I am in general a great admirer of the work of Savulescu and Harris
(S&H), not because I think their conclusions are often right but
because they state these conclusions and their arguments very clearly.
In their joint paper “The Creation Lottery,” they do,
nevertheless, tendentiously overstate their case both with regard to
the conclusions that flow from identifying natural reproduction as a
creation lottery (CL) and in seeing their exchange1
To which I have contributed in some small way as a critical
reader of drafts of Harris's contributions.
as an example
of good method in bioethics. In the following short comment I want to
point to some of the problematic areas in S&H's arguments.
The structure of the argument that S&H put forward is ostensibly
based on granting the “embryo rightist” the premise that
killing embryos is wrong and then showing that even with this premise
certain liberal conclusions follow concerning IVF, embryo
experimentation, and cloning.2
The
structure of the S&H paper is thus ostensibly the same as the
famous Judith Jarvis Thomson paper on abortion.
The purpose is
to convince, or perhaps just to embarrass, the opponents. From
S&H's other writings we know that they only grant this premise
for the sake of argument. They do not believe that embryos have any
moral status and find nothing inherently wrong in creating and
destroying embryos. Outside this particular argument, they therefore
have other, and in their view more direct and better,
3 The arguments in this exchange rely on what S&H believe
to be a false premise, so an argument for the same conclusion that only
relies on premises believed by S&H to be true must be better in
their view.
arguments for the same, or very similar, liberal
conclusions.
It is important to note that the success of S&H's argument
will have different effects with regard to two different kinds of
embryo rightists that S&H do not distinguish between in their
paper. For the embryo rightist who holds that it is never right to kill
embryos, that the value of embryos can never be traded against any
other moral considerations, and that the life of one embryo cannot be
traded off the life of another embryo—let us call him or her the
absolute embryo rightist—S&H's argument is devastating
if it goes through, because it shows that even the absolute embryo
rightist accepts trade-offs involving embryos in natural
reproduction.
For the nonabsolute embryo rightist who holds that the lives of
embryos have value but that this value is not always overriding or
absolute, the effects of S&H's argument are much less serious.
To use an analogy, that I accept war and the loss of human life in a
case where the enemy is bent on enslaving my whole community does not
show that I do not hold human life in high esteem, only that I do not
hold it as an absolute or always overriding value.
As far as I know, there are very few absolute embryo rightists about.
Many seem to hold that embryonic human life is as valuable as adult
human life, but that in itself does not lead to absolute embryo
rightism, unless it is combined with the idea that a human life has
absolute value and can never be sacrificed or traded off against any
other good. This latter idea is held by very few. S&H's
conclusions may therefore be less troublesome for actual embryo
rightists than S&H would like to believe.
The Main Argument
S&H claim that acceptance of natural reproduction entails
acceptance of a range of other reproductive techniques. They claim that
this is so simply because natural reproduction is a CL,4
Defined by S&H in the following way:
A creation lottery involves the creation of
a population of embryos for the purpose of creating a new human being,
and this practice involves the unavoidable death of some of these
embryos and the unavoidable production of grossly deformed and disabled
human beings. (p. 92)
and these other
reproductive techniques are morally isomorphic to natural reproduction.
They are also creation lotteries and must therefore be accepted if one
accepts natural reproduction. Is this true?
Not really. For most of S&H's arguments to work, they need
several other premises.5
I do not intend to
go through all the other premises they need, and will just assume that the
embryo rightists reciprocate the granting of their central premise with the
granting of the incoherence of both the act/omission distinction and
the double-effect principle that are both central to S&H's
argument.
This is perhaps most obvious in their discussion of
cloning where they state “Acceptance of natural reproduction
entails acceptance of reproductive cloning, at least from the
perspective of the safety and efficiency of the practice” (p.
93). A little later in the paper S&H acknowledge that this
conclusion (and several of the other conclusions stated quite
categorically earlier on) only follows if one or both of two further
premises are true: (1) the loss and/or deformity rate of cloning is
similar to or lower than natural reproduction (the “comparative
premise”), or (2) that the fact that a given technique is the
only way a specific population of embryos could come into existence
entails that the actual percentages of the lottery does not matter, as
long as there is a chance for each embryo (the “only chance
premise”).
