In his latest TechCentralStation column (“Carmen Electra of the Executive Branch”), Glenn Reynolds blasts the President’s Council on Bioethics. The article is surprising in that it fails to take in account any facts that might get in the way of Reynold’s anti-Council bias:
Back when this column was new, so was the President's Council on Bioethics, more popularly known as the Kass Council after its chair, Leon Kass. At that time, now more than two years ago, I offered some advice to the Council and to the Administration. Among the various items of advice was this one:Don't get insular, either. The Council has already been criticized for its makeup, which is heavy on techno-critics and light on technological optimists. As one critic emailed me, "they're thoughtful people, they just think alike."Indeed they do. And my ultimate conclusion on the Kass Council, as I noted some months later, was that it was a phony exercise, designed to provide a modest figleaf for decisions that had, in fact, already been made. The modesty of the figleaf was underscored by the stacked nature of the Council: Recommendations by groups of people who think alike aren't indicative of reflection, and thus carry none of the benefits associated with moral seriousness or expertise.
The modesty of the figleaf was underscored by the stacked nature of the Council: Recommendations by groups of people who think alike aren't indicative of reflection, and thus carry none of the benefits associated with moral seriousness or expertise.
The fact that Reynolds can claim that the members of the Council are “people who think alike” shows that he has never bothered to read their work. If the council’s proceedings had been done behind closed doors then he might have a point. But all of the reports, background materials, and transcripts of meetings are online for anyone to read. And anyone who has read them will see that there is a great divergence of views on these issues. On the issue of human cloning, for example, 13 of the 17 members submitted personal statements explaining their position. If Reynolds had only read that one appendix he would have seen that his claim was inaccurate.
It's difficult to see how this is possible when the Council -- already stacked in favor of social-conservative bio-Luddism -- is becoming even more so.
Again, an examination of the facts shows that Reynolds charge of “bio-Luddism” is inaccurate. The Council unanimously supported a ban on cloning-to-produce-children. (Reynolds, I presume, would support the ban as well.*) On the issue of cloning-for-biomedical-research the Council was split 10-7 with the majority supporting a four-year moratorium and the minority supporting only regulation. Unless you’re an ultra-radical libertarian who thinks that ethical considerations should not be considered in regulating science, this is hardly an immoderate position.
But that strategy will backfire, because nobody will take the Council's recommendations seriously. The White House will be in the position of those fat bureaucrats at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, telling us that "top men" are looking carefully at the issues when, in fact, nothing of the sort is going on. Some critics are already calling for the Council to be abolished, and -- having called it "phony" long ago -- I'm inclined to agree.
Before he supports the abolishment of the Council he might want to try looking at their work first. Frankly, I’m rather surprised. I had always thought Reynolds was an intelligent and reasonable person who looked at the facts before coming to a conclusion.
Indeed, this problem seems so obvious to me that I have to wonder who's running the show at the White House, and how they can manage to be so clueless on this sort of thing. It's not simply dishonest. It's inept.
The White House has done something that Reynolds has not: looked at the facts. If it were so obvious that the Council is simply rubber-stamping the Bush Administration’s position he shouldn’t have a problem providing evidence to support his claims. All it would have required is a bit of cutting-and-pasting to support his contention. But if he were to actually look at the Council’s reports he would see that his argument doesn’t correspond to reality. (Don’t take my word for it. Read the reports yourself.)
A ban on this sort of research might condemn millions to unnecessary early death. It's certainly the sort of thing that ought to be debated in an election year. And that is sure to be. Does Bush want to be portrayed as the minion of religious extremists who'd stifle science even at the cost of lifesaving medical technologies? If he doesn't, then he's going about things all wrong.
First of all, the Council has never recommended a ban on therapeutic research. Since it hasn’t even been mentioned there is no need for a debate. Second, even the “technological optimists” on the Council admit that the idea that stem-cells and cloning can produce “lifesaving medical technologies” is speculative at best. Besides, by focusing solely on stem-cells and cloning we overlook more promising areas of research such as nanotechnology (i.e, reversine).
