Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Ethics and
Biotechnology
• Modern Bioethics
– Primarily the work of two ethicists in the 1970s
• Joseph Fletcher refined utilitarian or "situational
ethics"
• Paul Ramsey refined deontology or "objectivism"
• Utilitarianism
– Emphasizes consequences, not intentions
– Analyze possible consequences to determine
course of action which will have the greatest
positive effect
– Disadvantages:
• Must assign a value to what is being considered
– Love and family not easily quantified
– Quantifiable things, such as material goods and life span
could be emphasized
• Who does the calculating and assigns the values?
• Deontology (objectivism)
– There are some absolutes – definitive rules
that cannot be broken
– Deeply held convictions (may or may not be
religious)
– Advantage: firm guidelines, clear cut ethical
formula for decision making
– Disadvantage: rigid, may not take important
factors into account, or changes in values
• Genetic Information
– The Human Genome Project has led to the
identification of genes responsible for or
contributing to many disease states
– This knowledge has led to new strategies for
genetic testing and treating genetic disease
– Concern over the privacy of DNA information
• How genetic information could be used negatively
by employers, insurance companies, governmental
agencies, or through perceptions by the general
public
• Genetic Information
– In 2008, Congress passed the Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)
– Prohibits discrimination based on genetics or
the improper use of genetic information in
health insurance and employment