Science and religion 4m(1)

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By this point some readers will be tired of all these questions about what is true and what is not true, what can be known and what cannot be known. Some will long since have concluded that science is the only reliable guide to knowledge and will be impatient with religious claims and religious reasons. Others will feel just as strongly that ‘the heart has its reasons that Reason knows not of ’ (Pascal). Others may have become agnostic, or just exhausted, in light of the complex and apparently unresolvable debates between scientists and religious traditions.

For such persons this chapter and the next will come, I hope, as a welcome relief. Even if one is highly skeptical of integrating religious truth claims with scientific results and methods, religions may still be useful in guiding ethical decisions. Think of these two chapters as examples of ‘applied science and religion.’ Per- haps religions serve as repositories of wisdom that humans have acquired over the centuries; or they motivate people to think less of themselves and more of others and the environment; or, at the very least, they provide some inspiring examples and help- ful aphorisms. While religion cannot necessarily be reduced to ethics, most religious traditions place a major stress on moral, ethical, and social reflection and guidance.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND ETHICS

Clayton, Philip. <i>Religion and Science: the Basics</i>, Routledge, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/lehman-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5583047. Created from lehman-ebooks on 2019-06-19 16:07:00.

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As we will see, science continually raises extremely knotty ethical dilemmas – sometimes in the process of doing scientific research, and sometimes in the questions about what to do with the results. In each case, knowing something about the science is essential for understanding the dilemmas and how they arise. And yet in almost every case, knowing the science is not sufficient for resolving the questions. Philosophers can help in analyzing the dilemmas, finding common features between them, and for- mulating ethical or meta-ethical theories. But at the end of the day, philosophy has to rely on ethical intuitions and assumptions that have their sources in other realms, realms that appear to lie outside the boundaries of the sciences. Many people find that religious traditions offer complex and often rich collections of moral and ethical values. One does not need to take the religions as infallible in order to use them as resources for some of the new and difficult dilemmas that contemporary science is raising. In fact, even someone who does not hold any religious beliefs can find herself in agreement with some of these values.

Obviously, two short chapters cannot cover all the ethical questions raised by science today. I have selected some of the more intriguing, provocative, and urgent among science’s ethi- cal dilemmas. In each case, you will find multiple options from among which you can choose. For each issue covered, see if you can identify the response that you think is the most justified. Put together the best case you can make for your answer (your hypothesis). Then see how your arguments fare in discussions with advocates of the other views.

STEM CELL RESEARCH In human beings the sperm and egg combine to form a single-celled fetus, a zygote. Soon the cell divides into two cells, then four, then eight, and so on, up to the approximately 50 tril- lion to 75 trillion cells that constitute the adult human body. The new genome that is created by the genetic material from a par- ticular egg and sperm provides instructions for the early ‘stem’ cells to take on more specific functions. The stem cells gradually become the neurons, bones, and diverse organs of that complex system that is the human body. We call them stem cells because

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they have the potential to form into any of a large number of specific cell types.

In recent years the great medical importance of these stem cells has been recognized. In a process known as nuclear transfer, the nucleus of the stem cell can be removed and replaced by the nucleus of a specific cell, let us say a pancreatic cell from a healthy person’s pancreas. Through cell division, a healthy group of pancreatic cells can then be formed in a short period of time. These cells can then be embedded into the pancreas of a diabetic person, where they continue to reproduce. A vast number of therapeutic uses of this stem cell procedure are currently being developed. Many scientists expect that they will eventually bring life-saving relief for victims of heart disease, brain disease, diabe- tes, backbone disease, and even cancer.

The trouble is that our major (and, until recently, our only) source of stem cells is fertilized human embryos. In one sense, this is not a problem: contemporary techniques in assisted repro- duction, techniques practiced in most fertility clinics, produce large numbers of fertilized eggs, and many of these are kept and frozen at the request of the couples who receive fertility treat- ments. They are ideal sources of stem cells. In many cases, writ- ten permission has already been given for the fertilized eggs to be used for medical research. In these cases, no legal or technical obstacles stand in the way of using the stem cells for medical research and treatment.

But is there a compelling moral reason not to do so? Many religious persons argue that there is. For example, the traditional Roman Catholic view is that God adds the soul to the egg at the moment of fertilization. If the embryo has a soul, it is a living individual in its own right. Metaphysically speaking, it is just as much a person, and hence just as worthy of protection, as any adult individual. Christian evangelicals have tended to take the same position, appealing to a literal reading of biblical assertions such as, ‘You knit me together in my mother’s womb’ (Psalm 139). Indeed, it is not only Christians who believe that persons have souls. Jains affirm that every living thing has a jiva or soul, just as Hindus affirm the Ātman in each living thing.

