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This graphic shows the process of life coming to fruition.

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This quote gives a definition to what ethics is.

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"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." -Potter Stewart

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This quote explains how ethics is a crucial part of making science beneficial.

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"Without ethics, science would be cruelty" - Nenia Campbell

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This quote explains that science needs guidance so that it maintains under control.

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"Science is a super power, but without a humanitarian heart to guide it in the right direction, it always ends up doing more harm than good." -Abhijit Naskar

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This quote exemplifies one of the moral setbacks of cloning humans, specifically, in the decisions of their traits.

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"Ethics on Science" by The University of Chicago

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"Ethics on Science" by The University of Chicago

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This video explains exactly what ethics in science is and why it is important.

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Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Unity Temple

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The Significance of Ethics and Ethics Education in Daily Life

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Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

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If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Should scientists consider how their discoveries might be misused? Are scientists too controlled by their funders? What responsibility do scientists have toward the public?

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Dolly the sheep was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell and died at 6 years old.

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"Dolly the sheep's scientific and ethical legacy" by David Tod

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"Dolly the sheep's scientific and ethical legacy" by David Tod

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This article discusses the ethical questions behind the cloning of Dolly the sheep.

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David Tod, Investment Manager, Rathbones

At the centre of the Science Zone in Edinburgh's National Museum, mounted on a hay-strewn plinth and protected by a glass case, stand the preserved remains of the world's most famous sheep. Dolly was a result of experiments to enhance methods for producing genetically modified livestock, but it is her potential impact on the human race that has generated countless headlines and fierce debate in the 20 years since she was first revealed to the public.

Scientists had been exploring the mysteries of cloning for almost a hundred years when Ian Wilmut and his team at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute made their breakthrough. As far back as 1885, by virtue of little more than shaking a sea-urchin embryo, biologist Hans Driesch had shown separate cells could develop into complete organisms. In 1902, as part of work that would ultimately win him a Nobel Prize, embryologist Hans Spemann had grown two salamanders from an embryo split with a noose fashioned from a strand of baby hair.

Yet these and subsequent triumphs went all but unrecognised by the non-scientific community. It was only post-Dolly that the sort of ideas once confined to the pages of pulp magazines suddenly entered the mainstream, bringing with them dreams of extraordinary advances, warnings of dire consequences and a morass of new moral, ethical and philosophical quandaries.

Dolly was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. The significance of this feat was that it proved a cell taken from a specific part of the body - in this instance a mammary gland - could recreate a whole individual. When Wilmut and his colleagues announced their accomplishment in February 1997, seven months after Dolly was born, the future appeared to have arrived.

The ensuing flood of predictions mixed the optimistic with the ominous. Novel means of preventing disease would emerge. "Designer babies" and immortality alike would soon be within reach. The dead would be resurrected - or at least recreated. Humans would be cloned. Whether desirable or dystopian, favourable or Frankensteinian, the possibilities seemed boundless. As pioneering biologist Alan Trounson remarked in recalling the moment Wilmut told him about Dolly: "I was stunned. It changed everything."

But did it? Today, two decades on, neither the hopes nor the fears that greeted Dolly's unveiling have been fully realised. As Scientific American observed on the 20th anniversary of her birth: "Cloning has had a bigger impact on science than many expected... but a smaller one on human life."

In considering the first part of this assessment it is important to remember that Dolly embodied an advance most experts had thought impossible. The method used, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, had been employed several times previously but never with an adult cell. Dolly therefore undoubtedly represented - to use one of academia's most well-known tropes - a paradigm shift.

In due course Wilmut and his team coined the phrase "therapeutic cloning" to describe a process in which a cloned embryo is created purely for the production of stem cells, which are then harvested and used to help better understand and treat diseases. As is practically inevitable in any field of research, this approach has since been largely superseded. Now it is easier to make what are called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells by "reprogramming" adult skin cells - a method untainted by the need to destroy human embryos during the harvesting phase.

Although one recent appraisal of Dolly's legacy dismissed therapeutic cloning as "passé", the further march of progress in no way diminishes Wilmut's achievement. Every scientist accepts his own contribution is likely to serve only as a stepping-stone to something superior. Shinya Yamanaka, who won a Nobel Prize for his research into iPS cells, has credited Dolly as his principal motivation. As Newton once said: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Meanwhile, the cloning of humans remains the stuff of sci-fi. This is in no small part due to the enduring inefficiency of nuclear transfer and the consequent risk of abnormalities. Given that there were 277 would-be Dollies and only one survived, the mere thought of trying to apply such unreliable techniques to humans is at best inadvisable and at worst unconscionable.

Several claims of success have surfaced, but all have conspicuously lacked credibility. US-based "reproductive specialist" Panayiotis Zavos has provided no meaningful evidence to support his repeated boasts of cloning human embryos and transferring them to wombs. South Korean biotechnologist Woo-Suk Hwang, formerly a professor at Seoul University, was found to have fabricated numerous supposedly groundbreaking experiments and now, having earned a suspended two-year jail sentence for embezzlement, oversees a company that clones pet dogs at $100,000 a time. The Raëlians, a quasi-religious movement founded on the belief that extraterrestrials were responsible for life on Earth, say that in 2002 they cloned a baby girl, Eve, from a 31-year-old American woman. She has yet to come forward to seize her place in history.

Wilmut, now an emeritus professor, never envisaged Dolly as a milestone on the road to human cloning, once rejecting the concept as "repugnant". As the controversy surrounding their work intensified, he and his colleagues determinedly nudged the narrative away from the nightmarish realms of Mary Shelley and HG Wells and back towards what had always been their intention: improving animal welfare and human health. Now, as well as arguing for both a modern-day "ark" containing tissues from endangered species and a "library" of cells compatible with as many human immune systems as possible, he pleads not just for caution but for patience.

Interviewed in 2008, the year he received a knighthood for services to science, Wilmut was asked how the Dolly story had shaped his thinking. "Well," he said, "I guess maybe it made the world seem a bit greyer. You would think there are merely positive benefits to come from something new like this, but you also see there are problems as well. And so there's a sort of grey area in the middle, where things aren't as rosy and as satisfactory as you might like."

In this reply, with its combination of undue modesty and near-regret, we perhaps find the dilemma at the heart of so many great scientific breakthroughs. Einstein expressed a similar sentiment when, reflecting on his role in the development of the atomic bomb, he lamented: "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." Even when it comes to the most famous sheep in the world, nothing is ever truly black and white.

Getting to know ewe

Dolly the sheep was born on 5 July 1996. A Finn Dorset, she had three "mothers": the first provided the egg, the second provided the DNA, and the third carried the cloned embryo.

Having been grown from a cell taken from a mammary gland, she was named in honour of famously large-chested country-and-western singer Dolly Parton. "It wasn't meant to be disrespectful," said project leader Ian Wilmut. "Science and its presentation can sometimes look terribly serious. It made us look human."

She was created using a technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. The cell nucleus was taken from an adult cell and transferred into an unfertilised egg cell whose own nucleus had been removed. An electric shock was used to stimulate and divide the hybrid cell, which was then implanted into a surrogate mother.

Dolly spent her life at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, where she was encouraged to breed and produced six lambs. She died on 14 February 2003 after suffering from lung disease and severe arthritis.

There were fears that the comparative brevity of her life - Finn Dorsets usually live twice as long - may have been a corollary of the cloning process. However, recent research into the long-term health effects of cloning found no grounds to support this suggestion.

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Dolly the sheep's scientific and ethical legacy

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The team of scientists responsible for the birth of Dolly the sheep believed their achievement would help transform the fight against disease. Opponents warned human cloning would inevitably follow, giving rise to an array of ethical and moral dilemmas. Have any of the prophecies come close to realisation?

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"The Ethical Implications of Human Cloning" by Michael J. Sandel

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"The Ethical Implications of Human Cloning" by Michael J. Sandel

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"Some argue that cloning is wrong because it departs from natural, sexual procreation...What makes reproductive cloning morally troubling is that its primary purpose is to create children of a certain kind. In this respect, it is similar
to other forms of genetic engineering by which parents seek to choose the traits of their children—sex, eye color, perhaps one day even their intellectual attributes, athletic prowess, and musical ability."

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This article talks about some of the many ethical questions with cloning.

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Human cloning is the creation of a human being whose genetic make-up is nearly identical 1 to that of a currently or previously existing individual. Recent developments in animal cloning coupled with advances in human embryonic stem cell research have heightened the need for legislation on this issue. Despite their nearly identical titles, the two bills currently being considered by Congress call for markedly different policies on this critical issue. Though both seek a ban on what is being called "reproductive" cloning--in which a clonal human embryo is implanted in a woman with the intent that a cloned human being will be born--they differ dramatically with respect to what is being termed "therapeutic" cloning. This latter type of cloning involves the creation and subsequent destruction of a clonal human embryo for the purposes of scientific or medical research. 2 Such embryonic destruction is usually carried out as a means of obtaining the embryo's "stem cells"--cells which some believe have the potential to revolutionize medicine by restoring the health of persons suffering from a variety of debilitating conditions. 3 Because the prospect of human cloning carries great potential to impact humanity in ways previously only imagined, it is exceedingly important that Congress adopt legislation that will protect society and the citizens who live in it--both now and for generations to come. To achieve this end, we believe that a comprehensive ban prohibiting both "reproductive" and "therapeutic" cloning is needed. In support of this assertion, we offer the following:

I. The overwhelming consensus in this country that human reproductive cloning should not be permitted necessitates a ban on both reproductive and "therapeutic" cloning.

An overwhelming majority of scientists, lawyers, health care professionals, ethicists and the general public has spoken out strongly against creating a human baby via what is being termed "reproductive cloning." 4 While most U.S. citizens support a ban on the reproductive cloning of human beings, they may or may not support a ban on "therapeutic" cloning. Yet, to enact a ban on the former while simultaneously permitting the latter would almost certainly result in instances of both reproductive and "therapeutic" cloning. Support for this premise is as follows:

First, if a ban only on reproductive cloning were adopted, enforcement would require the legally mandated destruction of human embryos created via cloning. That is, if it were legal to create clonal embryos for "therapeutic"--but not for reproductive--purposes, the demise of these embryos would be required in order to prevent the illegal practice of reproductive cloning from occurring. A non-comprehensive ban would thereby establish "for the first time in American history a class of embryos that it is a crime not to destroy, a felony not to treat as anything except disposable tissue."5 Although abortion is currently legal in this country, the majority of U.S. citizens would surely react strongly against and refuse to adhere to a governmental policy that mandated the destruction of human life (or the punishment/ incarceration of women known to have defied the law by giving birth to human clones). 6

Indeed, if clonal human embryos were created in the laboratory for "therapeutic" purposes, the mandate that they not be implanted or otherwise allowed to progress toward birth would prove very difficult to defend. Therefore, the birth of clonal human beings--the very thing such a ban would intend to prohibit--would likely result. 7 Consider the following scenarios:

1. A clonal embryo is produced with the "therapeutic" intent of producing tissue needed to save the life of a seriously ill child. Before the tissue can be obtained, the child dies. Her grieving parents, distraught over their tragic loss, request that the embryo be implanted so that they may have another child.