The comparative premise has the advantage that it is relatively
uncontroversial. It is difficult to see how it can be rejected if what
matters is the wrongness of killing embryos. If we rely on the
comparative premise we do get the conclusion that S&H call
“striking,” that “if cloning were ever to become more
efficient than natural reproduction, then we would have a moral
obligation to clone” (p. 94, emphasis in original). We do,
however, also get some other conclusions that I believe that S&H
must have seen but decided not to mention.6
S&H are not required to accept these conclusions
outside the constraints of this particular argument, but if the
argument is really about what an embryo rightist is compelled to accept
by identifying natural reproduction as a CL, then S&H cannot within
the constraints of this argument claim to have established anything
that does not follow from the argument itself.
These include
that until we have good reason to believe that cloning is as efficient
as natural reproduction we should not attempt it, and that there were
moral obligations not to attempt IVF before 1978 and for the first many
years of actual IVF practice when it was much less efficient than
natural reproduction.
7 This is the
converse of the statement just quoted.
Even more problematic
from the point of view of S&H's desired conclusions is that,
if we rely on the comparative premise, their justification of creating
and donating some embryos directly for research does not work, unless
IVF becomes considerably more efficient than natural reproduction. If
we, for instance, allocate 50% of embryos directly for research, IVF
has to become twice as efficient as natural reproduction for the total
practice to be comparable to natural reproduction.
8 Here it is probably important to note that on the
comparative premise would be the case that, if efficiency gains in IVF
were achieved by embryo selection, then the discarded embryos would
have to be taken into account in the calculations. It is not the raw
take-home-baby rate that matters.
The embryo rightist is thus
currently not committed to accepting cloning or embryo experimentation
on the comparative premise and may never be committed to accept them if
the empirical odds do not turn out right.
S&H might say that the actual figures for natural
reproduction do not matter because “Even if 99% of embryos
perished during natural reproduction, embryo rightists and other
defenders of natural reproduction would go on regardless” (p.
90), but that argument is invalid. First, we would have to know whether
they would go on believing their actions to be morally right or just go
on because they suffered from akrasia (like many consequentialist
philosophers knowing that they should donate much more money to the
poor). Second, if I as a moral agent have to take the decision in which
CL to create my embryos, I have to make that decision on the current
figures, and I would have a moral obligation to choose the CL
with the lowest embryo loss rate. That another decision might be the
morally right one if reality was different is neither here nor there.
The only-chance premise does provide all the conclusions S&H
desire, but it does so at significant cost. It is clearly more
controversial than the comparative premise, and it does not follow in
any straightforward way from the views held by embryo rightists
concerning the value of embryonic life.9
The standard way of arguing for the only-chance premise
through an application of Parfit's identity problem is irrelevant
in the current context because it only succeeds in showing that no harm
and/or wrong can be claimed by an individual who is the result of a
certain kind of reproduction, if that was the only way that individual
could have been created. From this it follows that someone who has been
cloned cannot complain that he or she has been harmed and/or
wronged by cloning.
The embryo rightist,
however, locates the harm and/or wrong not in relation to the survivors
but in relation to those embryos that do not survive. It is only if embryos
have no moral value that a complete only-chance premise could follow from
Parfit's identity problem because the embryos simply fall out of
the equation.
A full discussion of the validity of the
only-chance premise is beyond the scope of this short comment, but it
is worth noting that S&H's short argument for the premise is
flawed. S&H rely on the claim that those who denied an obligation
to create “the best people—that is, people with the longest
and best-quality lives” (p. 93) would have no objections left on
the basis of safety or efficiency to reproductive technologies. This
argument only works by equating all forms of causal responsibility with
moral responsibility and leads directly to the conclusion that I am as
morally responsible (and blameworthy) for the eventual death of any of
my natural children in their old age as if I had killed a perfect
stranger.
From the point of argument analysis it is also worth noting that
accepting the only-chance premise makes the whole CL analogy
superfluous in most instances, because the only-chance premise directly
entails that, if a given way of reproduction (whether it entails a
lottery or not) is the only way in which a specific embryo could have a
chance of life, that way of reproduction is morally acceptable.
Some Further Problems in the Argument
There is an important ambiguity in S&H's definition of a
creation lottery. They state that a CL “involves the creation of
a population of embryos for the purpose of creating a new human
being” (p. 92, emphasis added).
This seems to be a valid description of natural reproduction, IVF,
and reproductive cloning, but a more problematic description of the
voluntary assignment of embryos to research as a condition of
reproduction. In this situation there is clearly more than one purpose,
and there seems to be no good reason to let the parents in question
choose how to describe the purpose. It could just as well be described
as “for the purpose of creating embryos for research.”