The different religious traditions respond in very different ways to the debate about using stem cells. The Jewish traditions – not

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only Reform and Conservative, but also Orthodox – are much more open to medical experimentation of this sort. Jewish fam- ilies are threatened by specific genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs disease. In addition, given the decline in the number of Jewish children being born, and the decline in the number of them who raise their own children to be observant, it is a matter of religious concern when a Jewish couple wishes to produce chil- dren and cannot do so. The official position of Orthodox rabbis in Israel has been that medical experimentation is allowed on embryos up to 40 days after fertilization. Rabbis may disagree on the latest point at which experimentation would be accept- able, which would also be the point at which abortion is not religiously allowed. One traditional answer is that this point is reached when the heart begins to beat, but that point comes far, far later than the early stage at which stem cells are obtained. For Muslims, likewise, harvesting and using stem cells is ethically permissible. Some Muslim scholars argue that the limit is 30 days after fertilization, and others 60 days. Since 14 days is sufficient for scientific practice, no conflict arises here either.

If one steps back from the specific positions, three broad fam- ilies of religious views emerge. The first group maintains that God has already imparted an immortal soul to the fertilized egg, so that it deserves the same protection as any other human being. Similarly, if the embryo becomes a full human being at some precise point in fetal development – when the heart beats, say, or when brain activity begins – then there will be an equally precise dividing line. The second group holds that personhood gradually develops over the course of the pregnancy. Rather than personhood being achieved suddenly (say, by imparting a soul), personhood is a set of capacities that are not present at fertilization. (These views are more similar to the ‘gradualism’ presupposed in the famous Roe vs. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973.)

The exact point at which, in this process, the line is crossed into personhood is a matter of intense debate. Traditionally, it was said to be the moment of birth that brought the baby into the full community of human personhood. Increasingly, medical technology has been moving that point back. Many people feel

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that, once a fetus is able to survive outside the womb, it should receive legal protection, even if the mother does not wish to carry the baby to term. Given current medical technology, this point of ‘viability’ can now be in the 26th week of pregnancy, and sometimes even earlier. That means that the baby has the capac- ity, with medical help, to live outside the womb a full 14 weeks – more than three months – before ‘term,’ which is 40 weeks. Or perhaps we should move in the other direction. Interestingly, some indigenous religions hold that, even after birth, the new- born is not yet a person. It remains in a sort of limbo state until certain religious rituals are performed, such as circumcision or a naming ceremony with the family or village elders.

A third and final group of religious positions approaches the question with the goal of bringing about a net decrease in suffering. Choosing an early-term abortion, they argue, falls under a woman’s reproductive rights. A late-term abortion (say, to save the life of the woman) is a more tragic matter but still causes the least net suffering. On this view, medical research that has the clear potential to save thousands of lives, such as stem cell therapies, should be endorsed on religious grounds, since they are consistent with the call to compassion.

In fact, a number of religious traditions hold that the contri- bution of religion lies not in setting parameters for the begin- ning or ending of life, but rather in reducing the overall amount of suffering in the world. In a movement known as ‘Engaged Buddhism’ in Asia, and in much of Buddhism as practiced in the West, this is a central tenet, traceable back to the Buddha’s saying that one should ‘cause no harm’ (ahimsa). Similar prin- ciples may be found in Reform Judaism and in ‘progressive’ forms of Christian theology. Such approaches often view reli- gion as the ally of scientific medicine, at least to the extent that doctors aim to reduce suffering. Still, the religious approval of medical practice is not unconditional. When medicine is practiced for the gain of the researcher and not for the good of patients, for example, or when animals are sacrificed unneces- sarily (say, when computer modeling would suffice to produce similar results), then these religious thinkers are not hesitant to criticize scientific practice.

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MODIFYING OuR GENES Many human diseases can be traced back to a single gene. Repair the mutation in that one gene, and the person will not get the disease. But how? In 2017 scientists announced that they had found a way to do the repair. When a specialized stretch of DNA called ‘CRISPR’ is injected into a cell, an associated protein goes to work like a pair of ‘molecular scissors,’ altering the very DNA of the host cell.1

The results have been spectacular. For example, a genetic mutation is found in one out of 500 people that causes serious heart disease. When CRISPR was injected along with the sperm into an egg, in 42 of 58 embryos the mutation was repaired in every cell of the embryo.2 Scientists believe that it will be possible to reliably obtain similar results for many of the 10,000+ diseases caused by a genetic mutation, including some kinds of breast and ovarian cancer, Huntington’s disease, and perhaps sickle cell anemia and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

One of the founders of this method, Jennifer Doudna, likens it to the cut-and-paste function on our computers. She writes of ‘the ability to rewrite the code of life,’ which for her means that ‘we have effectively taken control of evolution.’3 A stagger- ing number of breakthroughs are now possible. Scientists have already completely removed the HIV virus from a living organ- ism. They have been able to stop the growth of human cancer cells in mice and to cause the cells of superbugs to kill the harm- ful insect. Scientists have even been able to produce biofuels more quickly, doubling the biofuel output in certain algae.4

‘What will we do with this unfathomable power?’ Jenni- fer Doudna asks. She is right: the greater the scientific break- through, the more perplexing the ethical difficulties. For some, the very context of discovery will be problematic. To work reli- ably, CRISPR must be injected along with the sperm into the egg – it’s part of the moment of conception. The 58 human embryos were studied for some number of days (controlled by law) and then euthanized. If you believe for religious reasons that an embryo is fully a person at the moment of conception, the method itself will be unethical.