2. A man agrees to be cloned with the intent of donating the resultant embryo to research. Subsequent to creation of the clonal embryo, he learns that both he and his wife are infertile. Realizing that their prospect for having a genetically related child suddenly appears to be compromised, the man changes his mind and requests that his clone be implanted in his wife instead.

In cases like these, authorities would be hard pressed to deny the wishes of those desiring to implant a clonal embryo. As Leon Kass, Addie Clark Harding Professor in The College and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, has aptly remarked, "Once the genies put the cloned embryos into the bottles, who can strictly control where they go?" 8 Currently, the parents of embryos created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) are given absolute decision-making power as to whether their embryos are implanted, cryopreserved, donated to another couple or to research, or destroyed. Fertility clinics often go to great lengths to determine parents' wishes regarding embryos who have been stored for a long period of time and honor decisions both for and against implantation. 9 Certainly, the fertility industry would have a difficult time denying people the same choice simply because their embryos resulted from cloning. The implantation of human life--regardless of how that life originated--should not be regarded as a prohibitable act.

Second, if the laboratory creation of clonal embryos was permitted but the implantation of such embryos was banned, logistical problems regarding enforcement of such a system would undoubtedly arise. To prevent a cloned embryo from being implanted within the private context of a doctor/patient relationship would prove to be impossible. Policies that would require genetic testing of every baby upon birth to ensure that he or she is not a clone would likely be regarded as a violation of privacy. Furthermore, such testing would itself fail to ensure that human cloning had not occurred, as the baby could be a clone of an unknown or unrevealed person, rather than being a near genetic duplicate of one of the parents. As a result, the threat to levy fines on or otherwise punish those who clone often would not serve as a deterrent. Also, those who could be proven to have cloned (e.g., parents who cloned an ill son with the hope that his clone could provide healthy tissue for transplant) would likely not be stopped from engaging in such action if they believed it could save the life of their child. Therefore, policies that would prohibit the implantation of clonal human embryos would often be unenforceable and would fail to deter human reproductive cloning.

II. To mandate the destruction of clonal human embryos created for research purposes would constitute a break with our nation's longstanding legal tradition and the majority of public sentiment.

While some proponents of "therapeutic" cloning have characterized the cloning controversy as primarily a dispute between those who are "pro-life" and those who are "pro-choice," extracorporeal human embryos historically have been accorded the right to certain protections by those on both sides of the abortion debate. The following excerpt from Richard Doerflinger's June 20, 2001 testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Health illustrates this point in convincing fashion:

...the one practice in human embryo research that is widely condemned even by supporters of abortion rights is the special creation of human embryos solely for the purpose of research that will kill them. In 1994 the National Institutes of Health did propose funding such [a practice], as part of a larger proposal for funding human embryo research generally. The moral outcry against this aspect of the proposal, however, was almost universal. Opinion polls showed massive opposition and the NIH panel making the recommendation was inundated with over 50,000 letters of protest. The Washington Post, while reaffirming its support for legalized abortion, attacked the Panel's recommendation as follows:

The creation of human embryos specifically for research that will destroy them is unconscionable... [I]t is not necessary to be against abortion rights, or to believe human life literally begins at conception, to be deeply alarmed by the notion of scientists purposely causing conceptions in a context entirely divorced from even the potential of reproduction. 10

The Chicago Sun-Times likewise editorialized:

We can debate all day whether an embryo is or isn't a person. But it is unquestionably human life, complete with its own unique set of human genes that inform and drive its own development. The idea of the manufacture of such a magnificent thing as a human life purely for the purpose of conducting research is grotesque, at best.11

In the end, President Clinton set aside the recommendation for creation of research embryos. Every year since then, Congress has prohibited funding for all harmful embryo research at the National Institutes of Health, through the Dickey amendment to the annual Labor/HHS appropriations bills..12 However, even members of Congress who have led the opposition to the Dickey amendment agree with its rejection of special creation of human embryos for research. On the only occasion when an amendment was offered on the House floor to weaken the Dickey amendment, the sponsors emphasized that it would leave intact the clause rejecting the creation of embryos for research..13 Similarly, the recent NIH guidelines for embryonic stem cell research, as well as Senator Specter's Stem Cell Research Act of 2001, explicitly reject the idea of using embryos specially created for research purposes.".14

Also among those who have rejected the creation of human embryos for use in destructive research is the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) appointed by President Clinton..15 Much of the public also opposes the creation and subsequent destruction of clonal embryos for research purposes. 16

III. The United States should promote ethical scientific and medical research, and not merely the progress of research, as "good ends" do not justify any and all means to achieve those ends.

Some have suggested recently that "America is likely to be [the] most important battleground" in the debate over human cloning. 17 This is largely due to the fact that the U.S. has the most highly developed biotechnology industry in the world. Indeed, pressure from scientists seeking to close in on medical breakthroughs is immense, and they are consistently among the most vocal advocates of "therapeutic" cloning. 18 In his June 20, 2001 testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Health, Thomas Okarma, President of Geron Corporation, issued the following statement:

Our nation is on the cusp of reaping the long dreamed-of rewards from our significant investment in biomedical research. The U.S. biotech industry is the envy of much of the world, especially our ability to turn basic research at NIH and universities into applied research at biotech companies and, in turn, into new therapies and cures for individual patients. Using somatic cell nuclear transfer and other cloning technologies, biotech researchers will continue to learn about cell differentiation, re-programming and other areas of cell and molecular biology. Armed with this information, they can eventually crack the codes of diseases and conditions that have plagued us for hundreds of years, indeed, for millennia.

Also offering testimony before the Subcommittee on Health, George Mason University Professor of Public Policy Francis Fukuyama noted that many have fallen prey to the fear that the U.S. "will risk falling behind technologically if we hobble ourselves by restricting either research into or the actual procedure of cloning." 19 Similar reasoning was endorsed over a decade ago when James Watson urged Congress to fund the Human Genome Project on the premise that "what is good for U.S. business is good for the nation." 20 Today, those employed in science and public policy may indeed stand to gain both professionally and economically from engaging in cloning research; 21 however, even if such vocational and material benefits are not the primary motives behind the research--but merely accompany the central goal of improving human health--this praiseworthy pursuit should not be achieved by whatever means are available. 22

In illustrating this point, Kevin FitzGerald, a molecular geneticist and bioethicist who is himself engaged in cancer research at Georgetown University, has eloquently argued that the potential for obtaining benefits from scientific and medical research--regardless of how significant such benefits may be or who may stand to be helped by them--does not in itself translate into a license to engage in that particular research. For example, scientists would likely learn some very valuable information about the environmental contributions to cancer by administering known carcinogens to a group of people and then varying factors such as diet and sun exposure. To do so, however, would certainly be unethical and almost no one would advocate going forward with such experimentation. 23

With regard to the cloning debate, it may indeed be helpful to keep in mind that a hallmark of scientific research is to do no harm until it has been absolutely determined that no alternative means for obtaining a desired good exist. The recent succession of advances in non-embryonic stem cell research indicate that we have not yet reached that point of determination. 24 A corollary to this principle is that even when no other means exist, there are still restrictions against inflicting harm. 25 The importance of adhering to this principle should be enshrined in every scientist and citizen alike, as horrific examples of failure to ascribe to this cardinal rule abound in all too recent history.

Tragically, the last century and a half has been marred by numerous atrocities against vulnerable human beings in the name of progress and medical benefit. In the 19th century, vulnerable human beings were bought and sold in the town square as slaves and bred as though they were animals. 26 In this century, the vulnerable were executed mercilessly and subjected to demeaning experimentation at Dachau and Auschwitz. 27 At mid-century, the vulnerable were subjects of our own government's radiation experiments without their knowledge or consent. 28 Likewise, vulnerable African-Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama were victimized as subjects of a government-sponsored research project to study the effects of syphilis. 29 Currently, we are witness to the gross abuse of mental patients used as subjects in purely experimental research. 30 These experiments were and are driven by a crass utilitarian ethos which results in the creation of a "sub-class" of human beings, allowing the rights of the few to be sacrificed for the sake of potential benefit to the many. These unspeakably cruel and inherently wrong acts against human beings have resulted in the enactment of laws and policies which require the protection of human rights and liberties, including the right to be protected from the tyranny of the quest for scientific progress.

We are aware that "therapeutic" cloning research has been endorsed by many on the basis of its alleged potential to relieve the suffering of those afflicted by debilitating disease or disability. While we acknowledge that the desire to heal people is certainly a laudable goal and understand that many have invested their lives in realizing this goal, we also recognize that we simply are not free to pursue good ends via unethical means. As Fukuyama perceptively noted in his testimony:

The United States, as an economically, politically and culturally dominant force in the world, will have an enormous impact on other societies. The Council of Europe has already passed a ban on cloning; to date, 24 countries (including Germany, France, Italy and Japan) have already enacted national bans on cloning, while 16 have banned creation of embryos for research purposes. The United States can do a great deal to either reinforce (or else undermine) [what constitutes acceptable scientific and medical research]. 31

Precisely because our nation is a global power, it possesses a momentous opportunity to set a standard on both reproductive and "therapeutic" human cloning. Failure to set standards which are ethical will cause this country--and perhaps others--to reap once again the tragic consequences of unethical scientific and medical research.

IV. The pursuit of therapies for human disease and disability via "therapeutic" cloning would likely leave many Americans without acceptable means to relieve their suffering.

Some proponents of "therapeutic" cloning have alleged that if a comprehensive ban is enacted, those who advocated such legislation should be held responsible for the continued suffering of patients who might have benefitted from therapies derived from embryonic stem cells. However, given that many Americans have indicated they would resist treatments derived from embryonic stem cells due to their personal moral convictions, 32 serious consideration to the manner in which therapies are derived would seem warranted. That is to say, concern for the suffering should extend equally to all who suffer, and therapies should be developed which will not discriminate on the basis of moral convictions. Given that many Americans afflicted with debilitating disease and/or disability would likely refuse treatments derived from destructive embryo research, would the fervent commitment to helping the suffering that is often voiced by proponents of "therapeutic" cloning really best be served by research on embryonic, as opposed to non-embryonic, 33 stem cells? Indeed, if a treatment or cure for a particular disease was developed from embryonic stem cells, researchers most likely would not seek to develop an alternative therapy from non-embryonic stem cells but would instead move on to pursue the development of therapies for other human afflictions. Thus, if "therapeutic" cloning were to be legally accepted, the suffering of many patients might actually be extended--rather than ended or lessened--as they might be forced to continue in their suffering unless they are willing to abandon their moral commitments.

