Boundaries in Bioethics:

Stuart J. Youngner, MDProfessor and Chair Bioethics

Case Western Reserve UniversityCleveland, Ohio

Boundaries in Bioethics

• Some important bioethics boundaries• Human/Animal, Interspecies, Race

• Male/Female

• Human/Machine

• How do we identify and locate boundaries?– After all, we can’t use surveyors’ instruments or a GPS

• Motives for crossing or blurring boundaries• The “best way” to understand and deal with

boundaries in pluralistic civil societies

The New Republic, June 2, 1997, pp 17-28.

By what authority/methodology are Boundary Lines Identified and

Located?•By Science?•By Analytic Philosophy—e.g., conceptually logical and consistent categories?•By Belief, religious or otherwise, not subject to evidence?•Blind trust of authority?•By History and Tradition—they are simply “there”?•By intuition? By our emotional repugnance?

Motives for Crossing or Blurring Boundaries

•By Mistake•Out of Curiosity•Personal Advantage (Correction of Disadvantage)•Self Fulfillment•Personal Necessity•Social Necessity

Motives for Respecting or Defending Boundaries

•Political Strategy•Fear of change•Fear—of punishment (law, God, parents, police)•Fear of rejection, isolation•Boundaries protect important moral values???

Reactions to the Crossing or Blurring of Boundaries

•Moral Outrage•Disgust•Anger•Excitement•FearWhen these feeling strong enough, border crossing called Abominable: worthy of or causing disgust or hatred

Three Ways of Thinking About Why Crossing Boundaries is

Upsetting

• Evolutionary Protection against Pathogens

• Disrupts Self Identity and Body Image

• Disrupts ordering of society or cosmos The New Republic, June 2,

1997, pp 17-28.