And for others? Currently the National Academy allows scientists to modify an embryo only to correct mutations that

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cause ‘a serious disease or condition’ and when no ‘reasonable alternatives’ exist. But remember that the CRISPR technology can in principle change any attribute that depends on a single gene. If eye color is the product of a single gene, then the baby’s eye color could presumably be changed using the same method. Imagine that the parents could travel to some country where the laws are looser and arrange to have many of their baby’s qualities determined before in vitro fertilization occurs. Is there a point where the changes to a person’s DNA become so exten- sive that we must judge the process to be unethical? As Doudna warns, ‘Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences.’5

Two reservations stand out for me for both religious and scientific reasons. Perhaps in the future there will be methods for human enhancement – greater intelligence or strength or beauty. People who are wealthier would presumably be able to purchase these treatments, whereas the world’s poor would not. Here, I think, would be the ultimate injustice: that the human race would be divided into genetically superior and inferior persons depending on what families have the most money and access to services.

Finally, the ultimate genetic intervention would be to the human germline – modification of the DNA in sperm and eggs. Any changes introduced here will affect not only the baby that is produced, but also her children and their children as long as offspring continue. Here, if anywhere, humankind will have ‘played God,’ modifying the human race for all generations to come. Do we really have the wisdom that this decision requires? What are enhancements in one kind of society might be deficits in another. Here if anywhere, it seems to me, we would have overstepped the boundaries of what we can know and control, threatening the rights of future generations through decisions made by the present one.

ETHICAL ISSuES AT THE END OF LIFE The case of Terri Schiavo gained international attention in March 2005. She was medically diagnosed as being in a ‘per- sistent vegetative state’ (PVS). Brain scans showed extreme

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atrophy in the prefrontal cortex, although some lower brain- stem activity could still be detected. Like many such patients, she had been kept alive by means of a ventilator and feeding tube. Neurologist Ronald Cranford concluded, ‘beyond any doubt whatsoever Terri is in a vegetative state.’

The case was then catapulted to national prominence by a dispute between her husband, who wanted to remove the feed- ing tube, and her parents, staunch Catholics, who held that this was equivalent to murder. The ethicist Jack Freer described the dilemma: ‘When [the family] sees a warm body and a beating heart, neurological explanations about brainstem function are often not persuasive.’ Thus Schiavo’s father held that ‘She’s alive and she’s fighting like hell to live, and she’s begging for help. She’s still communicating, still responding.’

Note that some of the same issues arise here that we encoun- tered in the case of stem cell research. The official Catholic and conservative Protestant position is that, as long as Terri Schiavo is alive, she has a soul and should thus be treated like any other liv- ing person. And if she’s breathing and processing food, and there is some neural activity in her brainstem, then she is clearly alive. But this view clashed with the medical view: when the brain has atrophied to this degree, conscious experience no longer occurs. Terri could not be consciously trying to communicate with her family or doctors.

So which side is right? Or is there some third, intermediate position between them? And how does one define death any- way? This last question turns out to be a lot harder than you would think. For example, the fact that a person can no lon- ger eat or breathe on her own is no longer sufficient to define death. In the past, such persons would die quickly. But intubat- ing patients and putting them on a respirator is now common medical practice, and a patient can be held in a persistent vege- tative state for many years.

Following medical advice, legislators have tended to define death as ‘brain death.’ When the brain has atrophied or the EEG is flat, this is a medically irreversible state. Although it is possible still to keep the body breathing, many doctors will say ‘there is no point in ventilating a corpse.’ All the functions that we

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associate with living human persons depend on activity in the prefrontal cortex. When that activity has ceased, doctors say, there is no longer any point to ‘heroic’ measures. After consul- tation with the family, and assuming it is their will, the feeding tube is removed and bodily functions will gradually end. Note that Pope John Paul II later endorsed the position of Pope Pius XII, who said in 1957 that it is ‘for the doctor to give a clear and precise definition of death and of the moment of death.’6

Three other religious priorities can make matters more com- plicated, however. One is the religious concern with the quality of life. ‘Cause no suffering!’ is merely one side of the coin; the positive side is to maximize the good for all creatures. When it comes to old age, final sickness, and the dying process, reli- gious writings support both the healing function of the doctors and the care-giving function of the nurses. Palliative care, for example – the care given to patients to maximize their comfort and minimize their suffering during the dying process – arguably lies at the center of religious concern, and some religious per- sons emphasize it even more than extending a person’s life. As many of us know from our own painful experience, one faces brutally difficult decisions in this phase. Our loved one may be unable to communicate with us any longer, so it falls to us to make life-and-death decisions on their behalf, including deci- sions that may shorten their lifespan, even though doctors are telling us that it is possible to extend it.