V. Human beings have a right not to be created for purposes of experimentation.

A bill permitting "therapeutic" cloning while prohibiting reproductive cloning would constitute the legalization of a wholly unethical practice in that it would legally condone and even legally require the demise of human embryos created for research purposes. The destruction of human embryos is profoundly disturbing, and research which necessitates such an act should be proscribed--regardless of the potential for scientific and medical gain. That some individuals would be destroyed in the name of medical science constitutes a threat to us all.

Regardless of one's views on abortion or personhood of the human embryo, human embryos are unequivocally human beings and therefore should not be subjected to destructive research. An international scientific consensus now recognizes that human embryos are biologically human beings beginning at fertilization and acknowledges the physical continuity of human growth and development from the one-cell stage forward. 34 In the 1970s and 1980s, some frog and mouse embryologists referred to human embryos in the first week or two of development as "pre-embryos," claiming that they deserved less respect than embryos in later stages of development. 35 Today, however, some embryology textbooks openly refer to the term "pre-embryo" as a scientifically invalid and "inaccurate" term that has been "discarded," and others who once used the term have quietly dropped it from new editions. 36 Both the Human Embryo Research Panel 37 and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission 38 have also rejected the term, describing the human embryo from his or her earliest stages of development as a living organism and a "developing form of human life." 39 The claim that an early human embryo becomes a human being only after he or she has reached certain stages of development (e.g., after 14 days or following implantation in the womb) is therefore a scientific myth. Finally, the historic and well-respected 1995 Ramsey Colloquium statement on embryo research acknowledges that:

The [embryo] is human; it will not articulate itself into some other kind of animal. Any being that is human is a human being. If it is objected that, at five days or fifteen days, the embryo does not look like a human being, it must be pointed out that this is precisely what a human being looks like--and what each of us looked like--at five or fifteen days of development. 40

The term "pre-embryo," and all that it implies, is therefore scientifically invalid. Human embryos are not mere biological tissues or clusters of cells; they are the tiniest of human beings. 41 Thus, we have a moral responsibility not to deliberately harm them. To ignore this responsibility would be to engage in morally unacceptable age discrimination, resulting in the disregard for and destruction of human life based solely on its developmental stage. 42

In addition to the fact that "therapeutic" cloning runs counter to our nation's longstanding legal tradition and much of public sentiment, 43 the creation of embryos for research via "therapeutic" cloning is for some even more insidious than embryo research in general. As George Annas points out:

To create human embryos solely for research--or to sell them, or to use them in toxicity testing--seems morally wrong because it seems to cheapen the act of procreation and turn embryos into commodities . . . . The moral problem with making embryos for research is that as a society we do not want to see embryos treated as products or mere objects for fear that we will cheapen the value of parenting, risk commercializing procreation and trivialize the act of procreation. 44

While embryonic stem cell research necessitates the destruction of already existing human embryos, "therapeutic" cloning "goes one step further and entails the deliberate creation--as well as the sacrifice--of human embryos for the alleged good of others." 45 Never before has the creation of embryos with the intent of destroying them for research purposes been legally accepted, and many of the most prominent advocates of human embryonic stem cell research have been adamant about holding the line here. 46 Leon Kass notes that:

The prospect of creating new human life solely to be exploited in this way has been condemned on moral grounds by many people [sic]--including The Washington Post, President Clinton and many other supporters of a woman's right to abortion--as displaying a profound disrespect for life. Even those who are willing to scavenge so-called "spare embryos"--those products of in vitro fertilization made in excess of people's reproductive needs, and otherwise likely to be discarded--draw back from creating human embryos explicitly and solely for research purposes. They reject outright what they regard as the exploitation and the instrumentalization of nascent human life. In addition, others who are agnostic about the moral status of the embryo see the wisdom of not . . . offending the sensibilities of their fellow citizens who are opposed to such practices. 47

Indeed, it would seem that the manufacture of embryos for research purposes would cause embryos increasingly to be regarded as expendable commodities who have their value rooted solely in what they are able to offer others. Such a mentality might especially prevail with regard to clonal embryos, whose genetic blueprint would be easily reproducible. If we begin creating and subsequently destroying human embryos in the name of research, we will inevitably move into ever more bleak territory, which, had we been wise, we would have shuddered to enter in the first place.

Finally, it is important to recognize that although research on human embryos is widely accepted in the event that it may afford therapeutic benefit to the embryo, so-called "therapeutic" cloning is in no way beneficial to the embryo. In his May 2, 2001 testimony before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, Richard Doerflinger offered the following:

...the experiments contemplated [in therapeutic cloning] are universally called " nontherapeutic" experimentation in law and medical ethics--that is, the experiments harm or kill the research subject (in this case the cloned embryo) without any prospect of benefitting that subject. This standard meaning of "nontherapeutic" research is found, for example, in state laws forbidding such research on human embryos as a crime. Experiments performed on one subject solely for possible benefit to others are never called "therapeutic research" in any other context, and there is no reason to change that in this context.

Thus, the term "therapeutic cloning" is actually a misnomer. Such cloning holds no therapeutic value whatsoever for the clonal embryo as, far from benefitting from the research, the embryo is destroyed in it. The painful lessons of the past should have taught us that human beings must not be conscripted for research without their permission--no matter what the alleged justification--especially when that research means the forfeiture of their health or lives. Even if an individual's death is believed to be otherwise imminent, we still do not have a license to engage in lethal experimentation--just as we may not experiment on death row prisoners or harvest their organs without their consent. Of all human beings, embryos are the most defenseless against abuse. A policy advocating the use of clonal human embryos in destructive research would violate the rights of human beings not to be experimented upon.

VI. Conclusion.

Because the prospect of human cloning carries great potential to impact humanity in ways previously only imagined, it is exceedingly important that Congress adopt legislation that will protect society and the citizens who live in it--both now and for generations to come. We believe that the following points are of primary significance to the current legislative debate on this issue:

The overwhelming consensus in this country that human reproductive cloning should not be permitted necessitates a ban on both reproductive and "therapeutic" cloning.

To mandate the destruction of clonal human embryos created for research purposes would constitute a break with our nation's longstanding legal tradition and much of public sentiment.

The United States should promote ethical scientific and medical research, and not merely the progress of research, as "good ends" do not justify any and all means to achieve those ends.

The pursuit of therapies for human disease and disability via "therapeutic" cloning would likely leave many Americans without acceptable means to relieve their suffering.

Human beings have a right not to be created for purposes of experimentation.

It is our contention that careful consideration of these points leads to support for a comprehensive ban prohibiting both the reproductive and "therapeutic" cloning of human beings. Failure to adopt such a ban will result in scientific, ethical, and legal failures--the scope and consequences of which will be of great magnitude.

1 In the cloning process, DNA from an existing individual is transferred into an egg cell devoid of genetic material. Components of the egg cell called mitochondria contain their own DNA; thus, provided that the egg cell donor and the donor of DNA are different individuals, a human clone would not be wholly identical in the genetic sense to his or her progenitor. Cloning Human Beings: Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (Rockville, MD), June 1997, pp. 17-18.

2 The term "therapeutic cloning" is actually a misnomer. See Section V (paragraph #5) of this document for discussion of this poinnt.

3 Davor Solter and John Gearhart, "Enhanced: Putting Stem Cells to Work," Science 283 (March 5, 1999):1468-1470; Robert Lanza, et al., "Human Therapeutic Cloning," Nature Medicine 5 (1999):975-977; Robert Lanza, et al., "Prospects for the Use of Nuclear Transfer in Human Transplantation," Nature Biotechnology 17 (1999):1171-1174.

4 Rudolf Jaenisch and Ian Wilmut, "Don't Clone Humans!" Science 291 (March 30, 2001):2552; "Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Human Cloning," United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ICR poll, June 7, 2001 (In this survey of 1013 adults, the question "Should scientists be allowed to use human cloning to try to create children for infertile couples?" was posed. 84.6% of respondents answered No, 12.4% of respondents answered Yes, 2.6% of respondents answered that they didn't know, and 0.4% of respondents refused to answer the question); ABC News Nightline poll, February 24, 1997.

5 J. Bottum and William Kristol, "For a Total Ban on Human Cloning," The Weekly Standard 6:40 (July 2/July 9), (editorial).

6 In his article "Preventing a Brave New World" (The New Republic, May 21, 2001), Leon Kass refers to the demand that clonal embryos be destroyed as "a bitter pill to swallow even for pro-choice advocates" (p. 36).

7 Lori Andrews, professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and national/international advisor on genetic and reproductive technologies, has pointed out that even though the United Kingdom has passed a law banning reproductive cloning but permitting "therapeutic" cloning, it is important to note that the UK fertility industry is much more centrally regulated than is that of the United States B which has almost no formal guidelines regarding the use of reproductive technologies. Andrews has remarked that, "In the United States, there is no way a law based on the British model requiring termination of embryos would pass. Quite to the contrary, laws forbidding embryo termination . . . are much more likely" (emphasis added). The Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999), p. 74.

8 Leon R. Kass and James Q. Wilson. The Ethics of Human Cloning (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1998), p. 51.

9 American Society of Reproductive Medicine, "Disposition of Abandoned Embryos," Ethics Committee Report, 1997.

10 Editorial, "Embryos: Drawing the Line," The Washington Post, October 2, 1994, p. C6.

11 Editorial, "Embryo Research Is Inhuman," Chicago Sun-Times, October 10, 1994, p. 25.

12 The current version is Section 510 of the Labor/HHS appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2001, H.R. 5656 (enacted through Section 1(a)(1) of H.R. 4577, the FY >01 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Public Law 106-554). It bans funding any creation of human embryos (by cloning or other means) for research purposes and any research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed.

13 "Let me say that I agree with our colleagues who say that we should not be involved in the creation of embryos for research. I completely agree with my colleagues on that score," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi, arguing in favor of research on "spare" embryos originally created for fertility treatment. The sponsor of the weakening amendment, Rep. Nita Lowey, said: "I want to make it very clear: We are not talking about creating embryos . . . President Clinton again has made it very clear that early-stage embryo research may be permitted but that the use of federal funds to create embryos solely for research purposes would be prohibited. We can all be assured that the research at the National Institutes of Health will be conducted with the highest level of integrity. No embryos will be created for research purposes...." 142 Cong. Record at H7343 (July 11, 1996). The weakening amendment failed nonetheless, 167 to 256. Id. at H7364. While this debate concerned federal funding, supporters of the Lowey amendment said it was "very hard to understand" why standards for ethical research should be different for publicly funded and privately funded research. See remarks of Rep. Fazio at H7341-2.