Hopefully, this rant was simply the result of pressure to meet a deadline and Mr. Reynolds will soon return to his old reliable self.
*Reynolds emailed me and said that he would not, in fact, support a ban on reproductive cloning. Um...okay. I guess now I'm starting to see why he takes such issue with the Council. If you don't have an ethical objection to reproductive cloning then you probably won't have a complaint with any of the other issues either.
Update: Sara Butler and Dan Moore both take Reynolds to task over his dismissal of Leon Kass. Again, I have to say that I'm surprised that he would resort to such a lazy ad hominem attack rather than arguing the merits of the Council's decisions.
1
I recall reading a bit of commentary from the President's Council on Bioethics which argued that by extending the life span of the human race we will somehow undermine the value of human life.
I believe it was Virginia Postrel who argued that the new paradigm isn't left-right, it's statist versus dynamist. Social conservatives are now where they belong, on the statist side.
Therapeudic cloning is coming and it will be a blessing for our nation and the world. We need to research all areas simply because we may never know just how valuable an avenue that was once taboo really is until we explore it.
If you want to help out a project that is working on non-stem cell cures for diseases that affect the mind like Alzheimers, go to the Folding@Home website and download the software. Let it run in the background on your PC and it will perform protein simulations for Stanford University to help them find cures for many diseases. Set your team # to 1971 for team MacOS X if you download it ;)
posted on 03.01.2004 10:53 AM2
The Council is widely regarded as an ideological put-up job. Leon Kass did some good work in the early days of philosophical bioethics (notably on organ transplant standards), but has been driven throughout his career by a very fuzzy, reactionary emotionalism. He seems convinced that anything he just doesn't like is immoral; his repetitive references to "the wisdom of repugnance" as a moral principle are regarded with derision. His prolific writings are remarkable for being almost free of argumentation; in every case, he simply asserts some right-wing slogan as a moral fact and then rules his opponents out of court. Beginning with bio-technology issues, he has drifted further and further into broad-based conservative punditry also based on the same ungrounded, free-floating revulsion at modernity. He has lately taken to writing essays against dating (in favor of "courtship"), against women's careers (motherhood first, ladies!), and on books of the Bible. Between all that and his strange penchant for assigning grade-school literature readings to his Council colleagues (Hawthorne short stories, Brave New World, Tuck Everlasting), Kass is generally regarded as a crank who now adds nothing to bioethics debate but a reliably reactionary position laced with smarmy slogans and quotes.
As for the rest of the Council, it was deliberately crafted to support Kass's reactionary stance. A large number of its members share his "ethics of stuff I think is icky" outlook, including Francis Fukuyama (Our Post-Human Future), Charles Krauthammer, James Q. Wilson, or an explicitly conservative religious perspective, including Stephen Carter (God's Name in Vain), Gilbert Meilander (Bioethics: A Primer for Christians), and Robert Georg (In Defense of Natural Law). A number of members have excellent credentials in biological sciences or law, but of all the members only two or three - Rebecca Dresser, Elizabeth Blackburn, and William May - were regarded as being respected voices on bioethical issues from outside the culture-war right wing. One widely-told story is that, when Kass was asked to bring someone from a "different perspective" to meet with George Bush, to recommend members for the Council, he brought Dan Callahan, who is known in bioethics as holding exactly the same positions on almost all issues as Kass (though with much more intellectual rigor); the story brings laughs from bioethicists every time it is told, as a perfect illustration of Kass's determination to stack the committee from his own perspective, and the eventual makeup of the committee provides the proof.