Another traditional religious priority has been to challenge individualism and to understand persons as always existing within a moral or religious community. As a result, many religions urge that decisions about treatment be shared by the broader family, especially in cases where the patient is no longer able to make the decisions herself. When the suffering has reduced the qual- ity of life below a certain minimum, the patient or her family may advocate allowing the disease to run its course, without further medical interventions (‘passive euthanasia’). More con- troversially, some have argued that the patient should be allowed to take steps to hasten her own death, including the ingestion of a lethal substance that will directly end her life (‘active eutha- nasia’). Those who defend active euthanasia often agree that the

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doctor should not be asked to carry out this function, which the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ also forbids: ‘I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.’7 Over the past years, several high-visibility cases have caught the attention of the British public, such as the 2009 case of the famous conductor who accompanied his wife to Switzer- land and chose to die with her when she elected for a program of active euthanasia.8

The final complicating factor is the religious argument for preserving the dignity of the person even when he or she is no longer able to interact personally within the human community. Thus religious persons have worked to ensure that Alzheimer’s patients are treated with full human dignity, even when they are no longer able to recognize or respond to the persons around them. Sometimes the ground given is that they continue to pos- sess an eternal soul. Thus a Hindu doctor who worked with Alzheimer’s patients once told me, ‘I knew that her soul was still alive and intact inside her. So I could not treat her as just a body; I knew that, deep inside, she was still the same person she had always been.’9 Others make the dignity argument without appealing to the existence of a soul. Human moral community and love should still be extended, they maintain, even to the ‘unlovable’ and to those who can no longer reciprocate as per- sons. It is fair to say that, at least from Florence Nightingale on, religious persons have done much to humanize medicine and to decrease the depersonalization that can so easily be the by- product of the medical establishment today.

Given the tendency of the debate about euthanasia to deteri- orate into a combat between its most avid defenders and its most extreme opponents, it seems important to close by including a few of the mediating positions. Progressive Jews, Christians, and Muslims tend to focus on more holistic considerations:

I look for the miraculous in the entire process by which life emerges from nonlife, not in individual miracles at each moment of concep- tion. Similarly, I believe the qualities of personhood – what religious people call ‘the image of God’ – emerge slowly during the months leading up to and following birth.10

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Religious humanists also bring deep concerns about values to the debate:

The humanist response is more subtle, amorphous and hence harder to describe. But for many nonreligious people, the sense remains that life is somehow sacred even if it is not grounded in a divine creative act. Something more emerges in life, and something more is lost when it ends, than medicine can ever fathom. Perhaps the value of an individual’s life is a product of how we treat him or her.11

The media sometimes give the impression that, when it comes to the complex decisions about medical treatment at the end of life, one is forced to choose between one of the extreme positions. In fact, however, the real-life questions that families face today very often fall into the ‘gray,’ difficult, and often heart-rending realm between the black and white options. The more one under- stands the whole range of factors that impinge on life-and-death decisions, the better equipped one will be to face the reality of the medical decisions that he or she may someday be required to make on behalf of a loved one.

THE RIGHTS OF SuBJECTS IN SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS AND MEDICAL CARE What are the rights of persons in drug testing, experimen- tal treatments, and medical decision-making? How much do human subjects have to be told in social scientific research, and what does it take for you to give ‘informed consent’ before a medical procedure? Traditionally, many have approached these questions in a utilitarian way. If the suffering of one or a few human subjects can lead to cures that save tens of thousands of lives, that suffering is justified. We know this practice in its most extreme form from the Nazi doctors, who used it partially as an excuse for their genocide of the Jewish people.12 When you walk through the museums in the concentration camps Aus- chwitz and Dachau, you can see photographs of Jewish prisoners being slowly frozen to death in large barrels of water. No more extreme case can be found of eliminating the basic human rights

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of persons – de-personalizing them – for the sake of the medi- cal knowledge that could thereby be gained. What the Crusades were in Christian history, the experiments on innocent people by the Nazi doctors were in medical history.

I remember the intense ethical debate that arose some years ago when the data from the Nazi doctors were rediscovered. Some argued at the time that the data should be used by research- ers today in order to decrease suffering in the future, in the hope of deriving some good out of the terrible suffering of the Jewish victims of the Nazi doctors. But the overwhelming consensus of doctors, and finally the official position of the American Medical Association, was that the data should not be used since they had been acquired through completely unethical practices.