14 The NIH guidelines deny funding for "research utilizing pluripotent stem cells that were derived from human embryos created for research purposes," and "research in which human pluripotent stem cells are derived using somatic cell nuclear transfer, i.e., the transfer of a human somatic cell nucleus into a human or animal egg." National Institutes of Health Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells, 65 Fed. Reg. 51976-81 (August 25, 2000) at 51981. Senator Specter's bill supports embryonic stem cell research but insists that "the research involved shall not result in the creation of human embryos." 107th Congress, S. 723, Sec. 2.

15 In 1997 NBAC considered the prospect of cloning human embryos to create "customized stem cell lines" but described this as "a rather expensive and far-fetched scenario" which was also fraught with moral concerns. The NBAC declared that, "Because of ethical and moral concerns raised by the use of embryos for research purposes it would be far more desirable to explore the direct use of human cells of adult origin to produce specialized cells or tissues for transplantation into patients." Cloning Human Beings: Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (Rockville, MD: June 1997), pp. 30-31. The Commission outlined three alternative avenues of stem cell research, two of which seemed not to involve creating human embryos at all.

16"Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Human Cloning," United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ICR poll, June 7, 2001.

17 J. Bottum and William Kristol, "For a Total Ban on Human Cloning," The Weekly Standard 6:40 (July 2/July 9), (editorial).

18 Davor Solter and John Gearhart, "Enhanced: Putting Stem Cells to Work," Science 283 (March 5, 1999):1468-1470; Robert Lanza, et al., "Human Therapeutic Cloning," Nature Medicine 5 (1999):975-977; Robert Lanza, et al., "Prospects for the Use of Nuclear Transfer in Human Transplantation," Nature Biotechnology 17 (1999):1171-1174, 1999.

19 June 20, 2001 testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Health.

20 Testimony before the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Coordination of Genome Projects in Committee Report on H.R. 4502 and S. 1966, the Biotechnology Competitiveness Act (Comm. Print 138, 1988).

21 Ronald Cole-Turner, Beyond Cloning: Religion and the Remaking of Humanity. (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001), p. 99.

22 For a critique of the utilitarian justification for human cloning, see Kilner, John F., et al. (ed.), The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technology and the Family (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; and United Kingdom: Paternoster, 2000), pp. 128-132. See also chapter 15 of this volume for a legal assessment of why human cloning should be legally prohibited.

23 Bioethics Colloquium lecture, Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois, March 22, 2001.

24 Recent advances in non-embryonic stem cell research suggest that it may not even be necessary to obtain stem cells by destroying human embryos in order to treat disease. A growing number of researchers believe that non-embryonic stem cells may soon be used to develop treatments for afflictions such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, immune disorders, congestive heart failure, degenerative diseases, and other debilitating conditions. Such researchers are working to further research on "adult," rather than embryonic, stem cells. In light of these promising new scientific advances, we promote the development of methods to repair and regenerate human tissue which do not require the destruction of embryonic human life. However, even if such methods do not prove to be as valuable in treating disease as are human embryonic stem cells, use of the latter in the name of medical progress is still not justifiable for the reasons stated in this document. (For an ongoing update of advances in non-embryonic stem cell research, please access www.stemcellresearch.org.)

25 Bioethics Colloquium lecture, Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois, March 22, 2001.

26 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press), 1966.

27 George J. Annas and Michael A. Grodin (eds.), The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation(New York: Oxford University Press), 1992.

28 Ronald Munson, "Medical Experimentation and Informed Consent," in Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics, 5th ed. (New York: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1996), pp. 323-25.

29 James Jones, Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (New York: Free Press), 1981.

30 The Center for Mental Health Services: Protection and Advocacy Program for Individuals with Mental Illness (Rockville, MD); web site: www.mentalhealth.org.

31 June 20, 2001 testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Health.

32 Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics; web site: www.stemcellresearch.org.

33 Please see endnote #24 for a discussion of promising alternatives to embryonic stem cell research.

34 R. Warwick, Nomina Anatomica, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone), 1989 [the 6th ed. of Nomina Anatomica includes the international standard for scientifically correct terminology in human embryology]; Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology and Teratology (New York: Wiley-Liss), 1992; William J. Larsen, Human Embryology (New York: Churchill Livingstone), 1993; Bruce M. Carlson, Human Embryology and Developmental Biology (St. Louis: Mosby), 1994; Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th ed. (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co.), 1998; Bradley Patten, Human Embryology, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill), 1968. Stedman's Medical Dictionary (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkens), 1990.

35 Clifford Grobstein, "External Human Fertilization," Scientific American 240 (1979):57-67; Clifford Grobstein, Science and the Unborn: Choosing Human Futures (New York: Basic Books), 1988.

36 Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley-Liss), 1992 (op.cit.): "The ill-defined and inaccurate term preembryo . . . is not used in this book," (p.55). In the 1996 2nd edition of this text, O'Rahilly and Muller repeat this rejection based on the fact that the term is "ill-defined," "inaccurate," "unjustified," and "equivocal" (p.81). See also C. Ward Kischer, "The Big Lie in Human Embryology: The Case of the Preembryo," Linacre Quarterly 64(1997):53-61.

37 National Institutes of Health: Report of the Human Embryo Research Panel (Bethesda, MD: NIH), November 1994.

38 National Bioethics Advisory Commission, Cloning Human Beings (Rockville, MD), June 1997.

40 The Ramsey Colloquium, which is sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, is a group of Jewish and Christian theologians, philosophers and scholars that meets periodically to consider questions of ethics, religion and public life. It is named after Paul Ramsey (1913-1988), the distinguished ethicist.

41 See, for example, Bruce M. Carlson, "Introduction to the Developing Human" in Human Embryology and Developmental Biology (St. Louis: Mosby), 1994.

42 Personal conversation with John Kilner, PhD, Director of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, July 10, 2001.

43 Please see Section II of this document for discussion of this point.

44 George J. Annas, "The Politics of Human-Embryo Research--Avoiding Ethical Gridlock" (editorial) New England Journal of Medicine 334 (May 16, 1996).

45 Dónal O'Mathúna, "Cloning and Stem Cell Research: Wrong Motives on Both Sides of the Atlantic," Dignity newsletter (The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, Fall 2000).

46 In the National Institutes of Health Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells (accessible at www.nih.gov/news/stemcell/stemcellguidelines.htm), the following statement appears: "Investigators seeking NIH funds for research using hPSCs [human pluripotent (embryonic) stem cells] are required to provide documentation, prior to the award of any NIH funds, that embryos were created for the purposes of fertility treatment. President Clinton, many members of Congress, the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel and the NBAC have all embraced the distinction between embryos created for research purposes and those created for reproductive purposes." The NBAC report Ethical Issues in Human Stem Cell Research Executive Summary (September 1999) may be accessed at www.bioethics.gov/stemcell_exec_intro.htm.

47 Leon R. Kass, "Preventing a Brave New World," in The New Republic, May 21, 2001, p. 36.

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Human cloning is the creation of a human being whose genetic make-up is nearly identical 1 to that of a currently or previously existing individual. Recent developments in animal cloning coupled with advances in human embryonic stem cell research have heightened the need for legislation on this issue.

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This quote shows how Walton valued his own ambition of knowledge over someone else's life.

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"One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race."

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This shows Lucifer and how he was cast out of heaven by his own creator.

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"Is the creation of artificial life morally significant?" by Thomas Douglas, Russell Powell, and Julian Savulescu

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"Is the creation of artificial life morally significant?" by Thomas Douglas, Russell Powell, and Julian Savulescu

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This article references an experiment done in 2010 by the Venter lab and questions its morality.

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Abstract

In 2010, the Venter lab announced that it had created the first bacterium with an entirely synthetic genome. This was reported to be the first instance of 'artificial life,' and in the ethical and policy discussions that followed it was widely assumed that the creation of artificial life is in itself morally significant. We cast doubt on this assumption. First we offer an account of the creation of artificial life that distinguishes this from the derivation of organisms from existing life and clarify what we mean in asking whether the creation of artificial life has moral significance. We then articulate and evaluate three attempts to establish that the creation of artificial life is morally significant. These appeal to (1) the claim that the creation of artificial life involves playing God, as expressed in three distinct formulations; (2) the claim that the creation of artificial life will encourage reductionist attitudes toward the living world that undermine the special moral value accorded to life; and (3) the worry that artificial organisms will have an uncertain functional status and consequently an uncertain moral status. We argue that all three attempts to ground the moral significance of the creation of artificial life fail, because none of them establishes that the creation of artificial life is morally problematic in a way that the derivation of organisms from existing life forms is not. We conclude that the decisive moral consideration is not how life is created but what non-genealogical properties it possesses.

Keywords: Artificial life, Function, Genetic engineering, Moral status, Reductionism, Synthetic

In 2010, staff at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) reported the creation of the first bacterium with an entirely synthetic genome. A variant on the Mycoplasma mycoides genome was stitched together from simple chemical building blocks and then inserted into a bacterium from a different Mycoplasma species whose genetic contents had been removed. The result was a novel bacterium that was capable of reproducing and performing other normal bacterial functions ( Gibson et al., 2010).

The JCVI's creation was widely reported as the first example of artificial life. It is doubtful whether it was aptly characterised as such, given that only the genome and none of the cytoplasmic structures were synthesised by scientists ( Bedau et al., 2010). However, in this paper we take no committed stance on whether the JCVI's bacterium constituted artificial life. Instead, we consider whether it would have mattered, morally, if it did. Even if JCVI scientists did not create artificial life, this is an important question to ask since future scientists may well do so.

In the controversy that surrounded the JCVI's creation, which prompted a meeting of the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues and an ensuing ethical report ( 2010), it was widely assumed that the creation of artificial life is itself morally significant. In this article we aim to cast doubt on this assumption. First we offer an account of what it is to create artificial life and clarify what we mean in asking whether the creation of artificial life has moral significance. We then articulate and evaluate three attempts to establish that the creation of artificial life is morally significant: one based on the concern that the creation of artificial life involves playing God, one claiming that it will encourage reductionist attitudes toward life, and one which argues that artificial organisms will have uncertain moral status. We show that all three attempts fail.

1. Definitions

We shall first lay out some key definitions.

1.1. Creating artificial life

The creation of artificial life would have to consist, we assume, in the creation of an artificial living entity, henceforth an 'artificial organism'. We will take an organism to be artificial just in case either (1) all core elements of that organism were initially constructed from chemically simple, non-living components to the specification of a person or other natural rational being, or (2) it descended from an organism (or pair of organisms in the case of sexual creatures) that was constructed in this way.