A further criticism is that S&H's argument proceeds as if
the people they call “embryo rightists” only have one moral
principle—something like “it is as wrong to kill an embryo
as an adult human being”—and that all their objections to
reproductive technologies flow from this principle.10
The only place where S&H mention other moral ideas of
the embryo rightists is where it suits their argument to claim that
“If embryo rightists do not believe that we can benefit from past
evil, as they typically do not, embryo rightists should oppose even
embryo-sparing AR” (p. 91). This is, by the way, rather
disingenuous, given that very few people hold the view that all benefit
from past evil is wrong. What matters in nonconsequentialist arguments
about past evil is most often the mechanism by which I as the present
agent benefit from past evil.
This may be true of
S&H's cardboard-cutout version of an embryo rightist, but it
is not true of most real-life opponents of new reproductive
technologies. It is outside the scope of this short comment to go
through the long list of arguments or concerns, so I will just mention
some that are widely held.
The Catholic Church's official opposition to many types of new
reproductive technologies is, for instance, not only based on
considerations about the embryo but also on considerations about the
illicitness of separating the procreative and unitive functions of the
procreative enterprise11
See, for instance:
John Paul II. Evangelium Vitae 1995:chap. 1, sect. 23:
Within this same cultural climate, the body
is no longer perceived as a properly personal reality, a sign and place
of relations with others, with God and with the world. It is reduced to
pure materiality: it is simply a complex of organs, functions and
energies to be used according to the sole criteria of pleasure and
efficiency. Consequently, sexuality too is depersonalized and
exploited: from being the sign, place and language of love, that is, of
the gift of self and acceptance of another, in all the other's
richness as a person, it increasingly becomes the occasion and
instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal
desires and instincts. Thus the original import of human sexuality is
distorted and falsified, and the two meanings, unitive and procreative,
inherent in the very nature of the conjugal act, are artificially
separated: in this way the marriage union is betrayed and its
fruitfulness is subjected to the caprice of the couple. Procreation
then becomes the “enemy” to be avoided in sexual activity:
if it is welcomed, this is only because it expresses a desire, or
indeed the intention, to have a child “at all costs,” and
not because it signifies the complete acceptance of the other and
therefore an openness to the richness of life which the child
represents.
and in general on a
teleological approach to the analysis of procreation. This is the
reason that the Catholic Church is and always has been opposed to IVF,
even in cases where all embryos are implanted.
Another belief held by many whom S&H would identify as embryo
rightists is that reproduction is important in a nonpersonal sense.
They might accept both that childlessness is an alternative to natural
reproduction and that natural reproduction is voluntary, but they would
see the loss in not reproducing as much more than a personal loss to
them. This could, again, be backed by various arguments, including some
relying on the teleology of human nature.
Many who are skeptical concerning the new reproductive technologies
also base this skepticism in a more jaundiced view of the overall
blessings of new technologies than that evidently held by S&H.
Is the Savulescu-Harris Exchange an Example
of Good Method in Bioethics?
S&H end their joint paper by claiming that it is “an
example (albeit far from perfect) of method in bioethics” (p.
95). This is clearly true. It is difficult to see how a paper in
bioethics could not be an example of method in bioethics. The previous
paragraphs do, however, imply that S&H believe that their exchange
is not only an example of method in bioethics but a good example of
method in bioethics.
I beg to differ. Claiming that this is a good example of method in
bioethics is somewhat like claiming that a discussion between left- and
right-wing Trotskyites on the exact implications of the necessity of
continuing the international proletarian revolution is a paradigm
example of good political debate. S&H clearly engage with each
other and find their discussion highly interesting, but they never
truly engage with the people for whom they claim their argument to be
relevant and compelling (the “embryo rightists”), just as
most Trotskyites never engaged with the real workers they were arguing
about or the capitalists they were ostensibly arguing against. The only
role of the “embryo rightists” is as a foil for
S&H's brilliant analysis; and to fulfill that role the
position of the “embryo rightists” has to be simplified and
misrepresented, as I have just discussed.
I agree with S&H that “Bioethics is disappointing for its
lack of constructive dialogue” (p. 95), but maybe their own
dialogue would have been more constructive if it had engaged with some
real opponents, with some real and significant differences of opinion,
instead of mute straw men.