As you point out in another post, there has been some diversity in the published writings of the Council members - but very little diversity in their final conclusions. Most of what gets written is in the form of "concurring opinions", from members Kass hand-picked to concur with him. And the two most commonly-dissenting members have been thrown out. This is hardly surprising. The committee was formed for that purpose, and Bush/Kass are now pruning it to eliminate any stragglers. It isn't surprising that the Council, under the Bush Administration, would be conservative, but one would hope that it would be balanced enough to engage in serious consideration of the issues and the range of opinions on them. From the beginning, it was clear that there was no such intention for this Council, and it becomes clearer as time goes on.
Further evidence of Bush's and Kass's commitment to diversity of opinion comes in the identities of the members chosen to replace the two members who were fired. From the Washington Post's story on the purge: "In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the 'threats of biotechnology.'"
In the end, the Council has always been a cover for the pre-conceived opinions of Kass, acting for Bush. When a few token free-thinkers spoke up too much, they got axed, and more right-wingers were packed on. It wasn't enough that every decision of the group comes down from a predictably reactionary perspective, now there can't even be any voices noting the problems. More and more the Council has ceased being taken seriously as any source of thinking about important issues, and is seen only as a weather-gauge to the current extreme of right-wing thinking.
posted on 03.01.2004 12:16 PM3
A philosophical and constitutional counter to some of Joe's points.
posted on 03.01.2004 1:15 PM4
I don't know a thing about other members of the council, but Leon Kass most certainly is not a quality philosopher. Most of his arguments in the report on cloning are non-sequiturs. There are extremely common responses to almost all the arguments that don't really get addressed. The other side often tends to ignore a couple really serious problems with this procedure, and it's nice that Kass reports those, but the emphasis is all on stuff that's almost silly.
posted on 03.01.2004 1:36 PM6
Joe,
In response to your comments on my site:
1) The NAZIs were engaging in unethical experiments on actual life, not potential life. My statement, I thought, was pretty clear on the difference between actual life and potential life. So, since there was ambiguity, let me state it more clearly.
Actual life in the human context is capable of maintaining homeostasis without a great deal of artificial life support because the body isn't developed enough.
Potential life is anything before that. Meaning a fetus that is not developed enough to survive because its basic bodily structures have no hope of surviving outside of the mother's body.
The NAZIs were rightfully condemned because not only did they carry out their experiments on actual life (which is rarely justified), but they did it on non-consenting prisoners of war (Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, foreign soldiers, etc)
2) My opinion on the subject is that
a) we don't know enough to even discuss the issue of restricting research
and
b) I am defering to those who are more knowledgeable. Generally I take the approach of looking to the advice of those more knowledgeable than I. I would trust the opinion of a Church scholar far more than that of a scientist on a matter of religion.
Other than that I have no opinion on the subject other than we should be optimistic about the benefits and let those who know more than we do do their thing until such time as they are researching into areas that could have very dangerous reprocussions for us.
Unlike the average social conservative my opinion can be summarized as:
"I don't know enough to judge whether this has any chance to work. Things that have been called science fiction by one generation have become science fact for the next. Let the scientists find out. If it works, it works. If it doesn't then they'll just move on."
All I am doing is defending their right to pursue an area of academic inquiry which is unrelated to weapons design. I would agree that in the area of weapons design that research should be regulated to ensure that safety procedures and certain types of weapons are not created.
posted on 03.01.2004 3:54 PM7
Kevin,
his repetitive references to "the wisdom of repugnance" as a moral principle are regarded with derision.
By whom? I can tell you that as we speak, the smell test is being taught in Ivy League Law Schools today. From Leo Katz! to Derek Parfite! preeminent moral philosophers typically regard intuition about moral issue to be the de facto standard of right and wrong. Intuition is the basis for deontological ethics.
posted on 03.01.2004 4:49 PM8
An interesting side note I only realized after reading a lot of the material on this topic is this: Isn't it amzaing that this Bioethics Committe basically has all of its notes made public. Why is this information available to the public while other meetings and decisions are too private to reveal. Is energy policy that much more important than deciding on how we treat embroys and either save people or protect life? I don't think so...
posted on 03.02.2004 9:50 PM