There are several points to note about this definition. First, it does not require that to qualify as artificial, an organism must be novel in kind-by which we mean, substantially different in kind (genetically or phenotypically) to any previously or currently existing organism. Had the JCVI's creation been genetically and phenotypically identical to the wild type Mycoplasma mycoides, this would not have affected its artificiality. Second, whether the JCVI bacterium qualifies as artificial, on this definition, will depend on whether the nuclear genome is the only 'core element' of a bacterium-an assumption that many biologists would reject, given the crucial developmental and homeostatic role played by various cellular structures in the cytoplasm and membrane. Third, the qualified phrase ' initially constructed' is necessary because, once organisms are 'up and running', they will frequently be capable of maintaining themselves though exerting a causal influence on their internal and external environment ( Saborido, Mossio, & Moreno, 2011). Whereas the parts of rationally designed machines usually wear out with use, organisms will typically renew their parts until death. We take it that if an animal were artificial when first created, it would remain artificial at the end of its life. Fourth, we employ the disjunction 'or it descended from ... ' to accommodate our view that a reproductive lineage descending from an artificial organism or pair of organisms remains artificial in perpetuity since it reflects a continuous causal process that originates in a single artificial creation event (more on this below). And finally, fifth, we note that the above definition of artificiality does not cover domesticated plants and animals that result from selective breeding, or even genetically modified organisms (GMOs), since these are not constructed from chemically simple, non-living materials.

1.2. Moral significance

Since we wish to assess the claim that the creation of artificial life is morally significant, it is necessary to say something about how we understand moral significance. There are various ways in which this concept might be understood, but we wish to capture how it has been invoked in discussion of the creation of artificial life. There, the thought has typically been that the creation of artificial life is morally significant in a fundamentally negative way. We will take it to have such significance just in case (a) there are moral reasons not to create artificial organisms, or factors that weaken our moral reasons to create them, and (b) these are specific to the creation of artificial organisms. The second requirement, holding that the factors which bear negatively on the creation of artificial organisms be specific to this practice, requires some further elucidation. It implies that there are some contrasting practices to which these factors do not apply. But what are those contrasting practices?

The creation of artificial organisms is most naturally contrasted with the much more familiar practices whereby one organism is derived from one or more others. People derive new organisms from pre-existing ones, for example, by engaging in sexual relations with one another, undergoing or providing fertility treatments, harvesting and planting seeds. In some cases, as in most instances of normal human reproduction, the resulting organisms satisfy neither of the conditions for artificiality that we introduced above-they are neither created from chemically simple components, nor created to the specifications of a rational agent. In other cases, the new organisms that we derive from existing ones are created to the specification of one or more rational agents who envision a set of desirable organismic properties and manipulate living processes to achieve (or approximate) that end. This is true of domesticated plants and animals developed through selective breeding programs. It is also true of GMOs, as well as organisms that are generated via 'directed evolution' in the laboratory, where desirable properties are intentionally selected, rather than engineered in accordance with rational engineering principles (see O'Malley, 2011).

Since the production of new organisms to the specifications of rational agents is already widespread (and indeed has been since the Agricultural Revolution), it would be surprising if those alarmed by the prospect of creating artificial life were alarmed by the created-to-specification aspect of artificial organisms. If they were, it would be difficult to explain why the JCVI's creation was singled out for attention. It seems more plausible to assume, then, that what alarms some has specifically to do with the fact that artificial life forms would be produced to specification from chemically simple, non-living components.

This interpretation is supported by the emphasis that some authors have placed on the claim that creating artificial life is ontologically more radical than the mere derivation or manipulation of living things. Boldt and Müller (2008) put the point this way:

The shift from genetic engineering's 'manipulatio' to synthetic biology's 'creatio' is a shift with considerable ethical significance ... . In synthetic biology, the aim is not to amend an organism with a certain quantity of altered characteristics (that is, to manipulate); instead, it is to equip a completely unqualified organism with a new quality of being (that is, to create a new form of life).

The ethically relevant contrast for artificial life, therefore, appears to be the derivation of organisms from other life forms, irrespective of the mode of derivation and regardless of whether it is carried out to human specification.

We can now refine our conditions for moral significance as follows. The creation of artificial life has moral significance just in case (a) there are reasons not to create artificial organisms, or factors which weaken our reasons to create them, and (b) these reasons or factors would not apply-or would not apply with equal force-to the derivation of similar life forms from previously existing life forms. 'Similar organisms' should be understood as referring to organisms possessing similar non-genealogical properties. 'Derivation' should be understood as describing the generation of a new organism through the modification of a continuous causal process (for example, an unbroken chain of reproduction, cellular mitosis, epigenesis, et cetera) that extends over space and time. Modifications transmitted via a continuous casual process include, for example, intentional genetic alterations and random sexual recombination events.

The creation of a minimal bacterium by the JCVI stands in stark contrast to the derivation of life. Although the JCVI's synthetic genome contained only minor deviations from the naturally occurring M. mycoides genome, and was in some informational sense 'derived' from the latter, the synthetic genome was not part of a continuous causal process of genetic transmission linking the wild type organism with the derived organism. Rather, it was built de novo from basic biological components, and then inserted into the cytoplasm of an entirely different species of bacteria whose DNA had been removed.

It is this element of 'creatio'-the generation of novel organisms de novo -that many authors find ethically troublesome in relation to synthetic biology, and which could potentially form the basis of an argument that the creation of artificial life is morally significant. In what follows we develop and assess three prominent attempts to ground the moral significance of creating artificial life. We find each of them wanting.

2. Attempt one: playing God

An initial attempt to establish the moral significance of creating artificial life is suggested by the reception, in the popular press, of the JCVI's creation. A common refrain in this literature is that the Institute's staff members were 'playing God' (see, e.g., Alleyne, 2010; McCrae, 2010; Savulescu, 2010). Concerns about playing God have been raised in relation to many different areas of the life sciences, medicine and environmental policy, and though these concerns have not been developed systematically in the philosophical literature, there has been some philosophical treatment of them (see, for example, Coady, 2009; van den Belt, 2009). On the basis of this treatment, it is possible to delineate at least three different variants of the concern about playing God. All of these could, with some initial plausibility, be raised in relation to the creation of artificial life.

An overtly religious variant of the playing God concern maintains that the putatively worrisome practice involves literally usurping the proper role of some higher being or god. This worry was raised in the context of the recombinant DNA project that emerged in the 1970s ( Goodfield, 1977) and it has been raised with some regularity in response to more recent attempts to modify organisms through genetic engineering ( Evans, 2002). This version of the playing God concern maintains that humans should not intervene in certain 'forbidden' realms of the natural world regardless of what the likely consequences of such interventions will be.

A second, fundamentally secular version of the playing God concern maintains that agents who engage in the practice in question thereby express objectionably grandiose or hubristic attitudes. This worry has been raised, for example, in relation to the use of biomedical technologies to enhance one's normal capacities or to produce 'designer children' through the genetic selection or modification of human embryos ( Kass, 2003; Sandel, 2007). It is argued that these practices express arrogance and a drive to mastery when the appropriate attitudes to take towards one's capacities and one's children are attitudes of acceptance and gratitude (what Sandel calls 'giftedness'). Since this version of the playing God concern focuses on the attitudes of the agent said to play God and not on the consequences of his/her doing so, it sidesteps empirical debates over the likely psychological, social, and environmental consequences of the practice in question ( Buchanan, 2011).

A third, also secular version of the playing God concern is explicitly outcome-based, maintaining that the practice or intervention in question involves overstepping the limits of human knowledge, thus unwarrantedly risking unintended negative consequences. Complex living systems are taken to exist in an optimal but delicate equilibrium which human intervention is likely to disrupt ( Powell, 2010).

We shall set aside the theological variant of the playing God concern and focus instead on the two secular variants. It is plausible that the creation of artificial life could, in some cases, raise both of these concerns. It could express grandiose or hubristic attitudes, and it could unwarrantedly risk negative consequences. It is highly doubtful, though, whether the creation of artificial life would always (or even often) raise these concerns. For example, it is implausible that any scientist who creates artificial life in order to produce an effective pharmaceutical or a targeted medical treatment must harbour grandiose attitudes or pose undue risks. What is more important in the present context, however, is that it is not clear that these two secular concerns about playing God apply more powerfully to the creation of artificial life than they do to the derivation of similar life.

Consider first the risk-based variant of the playing God concern. The seriousness of this concern, when raised in relation to the production of new organisms, will depend on the level of risk posed by the organism produced. But the risk that an organism poses depends not on its etiology, but on its causal properties-that is, how it interacts with other organisms and the environment. Organisms derived from a dangerous pathogen like Bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) are obviously far more dangerous than artificial versions of a benign microbe involved in the fermentation of dairy products. There is no reason to suppose that two organisms with the same causal properties will pose different risks merely because one was artificially created while the other was not.

At this point, it might be argued that we have understood the risk-based variant of the playing God concern too narrowly. The worry is not that particular instances of creating artificial life will invariably pose greater risks than the derivation of similar life. Rather, the worry is that creating artificial life is a type of practice that would be associated with greater average or maximal risks than the derivation of similar life. Because creatio involves greater degrees of freedom than manipulatio, artificial organisms could, and perhaps typically would, depart more radically, genetically and phenotypically speaking, from the range of existing organisms than would derived organisms. And perhaps this more radical departure from existing variation would be associated with higher average or maximal levels of risk to human health or the environment.

One line of reasoning for this last view holds that endemic species, communities and ecosystems are at high risk of being ravaged by invaders, since they are not adapted to defend or compete against these 'alien' intruders. The more alien the invaders are, so the logic goes, the less likely endemic species or communities will, as 'naïve' prey or competitors, be able to resist the novel predation or competition pressures introduced by the invaders. Because artificial organisms would typically be more alien than derived ones, their creation would typically pose greater risks.

An opposing and arguably more plausible view is that the risk of antagonistic interactions between introduced and endemic organisms is actually less the more alien the introduced organism is. This is because strategic co-evolution, such as that characterizing predator-prey (and host-parasite) dynamics, typically requires specialized adaptations that can only evolve through prolonged evolutionary contact between lineages. One reasonable tentative conclusion, therefore, is that artificial organisms that differ radically from existing ones would, generally speaking, pose lesser risks to endemic fauna than organisms that differ less radically or even only slightly from their natural counterparts, since radically different artificial organisms would be unlikely to compete over niches with naturally existing organisms. These evolutionary considerations support scepticism regarding the claim that artificial organisms would typically pose levels of risk greater than those posed by derived organisms.

