The bioethical challenge of normative orders

Project management: Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst

This project dealt with the question of how new biomedical technologies, such as artificial insemination, stem cell research, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and genetic manipulation, challenge universalist and egalitarian morals and certain traditional values, such as humility before the natural order.

A distinction was made between two types of technologies, each of which poses different challenges. On the one hand, technologies were examined that artificially produce life but then destroy it (1). On the other hand, these are technologies that artificially produce life in order to then select it for certain quality characteristics or genetically manipulate it with a view to producing a new person (2). While technologies of the first category shed new light on old questions, technologies of the second type lead to completely new problems.

(1) Methods of artificial insemination, stem cell research and, to some extent, PGD (insofar as embryos are selected), which rely on the artificial creation and destruction of embryos, make it necessary to reconsider the moral status of embryos. Unlike in the context of the abortion debate, in which the moral status of the embryo had to be weighed against the woman’s right to self-determination, these bioethical conflicts involve a number of other competing interests that should trump the moral status of the embryo: for example, the interest in medical and scientific progress, the interest in one’s “own” (i.e. biologically related) child and the interest in giving birth to healthy offspring, but also in being able to better cure diseases, such as leukemia or Alzheimer’s, in those who have already been born. While it can be argued in the abortion conflict that the duty to respect the moral status of the embryo is exceptionally outweighed by the woman’s right to self-determination, the implementation of these new technologies fundamentally casts doubt on the commitment to embryo protection.

(2) Technologies such as PGD and genetic manipulation pose completely new problems: Not only is it already possible to “select” embryos with certain genetic predispositions in the Petri dish, but it may be feasible to determine the nature of the next generation in a fundamental way. This new possibility of intervention further exacerbates the already existing power asymmetry between the generations, in which those living now can determine the existence and circumstances of those born after them. The question is whether this power can also be translated into a right of parents to intervene to improve the situation, as liberal eugenicists usually assume (Buchanan et al. in From Chance to Choice, 2000; Dworkin in Playing God, 2000), or whether this power does not rather call for caution. According to this second position, the autonomy and equality of future human beings can only be respected by refraining as far as possible from interfering with their genome (Habermas in The Future of Human Nature, 2001).

In the project, these problems were comprehensively analyzed and, against the background of the cluster research program, a solution approach was developed that regards existing and also (in a certain sense) future persons as free and equal, autonomous justification beings or justification authorities with a “right to justification” (Forst). The duties towards such persons follow from this moral status.

As part of the research project, the workshop “What Do We Owe to Future People?” (from 19-20.02.2010), which Anja Karnein organized together with Rainer Forst. The speakers were: Rahul Kumar (Ontario), Matthew Hanser (Santa Barbara), Melinda Roberts (New Jersey),Elizabeth Harman (Princeton), John Harris (Manchester), Armin Grunwald (Karlsruhe) and Anja Karnein. Jürgen Habermas, Ludwig Siep (Münster), Michael Quante (Cologne) and Rainer Forst took part as commentators.

The most important publications from this research project include Karnein, Anja (2012): A Theory of Unborn Life. From Abortion to Genetic Manipulation Oxford: Oxford University Press; German translation (by Christian Heilbronn) (2013): Zukünftige Personen. Eine Theorie des ungeborenen Lebens von der künstlichen Befruchtung bis zur genetischen Manipulation, Berlin: Suhrkamp; Karnein, Anja (2012): “Parenthood- Whose Right is It Anyway?”, in: Richards, Martin/ Pennings, Guido/Appleby, John (eds.): Reproductive Donation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 51-69; and Forst, Rainer (2011): Critique of the relations of justification. Perspectives on a critical theory of politics Berlin: Suhrkamp; English translation (by Ciaran Cronin) (2013): Justification and Critique, Cambridge: Polity Press; Italian translation (by Enrico Zoffoli) (2013): Critica dei rapporti di giustificazione, Turin: Grapes; Spanish translation: (by Graciela Calderón) (2015): Justificación y crítica, Buenos Aires: Katz Editores.