Designer Babies, Week 3
The Political Control of Biotechnology
Wednesday 8 September from 5-6.30pm in ib3.307

This Wednesday, 8 September, from 5-6.30pm in ib3.307 the Deakin Philosophical Society will wrap up its discussion of designer babies and biotechnology with a chapter from Francis Fukuyama’s Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. In the chapter in question Fukuyama makes the case for regulation of gene technology. Hard copies are available on my office door, ic1.211. The chapter is also available online at www.deakinphilosophicalsociety.com/texts/fukuyama/posthuman.pdf

Fukuyama, F (2002), ‘The Political Control of Biotechnology’, in Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, Picador, New York, pp. 181-94.

Dr Liezl van Zyl
Virtue and Right: The Plight of the Non-Virtuous
Thursday 16 September from 3-4.20pm in c2.05 (ArtsEd meeting room), Burwood and videolinked to jb2.107, Waurn Ponds

Dr Liezl van Zyl, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies at The University of Waikato, New Zealand, will give the next in our series of special presentations. Dr Van Zyl’s presentation is entitled Virtue and Right: The Plight of the Non-Virtuous and will take place on Thursday 16 September from 3-4.20pm in c2.05 (ArtsEd meeting room), Burwood and videolinked to jb2.107, Waurn Ponds. Here is an abstract:

Virtue ethicists have long been under pressure to show that, despite its focus on character, it is able to provide an account of right action. In response to this, Aristotelian virtue ethicists – most notably Rosalind Hursthouse – have defined an act as right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. In this paper I discuss two closely related objections to this criterion, both of which relate to the actions of the non-virtuous. The first is that virtue ethics fails to provide correct action guidance and assessment in cases that involve non-virtuous agents, for in some cases a non-virtuous agent should not do what a virtuous person would characteristically do. A second objection is that virtue ethics altogether fails to provide action guidance and evaluation whenever the agent, through previous wrongdoing, finds herself in circumstances in which a virtuous person cannot be.

Dr van Zyl’s aim is to defend Hursthouse’s account of right action against these objections. She will do so by first drawing attention to the different senses in which the concept ‘right action’ can be used, namely as referring to(a) the act that ought to be done and (b) a good or excellent action. Where (a) is the relevant sense of right action when seeking action guidance, (b) is relevant when assessing an action. Dr Liezl van Zyl will then argue that if we understand ‘right action’ in the second sense, then Hursthouse’s criterion does allow us to accurately assess the actions performed by non-virtuous agents. Finally, when it comes to providing action guidance, Dr Liezl van Zyl agree that the criterion is inadequate, but argue that this problem can be avoided by viewing it solely as a means of action assessment while turning to the virtue- and vice-rules (v-rules) for action guidance.

Dr van Zyl’s main research interests are virtue ethics and applied ethics, and her focus is on questions that arise when trying to apply virtue ethics. She is the author of Death and Compassion: A virtue-ethical approach to euthanasia (Ashgate, 2000), as well as numerous journal articles.

Dr van Zyl’s presentation is hosted by the Philosophy program in the School of International and Political Studies, the Alfred Deakin Institute and the Deakin Philosophical Society.

Kind Regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
President, Deakin Philosophical Society.

Register to receive weekly Deakin Philosophical Society emails

Designer Babies, Week 2
Why We Should Select the Best Children
Wednesday 1 September from 5-6.30pm in ib3.307

This Wednesday, 1 September, from 5-6.30pm in ib3.307 the Deakin Philosophical Society will continue the discussion on designer babies. Last week Jason Bishop introduced us to the science of, and raised the central ethical questions surrounding, genetic testing and modification. This week we’ll look at an argument why parents ‘should select embryos or fetuses which are most likely to have the best life, based on available genetic information’. Julian Savulescu, an Australian philosopher who was at the time Director of the ethics program at The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at The Royal Children’s Hospital, made the argument in his 2001 article in Bioethics entitled, ‘Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children’ (vol. 15, no. 5/6, pp. 413-26). A copy of that article is available online at www.deakinphilosophicalsociety.com/texts/savulescu/procreativebeneficence.pdf. Hard copies will be available on the door of my office, ic1.211, from Tuesday morning. Here is the abstract:

Eugenic selection of embryos is now possible by employing in vitro
fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). While
PGD is currently being employed for the purposes of detecting chromosomal
abnormalities or inherited genetic abnormalities, it could in principle be
used to test any genetic trait such as hair colour or eye colour.