So what are the rights of subjects in experiments? The cur- rent standards arose originally out of some amazing cases in the social sciences. In the famous Zimbardo prison experiment at Stanford University, for example, an ‘innocent’ experiment among volunteers who were role-playing guards and prisoners almost immediately turned brutal.13 Within a few days of beginning the experiment, the ‘guards’ became abusive toward their ‘prisoners.’ The volunteer prisoners were subjected to such intense personal stress in the fake prison that they began to show signs of psycho- logical breakdown. Before the week was out, Zimbardo and his colleagues concluded that they had lost their scientific objectivity, that they too were being sucked into the pretend world of the prison, so that it was unethical to continue with the experiment.

A similar consensus arose concerning Stanley Milgram’s experiments to see whether subjects playing the role of ‘teacher’ would knowingly harm the subject playing the role of ‘stu- dent.’14 When the experimenter asked the ‘teacher’ to apply a possibly fatal electric shock to the ‘student,’ the majority of the subjects were willing to follow the experimenter’s orders. Even when the ‘student’ called out, ‘Stop, stop, you’re hurting me! I have a heart condition! Please stop!’ the ‘teacher’ continued to administer the electrical punishments. Fortunately, the ‘student’ was actually another experimenter and no shocks were really being administered. But is it ethical to deceive a subject in this way, to involve him in a highly traumatic experimental design, and to request him to carry out actions that he believes might lead

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to the death of another person – even if important knowledge is gained in the process?

Finally, the experiments reported in The Tearoom Trade15 also raised a storm of ethical judgments, which eventually led to tough new standards for social scientific research. In the original experiment, sociologists posed as watchmen for illegal homo- sexual encounters in public bathrooms, which allowed them to study how the encounters were arranged. They then traced the car license numbers of the men who had public sex. At a later date another sociologist visited these men at home on a completely different pretext and administered a ‘random’ sur- vey to them, meanwhile observing their relationships with their wives and children. The data were then compiled and published, although the men were not identified by name. Is it ethical for a researcher to be an accomplice to illegal activities and to use deception in order to obtain data?

These three examples reveal the kinds of ethical questions that scientists continue to struggle with. What are the rights of individuals in scientific experiments? At least in these cases, the community of social scientists has roundly condemned the researchers’ actions. Today scientists are required to obtain informed consent from each subject in their experiments, just as doctors require informed consent before they can oper- ate. Every major university has an Institutional Review Board (IRB), which carefully reviews proposed experiments to make sure that the rights of the research subjects have been observed. Deception is tightly controlled, as are experimental designs that might cause trauma or long-term harm to the subjects. Equally stringent standards hold for medical experiments. In some cases, the result has been that medical or scientific knowledge grows much more slowly, since the experiments that are allowed are less effective in gaining new knowledge.

Important questions are raised here. On the one hand, don’t we sometimes have to be utilitarian? If society requires a solution to an urgent threat, such as the Ebola virus or AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, doesn’t the social good outweigh possible harm or trauma to research subjects? Shouldn’t the rights of the individ- ual sometimes bend to urgent social need? Besides, who really understands better when a procedure is medically crucial – the

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medical specialist or (say) an aging patient? Can you imagine a case where some deception might be in the interests of the patient, or even society as a whole?

On the other hand, sometimes ordinary people need to be whistle blowers for unethical, even completely immoral behav- iors. In one of the worst abuses of the twentieth century, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, black men were secretly injected with the syphilis virus and left untreated for decades so that experimenters could learn about its consequences, with no con- cern for the suffering and death of the innocent ‘subjects.’

By contrast, other decisions are unbelievably difficult, as you know if you have ever had to decide whether to remove a family member from life-support systems. And more are on their way as science advances. Neuroscientists recognize that it will soon be possible to identify brains that will produce sociopathic behav- iors and to prepare custom drugs for that particular brain that will control the person’s behaviors. Can we administer the drug before he murders an innocent person, or do we have to wait until he harms other people and then imprison him?

Other questions arise. Would you sacrifice an animal to save a human life? What about selling an organ? Imagine that a poor farmer in the Global South wishes to sell a kidney; it will save a life of a dying person in another country, and it will make him wealthy by the standards of his village. Finally, is it acceptable to remove organs from a person who has just died if they can save the lives of two or three people?

Frankly, by and large religious leaders have been silent on these dilemmas. Clergy take very public positions on abortion and euthanasia, but it’s rare to find them bringing the wisdom of their tradition to the more difficult issues. When religious voices are silent, the medical establishment or the pharmaceutical com- panies end up deciding what is ethical and what isn’t – often guided by the criterion of financial gain. And yet this may be the area of ‘applied religion and science’ that affects our per- sonal, everyday lives more than any other.

