Grey Areas Are Difficult for Mr. Cohen
Eric Cohen is so paralyzed at the prospect of human cloning that he seems unable to fathom the possiblity of banning cloning for reproduction while allowing it for research. One wonders if he is also unable to distinguish driving under the speed limit from exceeding it or allowing participation by children in minimally risky research but not very risky research. Mr. Cohen is worried about the effects of ideology on the thinking of the pro stem cell research side but his intellectual palpitations over human cloning seem to have rendered him incoherent. - Art Caplancontribute a comment
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I'm glad to see that Dr. Caplan is reading good ethicists.
I wish that he would tell us how it is practical to "ban" any sort of cloning, much less regulate "reproductive"cloning while encouraging "therapeutic" cloning.
- by Beverly on May 25, 2005 at 1:26 PM | link
Impressive performance. Now we know that Art can read. But can he respond to arguments? That's still an open question.
- by Thomas on May 26, 2005 at 1:58 AM | link
Sometimes I wonder about the motivation of Beverly and Thomas visiting this website, since they seem to do so more than anyone else, when at the same time they clearly feel it ideologically biased to a 'truth-compromising' degree. Why bother?
Here's a possible theory. I've heard that some people are supported, by powerful lobbying groups, to make their presence felt on certain websites. Since bioethics is very much at the center of the present culture war in America, the idea is not so far-fetched. The war is waged on multiple fronts.
Of course: this is pure speculation. It's just that one can wonder what Bev and Tom (on a reasonable cost-benefit analysis) get out of it.
- by Jimmy Jones on May 27, 2005 at 6:17 PM | link
Jimmy--I do regularly visit this website. It's in a field of interest for me. I'm not paid by anyone to visit this site. My views on bioethics aren't for sale (which isn't something that everyone can say!).
I hope that satisfies your curiosity.
- by Thomas on May 27, 2005 at 7:19 PM | link
I am a student of bioethics, read the Journal, and follow the news which often contains quotes from the editors and bloggers on this site. I assumed that the purpose of the blog was to give a public forum for comment and challenging of the ideas ideas expressed here.
Some of us just care about ethics and don't sleep much.
On the other hand, why would Jimmy focus on the persons rather than the ideas expressed?
- by Beverly on May 28, 2005 at 4:41 AM | link
Hi,
It was just a matter of (perhaps idle) curiosity, and your answers do satisfy it, thanks.
Why focus on persons rather than ideas? I just wanted to know more about the persons offering the ideas. Because while it is a fallacy to judge ideas simply on the basis of who expresses them, our ideas are not disconnected from our lives (including our social roles, status, etc.) entirely. In my opinion.
- by Jimmy Jones on May 28, 2005 at 10:22 PM | link
Jimmy, for the record I found your comments to be quite assinine. Beverly and Thomas identified interesting questions, and you respond with an ad hominem. Nice.
- by A. Tsai on May 29, 2005 at 5:08 PM | link
The question still remains how can one ban reproductive cloning while encouraging therapeutic.
Well lets follow the example of the UK--it is prohibited to put a cloned embryo into a woman's body. They are funding therapeutic cloning research. As long as the law insists that cloned embryos never leave the lab or the dish this would seem to do the job that Cohen finds so incomprehensible.
- by Art Caplan on Jun 2, 2005 at 12:09 AM | link