LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE DEFENSE OF DIGNITY: The Challenge for Bioethics

For many people, the brave new world of biotechnology promises a utopian society where we will be free from diseases because of our manipulation of the genetic code. According to Kass, chairman of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, this vision of the future involves dehumanization, because the fundamental principles of cloning and stem cell research involve altering our human nature so dramatically that we are no longer human but posthuman. Fundamental to our human nature, Kass contends, is our human dignity, "our awareness of need, limitation, and mortality to craft a way of being that has engagement, depth, beauty, virtue, and meaning." Modern biology, he argues, has persuaded us that our embodiment is a fact of life to be overcome through germline manipulation or other biotechnological techniques. Through stimulating examinations of genetic research, cloning and active euthanasia, Kass makes a case that, in spite of its many promises, biotechnology has left humanity out of its equation, often debasing human dignity rather than celebrating it. In the end, he calls for a new bioethics and a new biology that will provide "an ethical account of human flourishing based on a biological account of human life as lived, not just physically, but psychically, socially and spiritually." Although some will object to Kass's importing the spiritual into the biological, his cry will strike others as a clarion call to protect human freedom from the excesses of biotechnology. Still others will be wary of his influence on the present administration. (Sept.)