WARFARE TECHNOLOGIES This particular topic would be easy to address if all humans agreed that certain technologies should never be developed. We

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could then agree on the reasons why these weapons should be forbidden, and then governments would ensure that weapons of that sort would never be constructed. Because the community of nations has not agreed on such standards, the ethical questions are far more complicated.

The technologies most often mentioned under this category are atomic, biological, and chemical weapons (‘ABC weapons’). We all know the devastating effects that followed the dropping of atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Naga- saki by the United States in the summer of 1945. In Hiroshima, around 100,000 people were killed instantly, and another 70,000 eventually died from the after-effects of this massive exposure to radiation.16 Yet these weapons were far less powerful than the nuclear weapons we now possess. Each warhead on an intercon- tinental ballistic missile (ICBM) has many times the destruc- tive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; and a single missile can deliver as many as ten warheads. In addition, remember that the radioactivity continues for many years after a nuclear warhead is exploded, so that pregnancies and infants ten or 15 years after the event may still be exposed to damaging levels of radiation.

Biological warfare involves introducing highly lethal organ- isms into a population. This may include water-borne bacte- ria, or airborne viruses such as the Ebola virus that has killed hundreds in Zaire and the Sudan. Biological agents might be introduced surreptitiously into the water system of a major city, be dropped into the atmosphere above the city, or be carried into the city and released. As the infection spreads, the effects would be devastating. Not only a major city, but even much of the population of a country could be destroyed, and the disease could pass well beyond its borders.

Chemical warfare dates back at least as far as World War I. In that war, mustard gas was released in front of one’s own trenches in the hope that breezes would carry the thick yellow gas into the opposing enemy trenches, making the troops inca- pable of battle. The United States dropped ‘Agent Orange’ on Vietnamese forests during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange is a carcinogenic substance, which both caused immediate suffering on the part of the Vietcong soldiers and produced cancer and death over the longer term. It is estimated that about 400,000

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Vietnamese died in the short- or long-term as a result of side- effects of Agent Orange, and about 500,000 children were born with birth defects. More recently, evidence indicates that the Syrian government has used sarin and chlorine gas against its own citizens.17 Sarin, a banned chemical weapon, kills people by asphyxiation, and chlorine gas becomes hydrochloric acid in a person’s lungs. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations once called Syria’s use of chemical weapons ‘a violation of all standards of morality.’

So what’s the solution? Some people argue that nations need to agree on treaties that outlaw the stockpiling or use of ABC weapons. Critics then point out that, across human history, virtu- ally every weapon that has been developed has been used against other tribes, religions, or nations. And there will always be rogue nations that employ the very weapons that have been outlawed.

So should scientific research be forbidden in areas where ABC weapons might be developed? The trouble is that no one knows in advance how scientific discoveries will be used. The compo- nents of napalm gas, which burned countless people to death during World War II, were discovered by chemists who were not intending to create a weapon. Lasers were developed for peace- ful purposes, but Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ laser defense shield would have made it easier for the U.S. to ‘nuke’ Russia without the worry that Russian nuclear missiles would strike U.S. soil. Robots, developed for peaceful purposes, may soon start to play a central role in on-the-ground warfare.

Religious supporters of new military technologies usually focus on pragmatic arguments, that is, on the ends that advanced weapons can serve. Since peace is a good thing – so the argument goes – it is acceptable to develop any weapons that bring about or increase the likelihood of peace. Advocates of this position generally agree that the first use of ABC weapons is unethical and is ruled out by their religious tradition. But, they argue, the possession of such weapons for the purpose of deterring others from using them is morally acceptable. Further, from the time of the ‘cold war’ with the Soviet Union to the present, many Christians in the United States have argued that Communism is godless and immoral, opposed to the core values of Chris- tianity. Centuries ago Christians developed a ‘just war theory,’

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which holds that, when certain conditions are fulfilled, it is eth- ically acceptable to go to war against another nation. The reli- gious opponents of ABC weapons are more likely to argue that developing certain kinds of weapons is ‘just wrong,’ perhaps by appealing to the pacifism of religious figures such as the Buddha, Jesus, or Mahatma Gandhi.

Because military decisions (and actions!) change the course of history, each reader needs to know what position they advocate and what are the reasons for and against their view. For example, I am a pacifist for religious reasons, believing that it is wrong to initiate violent actions against others. (Think of the bumper sticker, ‘When Jesus said love your neighbor, I think he meant don’t kill them.’) But I also recognize the complexities of this debate. Opponents of pacificism respond that if the U.S. attacks terrorists or a dangerous nation first it might reduce the overall harm caused by that nation. After all – so goes the criticism – perhaps the only language that terrorists understand is the lan- guage of power, and devastating weapons certainly speak this language. I would point out that the principle ‘the end justifies the means’ is challenged by many religious traditions. If one can- not use a gun to convert a person to their religion, one shouldn’t use immoral means to bring about peace. Actions that are incon- sistent with the core teachings and values of Christ or Buddha should also be ruled out for their followers, not only as final goals but also as means for achieving those goals.

