit human cloning, from the argument he uses to support it. I am convinced that there are excellent reasons for prohibitions on human reproductive cloning that do and should underlie public regulations prohibiting the practice. As Kass himself later points out, the effort to clone a human being would “constitute an unethical experiment upon the resulting child-to-be.” (Kass, 2002/1997, p. 562) But the argument that we should not experiment on human beings without their consent is not based merely on our repugnance. It is based on our right and our obligation to protect people from harm and to insure that scientific research involving human subjects will take place under conditions that appropriately protect their interests.

Kass’s claim is that our attitude of repugnance often reveals the presence of serious moral or ethical objections we may have to the practice we find repugnant. Thus, in the case of father-daughter incest (Kass’s own example), our repugnance reflects our understanding of the harm and exploitation of vulnerability that is involved in cases of child abuse. Surely Kass is right about this. Where attitudes of initial repugnance indicate our understanding of underlying reasons to regard such a practice as wrong, we have good reason to take our response seriously and to articulate those underlying reasons clearly.

However, like Stravinsky’s Rite, many practices and procedures have been met with initial repugnance that proves incapable of standing the test of time. We often find that the attitude of repugnance reflects ignorance and prejudice, not careful moral reflection or substantial underlying reasons. Until recently, many people in the United States regarded interracial marriage to be repugnant, but we now recognize this repugnance as the expression of underlying attitudes of racism and bigotry. People often find it repugnant to think about their parents’ sex lives, but this is not evidence that their parents are doing something wrong. For similar reasons, many people find the prospect of same-sex marriage to be repugnant, but unless the attitude involved can be supported with good reasons, we should dismiss such repugnance on similar grounds as insignificant from the moral point of view. If we cannot express objective reasons that underlie our attitude of repugnance, then we should be prepared to regard that attitude as unreasoned and possibly as an expression of unarticulated bias.
Biotechnology and Public Resistance

Initial public response to agricultural biotechnology often reflects many different concerns. Some critics are concerned that agricultural biotechnology promotes unsustainable and environmentally inappropriate practices. Others are concerned about the safety of foods that contain ingredients from bio-engineered crops. These issues of sustainability, environmental protection and food safety are obviously appropriate concerns. We need agricultural systems that are sustainable, environmentally appropriate, and which produce safe and healthy products for those who consume them. However, where reactions to biotechnology, or any other technology, reflect simple and inarticulate repugnance, we should be cautious. Regulation and public policy must be based on articulate reasons and careful consideration of evidence. Policies and regulations that are supported by nothing except a thin veil over the people’s attitudes of disgust or revulsion will be unjustified and unwise.

References:
Ferre, F. 1993. Hellfire and Lightning Rods. Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books.
Kass, L. 2002/1997. “The Wisdom of Repugnance.” In R. Sherlock and J. Morrey, eds, Ethical Issues in Biotechnology. Lahnam MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Pp. 551-571.