There are also reasons to be sceptical about the suggestion that artificial organisms would pose greater maximal risks than derived organisms. It is possible that artificial organisms could pose extreme risks that involve an existential threat to humanity. But the same is true of derived organisms. Indeed, currently existing organisms, such as smallpox or Ebola, already pose extreme, possibly existential risks, and such organisms could be genetically modified so as to make them even more lethal.

More importantly, even if the creation of artificial life would pose greater average or maximal risks than the derivation of life, it is not clear that this would have any moral significance. This is because an interpretation of the risk-based playing God concern which focuses on the average or maximal level of risk that a type of activity poses lacks much of the intuitive appeal of the original, narrower interpretation which focuses on the actual level of risk posed by a particular activity; it ends up using a sledgehammer where a scalpel will do. If a particular instance of creating artificial life were associated with risks of negative consequences, it could be morally problematic. However, it is difficult to see why the creation of artificial life should be thought morally problematic in cases where it is not associated with such risks merely because other instances of creating artificial life commonly are risky. The plausibility of the risk-based variant of the playing God concern derives from the thought that there are moral reasons not to risk negative consequences, not from the thought that there are moral reasons not to engage in practices that are typically risky.

One might claim that we are not in an epistemic position to divine risk in individual cases, and thus we must rely on an average assessment of risk. But this is certainly not the case in the context of derived organisms (compare, e.g., the derivation of cattle from the derivation of cholera), and thus it is not clear why it should be the case for artificial organisms.

Alternatively, one might claim that, even if we can distinguish lower- and higher-risk artificial organisms, we could not create the lower-risk variants without also facilitating the creation of higher-risk variants. Thus, we should assess a particular instance of creating artificial life in part by assessing the average or maximal risks associated with the other instances of creating artificial life that it might facilitate. But again, we can frequently derive low-risk organisms without contributing to the derivation of high-risk ones, and it is unclear why the situation should be any different for the creation of artificial organisms.

In short, the risk-based variant of the playing God concern is most forceful when understood narrowly, but understood thus, it is highly doubtful that it applies specifically to the creation of artificial life-and hence it is highly doubtful that it can ground the claim that the creation of artificial life is morally significant. What matters is the nature of the life in question and its causal powers; not how it was derived.

Similar thoughts apply to the expressivist variant of the playing God objection. Understood narrowly, this variant would apply more powerfully to the creation of artificial organisms than to the derivation of similar organisms only if the former would express more objectionable attitudes than the latter. But what attitudes the production of an organism expresses plausibly depends on what attitudes the creator of that organism actually has, not on the nature of the means via which the organism was created, and there seems no reason to suppose that a synthetic biologist who creates an artificial organisms must hold more objectionable attitudes than a molecular biologist who modifies an existing organism. Both scientists could (though need not) be driven by arrogance or other grandiose motives, and both scientists could (though need not) be motivated by a desire to master nature. Perhaps it could be argued that the very same motives and attitudes that would be unobjectionable in a scientist seeking to modify or manipulate existing organisms would be objectionable in a scientist seeking to create artificial life, but it is unclear what could justify drawing such a distinction.

By contrast, on a broader interpretation of the expressivist concern, the concern applies more powerfully to the creation of artificial life than to the derivation of life provided the former is typically associated with more objectionable attitudes than the latter. Moreover, it is not clear why we should accept broader interpretation of the concern. If a particular instance of creating artificial life were associated with objectionable attitudes, it is at least somewhat plausible to say that it would, as a result, be morally problematic. However, it is difficult to see why the creation of artificial life should be thought morally problematic when not associated with objectionable attitudes merely because other instances of creating artificial life are associated with such attitudes.

Like the risk-based variant of the playing God concern, the expressivist variant is most forceful when understood narrowly, but understood thus, it is highly doubtful that it applies specifically to the creation of artificial life-and hence it is highly doubtful that it can ground the claim that the creation of artificial life is morally significant.

3. Attempt two: encouraging reductionism

In an early paper on the ethics of synthetic biology, ( Mildred Cho and collaborators, 1999) set forward another possible ground for the moral significance of creating artificial life. They suggest that the creation of artificial life could lead to the widespread acceptance of a reductionism about life according to which life is "nothing more" than a set of biochemical components, or, more restrictively, a set of genes. They worry that this, in turn, might undermine "the special status of living things and the value that we ascribe to life". The claim, it seems, is that the knowledge generated by and practices associated with synthetic biology will cause people to no longer regard the distinction between living and non-living things as important. But-so the argument goes-this distinction is important, for it marks a difference in value: Living things possess, in virtue of being alive, some value that non-living things lack. We have moral reasons not to bring it about that people assign no significance, or less significance than is due, to this moral distinction. Thus, we have moral reasons not to create artificial life.

Is this concern peculiar to the creation of artificial life? Cho and collaborators do not go on to contrast the creation of artificial life with the derivation of similar life, but one can imagine how such a contrast might be drawn. On their view, the creation of artificial life makes it difficult to sustain the belief that there is something more to life than a certain kind of arrangement and interaction of chemical building blocks: the thought is presumably that it will be difficult to explain how this 'something more' could reliably be produced merely by arranging chemical components. By contrast, there is arguably no comparable problem posed by the demonstration that one living thing can be derived from another, for in that case, one may suppose that the 'something more' property is transferred from the ancestral organism to its descendant organism.

Reductionism about life can be understood as an ontological thesis or an epistemic claim about explanation or inter-theoretic relations. Virtually all biologists and philosophers of biology are physicalists-they maintain that all things in the universe are either physical or supervene on (roughly: are determined by) the physical. However, very few philosophers of biology endorse any version of the reductionist thesis. They almost universally reject the notion that general biological theories (such as the theory of natural selection or Mendelian genetics) can be reduced to physico-chemical theories, even in principle. They are equally sceptical that biological explanations, which refer to biological kinds such as species, populations, organisms, traits, cells, genes et cetera, can be successfully translated into explanations that cite only molecular biological kinds. The failure of theoretical and explanatory reductionism in biology is not a symptom of human epistemic limitations, but rather a reflection of the genuinely hierarchical structure of the biological world ( Kitcher, 1984)-in other words, these forms of reductionism fail because ontological reductionism is false.

Whether the simultaneous commitment to physicalism and anti-reductionism on all fronts poses a conflict that biologists and philosophers of science need to reconcile is beyond the scope of this article (for a discussion, see Rosenberg & Kaplan, 2005). What matters for our purposes is this: even if creating artificial life demonstrates that the physico-chemical facts fix the biological facts, all this shows is that biological properties supervene on physical properties-a version of the physicalism thesis that essentially every philosopher of science and biologist already accepts. Only a vitalist would dispute this. The creation of artificial life may thus be viewed as contradicting vitalism, but vitalism was discredited as an unscientific and empirically unsupported hypothesis long before synthetic biology came along.

One might argue that the creation of artificial life would support methodological reductionism-a research strategy holding that the most effective way to investigate the properties of complex systems is to decompose them into their lowest level parts. Synthetic biology has often taken this reductionist approach by emphasizing rational design principles that make use of standardized parts with well-understood properties, such as biobricks™. But synthetic biologists also frequently rely on directed evolution to tap into subtle causal interactions that are invisible to genetic engineers and recalcitrant to standard engineering manipulation-suggesting that the reductionist approach to building organisms to specification may be of limited efficacy (for a discussion see Lewens, this issue), in part due the emergent properties of complex systems ( Bedau, 2008). If synthetic biology is supposed to support the methodological thesis of reductionism by showing that the properties of the whole can be predicted and controlled by understanding the properties of the parts, it has done so with limited success. Even if it were successful, however, it is not clear why a reductionist scientific methodology should have any implications whatsoever for ethics.

We have been assuming that Cho et al. are concerned about the possible reduction of biological properties to physico-chemical properties. However it may be that they have a different kind of reductionism in mind. For example, perhaps they are concerned rather about the ontological reduction of organismic properties to genetic properties. As we noted, virtually no biologist would accept a metaphysical theory that relegates organisms, traits, and cells to the illusory-and what's more, there is no reason to immunize genes from this relegation, given that the ontological status of the gene is heavily contested (see Griffiths & Stotz, 2006). Neither would anyone claim that organismic properties are identical to genetic properties. Genes do not determine organismic properties in the way that sub-atomic elements determine the physical properties of atomic elements. And unlike neuronal states which may be synchronic with mental states, genetic states are well removed in space and time from, and thus cannot be identified with, their ultimate effects on the phenotype, which are mediated by a patchwork of intervening causes.

Alternatively, perhaps Cho and collaborators are concerned that the creation of artificial life would support a kind of explanatory genetic reductionism according to which the phenotypic properties of an organism are to be causally explained wholly or primarily by reference to the organism's genes. At first glance, the success of JCVI's synthetic genome does seems to imply that genes are a controlling causal influence on the development of organismic properties, as compared say to the cytoplasmic structures of the host bacteria which was outfitted with the synthetic genome. The mere fact that genes are acting as causal difference-makers in this case, though, need not generalize to other cases, such as to the traits of complex animals, which rely more heavily on environmental interaction for their development. More importantly, however, the genetic manipulation of existing genomes has demonstrated the causal influence of genes with equal rigour: consider, for example, genetic interventions that have been shown to induce the development of ectopic organs in fruit flies, such as a compound eye where a wing ordinarily would be. For these reasons, it is not clear that synthetic biology offers a uniquely powerful demonstration of genetic reductionism in any of its variations.

Finally, Cho and collaborators might be interpreted as maintaining not that the creation of artificial life actually supports any of the abovementioned reductionist theses, but that it would be perceived to support them. For instance, suppose it were the case that people who believed that the property of being alive supervened on biochemical properties tended also to believe that life is no more than a collection of biochemical components, even though this is false. If so, then to the extent that artificial life demonstrates supervenience relations, it might engender the perception that ontological reductionism is true.

There are, however, at least two serious problems with this line of reasoning. First, in the absence of empirical evidence that people are prone to draw mistaken inferences of this sort, it would seem uncharitable to assume that they will. Second, even if the creation of artificial life were to lead to widespread acceptance of some form of reductionism, it is not immediately clear why this would undermine "the special status of living things and the value that we ascribe to life", as Cho and collaborators fear ( Douglas & Savulescu, 2010). Humans and other beings with moral status are typically ascribed their special value on grounds other than that they are alive. It is very doubtful, for example, that bacteria and protozoa have any moral status (or even value) merely in virtue of their being alive; most of us would judge that there is nothing wrong with killing the numerous bacteria lining our skin and intestine or the weeds in our garden, let alone the flies buzzing against our windows. Rather, moral status is typically attributed to beings in virtue of the mental capacities they or normal members of their species possess. Typically these are capacities for consciousness, experiencing pleasure and pain, self-consciousness or rationality. Since it is a psychological life, rather than biological life, that is taken to confer moral status, it is not immediately clear why acceptance of reductionism about life should have any impact on our inclination to ascribe such status.