Let’s close by thinking about the deeper issues that underlie the ethical and religious debate about war. Maybe there are con- ditions where, even from a religious perspective, war is justified, or maybe the secular realm and the sacred realm are fundamen- tally different, so that the laws and practices that apply to the one simply cannot be judged from the perspective of the other. The Christian theologian Martin Luther held, for example, that God has established two ‘kingdoms’ on earth, the secular and the sacred, the State and the Church. The State can and must use violence to carry out its God-given functions, and Chris- tian soldiers who assist the State can commit violence in wars while still remaining good followers of Jesus in their church life. Buddhists, who advocate universal compassion, have used sim- ilar arguments in defending policy decisions in Thailand or the

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actions of the Myanmar government toward the mostly Mus- lim Rohingya minority within that country. Jainism, the reli- gion that advocates non-violence more strongly than any other, has traditionally allowed Jain soldiers to defend Jain cities and temples from attacking armies. So perhaps religious people can allow their government to use destructive weapons to support the interests of their country, even though personally they do not condone such weapons and would not use them.

Finally, you should recognize that this entire debate about reli- gion and war is deeply influenced by your beliefs about human nature. Those with a more positive view of human nature expect that people will respond to reason, will care about the common good, and will not needlessly harm others. Those with a more negative view of humanity usually hold that people respond only to threats of punishment – and of course they can find numerous examples to support their view. Think of parenting: some parents provide their children with reasons not to engage in bad actions, whereas other parents respond, ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ Foreign policy debates are not as different as you might think. Some nations turn to diplomacy and non- violent means for resolving differences (Sweden and Denmark are famous examples). Others use the principle ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ to guide their actions. They are more likely to impose trade sanctions, build walls at their borders, and threaten violence.

Turning to religion does not immediately resolve this fun- damental dilemma, since almost every major religion includes both ‘doves’ and ‘hawks’ who draw on that tradition to defend their views. But it does offer a space where people can reflect on their core intuitions about human nature, as we have done here. Science provides us with details about how warfare technologies work and what they will do. By contrast, religious language is permeated with values. When people express their fundamental ethical and moral commitments, they often do so in religious terms. I cannot imagine living in the world today without being able to use technology – and knowing as much as possible about the science that makes it work. But surely it’s no less important to learn how to step back from the concrete dilemmas, like the ones we have faced in this chapter, in order to voice to yourself

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what are your deepest beliefs and values and how you wish to live in light of them.

quESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCuSSION 1 Formulate your own responses to the five urgent ethical issues

you have been reading about: stem cell research, modifying our genes, treatment of patients at the end of life (euthana- sia), the rights of human subjects in experiments, and war- fare technologies. Which one is the hardest for you to answer, and which one is easiest? In what ways do your religious or anti-religious views play a role in the way that you answer?

2 Do you find yourself able to give definitive answers to the ethical problems considered in this chapter, or do you see only multiple shades of gray? Name some ethical dilemmas where a person’s religious values might lead to a definitive answer, and others where you would say that the answer is relative to the context and persons involved. What makes the difference between these two different kinds of cases?

3 As you reflect on these difficult issues, what ethical values guide you personally, and how would you explain to others your commitment to these particular values?

4 What role should religion play in public ethical debates, such as those surrounding warfare technology or the use of the new CRISPR technology? Is it better to separate govern- ment and religion when making ethical decisions, or can reli- gion play an important role in national debates about burning ethical issues in these fields? Why should people in ‘secular’ contexts take religious arguments seriously?

5 How does scientific knowledge affect religious ethics? In the end-of-life debate, for example, to what extent should the results of a brain scan determine how we respond to a person in a coma? Are there any religious ethical commitments that ‘trump’ scientific data? If so, what are they, and why do they ‘trump’ in this way?

6 Are there particular values (i.e., the sanctity of life, the rights of individuals, decreasing overall suffering) that rise to the top of the scale of importance for you as you weigh these ethical issues? Are these values grounded by religious commitments?

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Could they be shared by others irrespective of their religious views, or are they particular to your own tradition?

7 Are there certain warfare technologies that you think should never be used under any condition, and, if so, what religious arguments might support your position?

NOTES 1 Aparna Vidyasagar, ‘What Is CRISPR?’; www.livescience.com/58790-

crispr-explained.html. 2 Pam Belluck, ‘In Breakthrough, Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation From

Genes in Human Embryos’; www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/ science/ gene-editing-human-embryos.html/.

3 Jennifer A. Doudna, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2017).

4 Brad Bergan, ‘11 Amazing Feats the Gene-Editing Tool CRISPR Just Made Possible’; www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/11-amazing-feats- gene-editing-tool-crispr-just-made-possible-ncna790911.