Genetic research is rapidly progressing into the genetic basis of complex
traits like intelligence and a gene has been identified for criminal
behaviour in one family. Once the decision to have IVF is made, PGD has
few `costs’ to couples, and people would be more inclined to use it to select
less serious medical traits, such as a lower risk of developing Alzheimer
Disease, or even for non-medical traits. PGD has already been used to
select embryos of a desired gender in the absence of any history of sex-linked
genetic disease.

I will argue that: (1) some non-disease genes affect the likelihood of us
leading the best life; (2) we have a reason to use information which is
available about such genes in our reproductive decision-making; (3)
couples should select embryos or fetuses which are most likely to have the
best life, based on available genetic information, including information
about non-disease genes. I will also argue that we should allow selection
for non-disease genes even if this maintains or increases social inequality.
I will focus on genes for intelligence and sex selection.

I will defend a principle which I call Procreative Beneficence: couples
(or single reproducers) should select the child, of the possible children they
could have, who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as
the others, based on the relevant, available information.

A number of rebuttals appeared in the journal, available online through the Deakin library, for anyone interested in the counterarguments and objections. You can access the journal if you log in via this link to the Deakin library.

Savulescu’s article is lucid and summarises many of the arguments for and against genetic engineering.

Stan van Hooft
Hope and Religion
Thursday 2 September from 3-5pm in ib3.307

In other news, Deakin’s own Stan van Hooft will provide the next in our series of special presentations, this Thursday 2 September from 3-5pm in ib3.307. Associate Professor van Hooft’s presentation will be on the topic of hope and religion:

Hope and hopefulness are ways in which we acknowledge the precariousness of our projects and the vulnerability of our existence. I will introduce the notion of “metaphysical hope” as an expression of eight features of hope and I argue that faith in God is not based upon rational argument or evidence. It is produced by metaphysical hope.

Stan van Hooft’s books include Caring: An Essay in the Philosophy of Ethics (1995), Facts and Values: An Introduction to Critical Thinking for Nurses (1995), Life, Death, and Subjectivity: Moral Sources for Bioethics (2004), Caring about Health (2006), Understanding Virtue Ethics (2006), and Cosmopolitanism: A Philosophy for Global Ethics (2009). He is currently researching issues in global ethics and political philosophy, the concept of caring in contemporary moral theory, and the role of hope in politics and religion.

Stan’s talk is hosted by the Philosophy program in the School of International and Political Studies, the Alfred Deakin Institute and the Deakin Philosophical Society.

Kind Regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
President, Deakin Philosophical Society.

Jason Bishop
Designer Babies: An Overview of the Technology and Ethical Implications
Wednesday 25 August from 5-6pm in ib3.307

This Wednesday, 25th August the Deakin Philosophical Society will begin looking at bioethics. Jason Bishop will get us underway with his presentation, ‘Designer Babies: An Overview of the Technology and Ethical Implications’. Jason’s presentation begins at 5pm in ib3.307 on the Waurn Ponds campus. The meeting will finish at 6pm this week due to Philosophy Café beginning at 7pm at The Barking Dog hotel.

Dr Matthew Sharpe
Marcus Aurelius – Stoic par excellence
Wednesday 25 August from 7-9pm at The Barking Dog hotel

For this month’s philosophy café Dr Matthew Sharpe, Lecturer in Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Studies at Deakin University, will discuss the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius. This promises to be an enlightening look at philosophy as a way of life.

Dr Sharpe’s presentation begins at 7pm in The Kennel at The Barking Dog hotel, 126 Pakington st, Geelong West.

Dr Jack Reynolds
Analytic versus Continental: Arguments on the Methods and Value of Philosophy
Thursday 26 August from 3-5pm in ib3.307

This Thursday we also have the next in our series of guest speakers at Deakin University. Jack Reynolds, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at La Trobe University, will present ‘Analytic versus Continental: Arguments on the Methods and Value of Philosophy’. Dr Reynolds will advance some of the key arguments of his book by the same name.

An article by Dr Reynolds on the analytic-continental divide can be freely accessed online: Reynolds, J 2006, ‘Sadism and Masochism – A Symptomatology of Analytic and Continental Philosophy?’, Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy, No. 1, pp. 88-111.

The presentation begins at 3pm in ib3.307 on the Waurn Ponds campus.

Regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
President, Deakin Philosophical Society.