Moreover, even if the view that merely being alive confers no moral status were false, it is not clear that we would have much to fear from the creation of life. If this is a false view, it is a false view that virtually everyone already accepts, at least implicitly, and those who reject it do so on the basis of sophisticated philosophical theories that are unlikely to be affected by the creation of artificial life. Thus, it is unlikely that the creation of artificial life would make any difference to the number of people who hold the view.

Perhaps what Cho and collaborators are concerned about is that acceptance of reductionism would engender a frivolous attitude towards life: people might start creating new life forms willy-nilly, in much the same way that children might create different coloured compounds with elementary chemistry sets, which is inconsistent with treating life as something that is 'sacred' or worthy of respect. Perhaps this would be problematic even if the life forms created lacked moral status. We have already noted, however, that merely being alive is not ordinarily thought to demand respect; moreover, life can easily be created now using sexual reproduction and it can be radically modified using breeding or genetic engineering. It is thus hard to see how synthetic biology raises new concerns of this sort.

In sum, it is not clear that the creation of artificial life would encourage acceptance of any version of the reductionist thesis. And even if it did, it is not clear that this would lead to the acceptance of any new and incorrect views regarding the value of life.

4. Attempt three: an argument from evolutionary teleology

A third attempt to establish the moral significance of creating artificial life draws on the thought, again widely mentioned in discussions of the JCVI creation, that artificial organisms would not fit clearly into our organism-artefact dichotomy, and would thus have or be perceived to have an uncertain ontological status.

The uncertain ontological status of artificial life might create puzzles for biologists and metaphysicians, but it is not immediately clear why this would bear negatively on the morality of creating such life forms. Boldt and Müller (2008, p. 188) suggest that it might be problematic for reasons which parallel those offered by Cho and collaborators. They contend that metaphors often deployed in synthetic biology, such as those comparing DNA segments to "Lego bricks" and artificial life to "living machines", serve to "identif[y] organisms with artefacts, an identification that, given the connection between 'life' and 'value', may in the (very) long run lead to a weakening of society's respect for higher forms of life that are usually regarded as worthy of protection". However, as we argued in the last section, higher forms of life are not normally ascribed moral status in virtue of their being alive, but in virtue of their possessing certain mental capacities, and it is not clear why undermining the distinction between organisms and artefacts would have any influence on the significance we assign to mental properties. Thus, in this section, we consider whether there might be an alternative way to marshal worries about the uncertain status of artificial organisms into an argument for the moral significance of creating artificial life.

In order to do so, we will understand the worry about the uncertain ontological status of artificial organisms as a worry about uncertain functional status. For as we will see, uncertain functional status can lead to uncertain moral status, insofar as moral status is tied to interests, and interests are tied to functions. Many biologists and philosophers of biology would accept that ordinary organisms have a functional status: they can aptly be described as functioning well, or functioning poorly. According to the dominant 'etiological' account of function, the function of a trait is the effect for which that trait was selected-that is, the effect that causally explains the proliferation and maintenance of that trait in a population lineage via mechanisms of natural selection ( Neander, 1991). We call this account of function Evolutionary Teleology. Notwithstanding persuasive arguments for functional pluralism ( Amundson & Lauder, 1994), Evolutionary Teleology remains the prevailing approach to function in biology.

If one believes that the functional status of ordinary living things depends on their evolutionary etiology in the way specified by Evolutionary Teleology, then a puzzle arises concerning what would determine the functional status of artificial organisms, since these do not evolve via a process of natural selection but rather are created de novo to the specifications of rational agents. One possibility is that the functional status of an artificial organism might be determined in the same way as the functional status of non-living artefacts. A non-living artefact is, plausibly, well-functioning to the extent that it realises or acts in accordance with functions that are conferred on it by the rational agents that created or use it. For example, the function of a calculator is to accurately perform mathematical calculations because it was created, and is used, with this goal in mind.

However it seems doubtful whether the functional status of an artificial organism would (or would always) be determined in this way. Suppose that it were possible to create an artificial entity with all of the characteristics of a typical chimpanzee embryo and to develop such an embryo into an entity with characteristics of a typical adult chimpanzee. Suppose further that a scientist created such an artificial chimpanzee for the sole purpose of using it in medical experiments. It is highly doubtful that we would characterize this artificial chimpanzee as well-functioning in virtue of the fact that it was a good experimental subject (for example, it was docile, a good model for human diseases, and so on). It is tempting to think instead that the functional status of this artificial chimpanzee would be determined by the same considerations that would determine the functional status of similar, non-artificial chimpanzees. However, if the functional status of ordinary chimpanzees is determined by backward-looking Evolutionary Teleology, which refers to a history of natural selection for phenotypic effects, then it does not appear that the functional status of a non-evolved being, such as our artificial chimpanzee, could be determined in precisely the same way.

Various conclusions might be drawn from this problem (see e.g. Neander, 1996). One possible lesson would be that we should reject the extension of Evolutionary Teleology to artificial beings. But this would arguably lead us with significant uncertainty regarding the functional status of such beings. We could claim that their functional status can be determined by reference to the closest possible natural, evolved being. However, as artificial organisms become increasingly different from any evolved life form, reference to the functional status of existing organisms would surely become increasingly irrelevant to the functional status of artificial life. Absent some other means of determining the latter's functional status, there would be uncertainty in this regard. Moreover, even in a case where an artificial organism does closely resemble some natural, evolved being, one might reasonably doubt why the provenance of that natural being should be relevant to the functional status of its artificial equivalent. Even in this case, there might be significant functional uncertainty.

Uncertainty regarding the functional status of artificial moral patients might have moral significance. Suppose we accept the following Aristotelian view, which would command significant philosophical support:

Prudential Functionalism: an organism has an interest in functioning well.

That is to say, it is good for an organism to function well, or, equivalently, functioning well is prudentially valuable. If Prudential Functionalism is correct, then the uncertain functional status of artificial organisms will imply that it is also uncertain what interests that organism possesses, since interests are, on this view, tied to functions. Now suppose that we accept a further view, which would also command significant philosophical support:

Moral Prudentialism: an organism's interests give rise to moral protections (i.e., moral reasons to promote, protect or refrain from setting back those interests).

If Moral Prudentialism is correct, then it will follow in turn that it is uncertain what moral protections, if any, artificial organisms enjoy, since moral protections are dependent on interests, and the interests of artificial organisms are uncertain due to their uncertain functional status. In this way, functional uncertainty leads to moral uncertainty.

This moral uncertainty creates a risk that artificial organisms might be treated in ways that are morally wrong because the scope or strength of the moral protections enjoyed by those organisms is underestimated. This sort of risk is familiar from other domains that have been well studied by medical and animal ethicists. For instance, it is arguably uncertain what moral protections human embryos, foetuses and neonates, severely cognitively impaired adult humans, and many nonhuman animals enjoy, and this uncertainty creates a risk that such beings are treated wrongfully. Some would argue that abortion, non-treatment of comatose patients, and animal farming practices are examples of wrongful treatment that follow, in part, from the underestimation of the strength and breadth of the moral protections enjoyed by these organisms. Take the case of agricultural animals: cows, pigs and chickens were designed through a deliberate process of selective breeding to serve as a human food resource. Perhaps the unusually (and arguably unjustifiably) harsh treatment of agricultural animals is due in part to their having an uncertain functional status-one that is taken to be tied in part to human interests, rather than generated solely by their own evolutionary history. This might also explain the asymmetrical moral attitudes that many people hold toward the human treatment of wild and agricultural animals, respectively.

Of course, it is not always morally wrong, all things considered, to create organisms at risk of wrongful treatment. This can be seen by considering the case of human embryos and foetuses. Though it is arguably uncertain what moral protections these entities enjoy, and though this arguably creates some risk of wrongful treatment, it is surely often permissible to create human embryos or foetuses. Nevertheless, the risk that an entity will be treated in morally wrongful ways may significantly weaken the case for (or strengthen the case against) creating such an entity. Consider that the breeding of farm animals is more defensible when there is a low risk that those animals will be treated wrongfully than when there is a high risk. Similarly, the creation of artificial organisms might be less defensible than the creation of other organisms whose functional status is less uncertain, and which are thus at lower risk of wrongful treatment.

The argument that we have outlined can be summarized as follows: if the functional status of ordinary, evolved organisms is determined by their evolutionary origins in the way specified by Evolutionary Teleology, then the functional status of such organisms can be ascertained by determining whether they possesses those traits that were favoured by natural selection in their ancestors. However, the functional status of artificial organisms cannot be ascertained in this way, and this means that their functional status is uncertain. But, since organisms have an interest in functioning well ( Prudential Functionalism), it follows that it is uncertain what interests artificial organisms have. And, since interests generate moral protections ( Moral Prudentialism), this translates into uncertainty about what moral protections artificial organisms would enjoy. This in turn creates a risk that artificial organisms would be treated wrongfully-because the strength or breadth of their moral protections would be underestimated. And finally, this risk weakens the moral case for (or strengthens the moral case against) creating these life forms.

The premises of this argument-henceforth 'the argument from evolutionary teleology'-might seem to be somewhat plausible when assessed in isolation from one another. However, the conjunction of these premises is not plausible. In particular, acceptance of three of them- Evolutionary Teleology, Prudential Functionalism and Moral Prudentialism-generates implausible results. An ordinary bacterium is an evolved organism which, according to Evolutionary Teleology, has a functional status. Since an ordinary bacterium has a functional status, it also, pursuant to Prudential Functionalism, has interests; it is good for that organism to function well. Moreover, according to Moral Prudentialism, these interests generate moral protections. Thus, even bacteria, among the simplest forms of life, enjoy moral protections. If correct, this would mean that we have moral reasons to promote, protect, or not set back the interests of bacteria. Most would find this implication unacceptable. It is certainly wildly out of line with common sense morality, according to which we have no moral reason to refrain from killing bacteria. Indeed, this is the central problem with biocentric accounts of moral status. We remain open to the possibility that the functional status of bacteria and other very simple life forms may be determined by Evolutionary Teleology or some variant of it. But if it is, then either Prudential Functionalism or Moral Prudentialism will need to be rejected in order to avoid the implausible implication that simple organisms enjoy moral protections.