5 Quoted in Noah Robischon, ‘The Ethics Of CRISPR’; www.fast company.com/40426601/the-ethics-of-crispr.

6 ‘Jahi McMath and Catholic Teaching on Determination of Death’; https://www.ncbcenter.org/resources/news/jahi-mcmath-and-catholic- teaching-determination-death/.

7 The Hippocratic Oath can be found at www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/ hippocratic-oath-today.html. The quotation is taken from the Oath in its classical form and is sometimes modified in more recent versions.

8 Matthew Weaver, ‘British Conductor Dies with Wife at Assisted Sui- cide Clinic,’ Guardian News and Media ( July 14, 2009); www.guardian. co.uk/society/2009/jul/14/assisted-suicide-conductor-edward-downes: ‘Downes, 85, was almost blind when he and his 74-year-old wife, who had become his full-time career, travelled to Switzerland to end their lives.’ In the UK, ‘anyone assisting a person to end their life could face up to 14 years in prison.’ But prosecutors tend not to press charges against fami- lies and friends of people who travel outside the UK for physician-assisted suicide.

9 See also similar comments in Stephen Post’s beautiful text, The Moral Chal- lenges of Alzheimer’s Disease (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1995).

10 Philip Clayton, ‘A Mystery of Body and Soul,’ Washington Post (April 3, 2005), B01; www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20455–2005 Apr2.html.

11 Quoted from Clayton, ‘A Mystery of Body and Soul.’

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http://www.livescience.com/58790-crispr-explained.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/science/gene-editing-human-embryos.html/

http://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/11-amazing-feats-gene-editing-tool-crispr-just-made-possible-ncna790911

http://www.fastcompany.com/40426601/the-ethics-of-crispr

https://www.ncbcenter.org/resources/news/jahi-mcmath-and-catholic-teaching-determination-death/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jul/14/assisted-suicide-conductor-edward-downes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20455–2005Apr2.html

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12 See Peter Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986).

13 Philip G. Zimbardo, et al., ‘The Mind is a Formidable Jailer: A Pirandellian Prison,’ The New York Times Magazine (April 8, 1973), Section 6, 36ff.

14 See Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).

15 Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing, 1970).

16 Bernard Cook, Women and War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006), 283.

17 Daryl Kimball, ‘Timeline of Syrian Chemical Weapons Activity, 2012– 2018’; www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical- Weapons-Activity.

SuGGESTIONS FOR FuRTHER READING Anand, Sudhir, et al., eds., Public Health, Ethics, and Equity (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004). Barbour, Ian G., Nature, Human Nature, and God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress

Press, 2002). Beauchamp, Tom, Principles of Biomedical Ethics (New York: Oxford University

Press, 2009). Biggar, Nigel and Linda Hogan, eds., Religious Voices in Public Places (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2009). Brockopp, Jonathan E. and Thomas Eich, eds., Muslim Medical Ethics: From The-

ory to Practice (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008). Cahill, Lisa Sowle, Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, and Change

(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005). Cook, Bernard, Women and War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006). Dann, G. Elijah, God and the Public Square (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,

2010). de Grey, Aubrey, Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse

Human Aging in Our Lifetime (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007). Diller, Lawrence, The Last Normal Child: Essays on the Intersection of Kids, Culture,

and Psychiatric Drugs (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006). Geisler, Norman, Christian Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Options (Grand

Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010). Hashmi, Sohail and Steven Lee, eds., Ethics of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Reli-

gious and Secular Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Healy, David, Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Phar-

maceutical Industry and Depression (New York: New York University Press, 2004).

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Jeeves, Malcolm, ed., From Cells to Souls – and Beyond: Changing Portraits of Human Nature (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004).

Kilner, John F., et al., eds., Cutting-Edge Bioethics: A Christian Exploration of Technologies and Trends (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002).

Kurzweil, Ray, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Penguin Books, 2005).

Lifton, Peter, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986).

Mappes, Thomas A. and David DeGrazia, Biomedical Ethics, 7th edn. (New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities; Social Sciences; Languages, 2010).

Milgram, Stanley, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).

Peters, Ted, Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom (New York: Routledge, 2003).

Petryana, Adriana, et al., eds., Global Pharmaceuticals: Ethics, Markets, Practices (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).

Ruger, Jennifer Prah, Health and Social Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Runzo, Joseph and Nancy Martin, Ethics in the World Religions (Oxford: One- world, 2001).

Shamoo, Adil, Responsible Conduct of Research, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Stober, Spencer S., God, Science, and Designer Genes: An Exploration of Emerging Genetic Technologies (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishers, 2009).

Waters, Brent, This Mortal Flesh: Incarnation and Bioethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009).

Winslow, Gerald and James Walters, eds., Facing Limits: Ethics and Health Care for the Elderly (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).

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