To avoid this implication, the proponent of the argument from evolutionary teleology might seek to restrict the scope of the argument so that it applies only to 'higher organisms', by which we mean organisms that can plausibly be taken to enjoy moral protections, for example, those that are conscious. There are three main ways in which this could be done. First, one could restrict the scope of Evolutionary Teleology so that it applies not to all evolved organisms, but only to evolved higher organisms. This might allow one to maintain that lower organisms possess no functional status. This is not a theoretically viable alternative, however, since it would result in a fragmented account of organismic function, drawing lines in unacceptably arbitrary ways from the standpoint of non-normative biological science. Second, we could restrict the scope of Prudential Functionalism so that it applies only to higher life forms-a move which might allow one to maintain that, even if lower organisms have a functional status, they have no interests. Third, one could restrict the scope of Moral Prudentialism. This would allow one to accept that lower organisms have functions and hence interests, but to deny that these interests generate any significant moral protections.

This is not the place to defend a view as to which of the latter two amendments should be made, but it should be noted that either amendment would constitute a significant concession. The new, restricted variant of the argument from evolutionary teleology would now no longer establish that the creation of simple artificial organisms, such as the JCVI bacterium, is morally significant. It would at most succeed in establishing the moral significance of creating higher artificial organisms, for only then would the problem of uncertain moral protections arise. Nevertheless, this is in itself an interesting conclusion. In addition, although on this argument the creation of simple artificial organisms would not count as morally significant, it might nevertheless be morally interesting in an indirect way: it might be an ominous sign of things to come, namely, the creation of higher artificial organisms.

But would a suitably restricted variant of the argument from teleology succeed even in demonstrating the moral significance of creating higher artificial organisms? There are two reasons to believe that it would not.

First, even in its restricted form, the argument has implausible implications. Since it assigns significant moral protections only to higher beings, it avoids the problem of scope-of implying that the range of organisms covered by moral protections is too wide. However, it has implausible implications for the content of those moral protections that it does ascribe.

Take the case of humans. According to the restricted argument from evolutionary teleology, humans enjoy moral protections that derive ultimately from the process via which they evolved. They are functioning well to the extent that they exhibit those traits that were favoured by natural selection in the evolution of their human ancestors. They thus have an interest in possessing those traits, and others have moral reasons to promote, protect or not set back the development and maintenance of those traits. But it is plausible that, for example, the evolutionarily given functions of the human brain include the generation of xenophobic psychological dispositions. These dispositions, and resulting hostility to out-groups, are characteristic of humans in a wide range of cultural environments and were probably favoured in our evolutionary past during periods of intense ecological competition between human groups. The restricted argument from evolutionary teleology thus implies that there are moral reasons to protect, promote or refrain from setting back the development and maintenance of xenophobic tendencies. This, we take it, is implausible.

The restricted variant of the argument from evolutionary teleology also has implausible implications for the content of the interests that it ascribes to higher beings. For example, it implies that a brain dead individual has an interest in having his body sustained by life support, even where he has previously rejected such support. Maintaining the body of a brain dead individual preserves some of his functioning-where functions are determined by Evolutionary Teleology-but most would find it difficult to accept that a brain dead individual has any interest in continued existence except perhaps where the individual previously wished to be maintained in such a state.

Not only does the argument from evolutionary teleology imply that organisms possess interests and enjoy moral protections that, intuitively, they do not possess and enjoy, it also makes these interests and protections implausibly contingent on facts about the evolutionary etiology of an organism. Consider the 'swamp person', who is exactly like an ordinary person in her non-genealogical properties but who, having arisen by chance from the primordial soup, has no history of selection to confer etiological biological functions. It seems very doubtful that, on discovering that someone whom we thought was an ordinary person was in fact a swamp person, we would change our views as to the interests or moral protections that the person possesses. Likewise, if synthetic biologists did manage to construct a human embryo entirely from scratch, and this developed into a human person, that person would, intuitively, be entitled to the same rights and privileges as another person, despite her curious origin. What matters, again, is not origin, but mental capacity.

The restricted argument from evolutionary teleology has counter-intuitive implications, both regarding what moral protections higher organisms enjoy and regarding what determines the existence of such protections.

In addition to these implausible implications, there is a further reason to doubt whether the argument from teleology, in either its general or restricted form, establishes the moral significance of creating artificial organisms. As with concerns about playing God, it is not clear that that the argument is sufficiently specific to artificial life.

According to both the general and restricted versions of the argument from evolutionary teleology, the problem with creating (higher) artificial organisms is that, because it would be unclear what moral protections they enjoy, there is a risk that they would be treated wrongfully. This problem arises, according to the argument, because artificial organisms are not evolved. As a result, their functional status is not determined by Evolutionary Teleology, and it is unclear what else determines their functional status. However, organisms derived from existing ones, such as via genetic modification or more radically by chimerization, are also not straightforwardly the products of natural selection. The final steps in the creation of genetically modified and chimeric entities were alterations brought about intentionally by rational agents. Thus, they too might seem to have an uncertain functional status.

On the one hand, the functional status of derived organisms could be determined by the same considerations that determine the functional status of non-living artefacts: that is, by whether they fulfil the purposes of the rational agents who designed and use them (although this might have unattractive implications of the sort suggested above). On the other hand, one might think that the functional status of derived organisms would be determined, at least in part, by considerations regarding their evolutionary past. For example, it could be that such an organism is functioning well just in case it possesses those traits which were favoured by natural selection in the evolution of its most proximate fully evolved ancestor. Alternatively, it could be that the functional status of derived organisms is determined by a mixture of evolutionary considerations and facts about the purposes of the agents who create and use them.

A reasonable lesson to draw from this discussion would be that, insofar as Evolutionary Teleology determines the functional status of natural, evolved organisms, the functional status of organisms derived through traditional genetic engineering practices is, like that of organisms created artificially, uncertain. If this is right, then concerns about creating beings with uncertain functional status are not specific to the creation of artificial organisms. Indeed they probably apply equally powerfully to the production all organisms (or all higher organisms) that are not wholly the product of undirected evolution and whose functional status therefore cannot straightforwardly be determined via Evolutionary Teleology.

We argued above that, insofar as the functional status of natural, evolved organisms is determined by Evolutionary Teleology, there is reason to deny that functional status determines moral status, for it is implausible that the moral protections enjoyed by such organisms are determined by their evolutionary genealogy. What matters for moral status are an organism's non-genealogical properties, such as its mental capacities. We have now argued further that, even if evolutionary genealogy were relevant to moral status, the resulting uncertainty about the moral status of non-evolved creatures would apply as much to derived organisms as to artificial ones.

5. Conclusion

We have developed and evaluated three attempts to establish that the creation of artificial life is morally significant. These appealed respectively to concerns about playing God; to the possibility that the creation of such beings encourages reductionism and thus undermines the special status accorded to life; and to the thought that, since artificial life forms would have an uncertain functional status, they would also have an uncertain moral status.

We argued that none of these attempts succeeds in establishing the moral significance of creating artificial life. It does not, of course, follow that the creation of artificial life is morally insignificant, for there may be some other way of establishing its significance that we have missed. However, we believe that the attempts we have considered constitute the most charitable ways of understanding the most prominent arguments for the moral significance of artificial life. We thus believe that we have left the view that the creation of artificial life is morally significant on significantly shakier ground.

Though we have not argued for this view here, we believe that the capacity to create kinds of life that could never naturally exist does raise deep moral issues about the interests of those beings, their moral status, and the risks they pose to other beings. However, in our view, what matters, in answering those questions, is not how life is created but what non-genealogical properties it has.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Michael Selgelid and audience at the 2013 Uehiro Annual Conference in Tokyo for their comments on earlier versions o this paper. We also thank, for their funding, the Wellcome Trust (Douglas, grant number WT087211; Savulescu, grant number 086041/Z/08/Z), the National Humanities Center (Powell), the American Council of Learned Societies (Powell), the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education (Savulescu), and the Oxford Martin School (Savulescu).

Footnotes

¹ We use the term 'organism' as a term of art here. In common usage, there may be living entities that do not qualify as organisms (such as rainforests) and perhaps also organisms that are not living (such as deceased animals).

² The term 'natural' is to be read as meaning 'not supernatural'. This qualification is necessary because without it all organisms would be deemed artificial according to the standard creationist or intelligent design-theoretic view of life, insofar as God is presumed to be a rational agent-a result that is at odds with common usage of the term 'artificial'. Note also that, as is clear from the definition, we do not take 'artificial' to mean inorganic or non-biological, although some might use the term in this way.

³ Note that it would not follow from the existence of moral reasons not to create artificial life that there is a decisive objection against creating it, since these reasons may be outweighed by moral reasons that speak in favour of creating artificial life.

⁴ We assume, for simplicity, that the process of creating an artificial organism is no more or less risky than the process of deriving a similar organism. Thus, any difference in risk will depend on the nature of the organism that is produced.

⁵ Similar considerations led the Task Group on Issues in Sample Return, a body of the Space Studies Board of the US National Research Council, to conclude in 1997 that the risk posed by the introduction of extra-terrestrial microbes to earth would be minimal.

⁶For classic statements of a non-reductive physicalist position, see Davidson (1970) and Kim (1993).

⁷ We henceforth frame the concern as one about the actual ontological status of artificial organisms, but the argument could straightforwardly be reformulated in terms of their perceived ontological status.

⁸ We make no claim as to whether the arguments we make in this section apply to non-evolutionary accounts of biological function, such as dispositional, causal role or organizational maintenance approaches.

⁹ We thank Simon Rippon for pressing us to consider this puzzle.

¹⁰ It might be disputed whether a complex, highly cognitive creature that developed in the normal way from an artificial embryo would really count as artificial, since its development would depend heavily on input from other living systems (such as a social learning environment). Readers unconvinced that it would may instead imagine (more fantastically) a chimpanzee-like creature directly created from chemically simple, non-living components according to the design of a rational agent.

¹¹ There would, of course, be significant disagreement about which beings fall into this category.

¹² Chimeric organisms contain a mixture of cells from two or more species. They can be created by fusing the embryos of two different species.

References

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is the creation of artificial life morally significant?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2010, the Venter lab announced that it had created the first bacterium with an entirely synthetic genome. This was reported to be the first instance of 'artificial life,' and in the ethical and policy discussions that followed it was ...

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This movie shows how something that should not have life having life can cause catastrophic consequences.

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This explains the core issue of ethics in science.

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"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

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"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

# data[].attributes.body
This ties into the theme of the creation of life because it tells that God had control over creation and destruction, while man was the one who was created.

# data[].attributes.body
"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God."

# data[].attributes.body
In the ongoing battle for control between man and nature, man is strongly fighting for control while nature still maintains that control. With every experiment being done man is using nature to create these experiments which means nature always finds a way. Neither man nor nature will ever give in, but man can never win.

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Nature is in control because nature controls the world, in my opinion. All aspects of human life tie back to nature. For example, the natural creation of life is a process every parent goes through to have a child and reproduce. Thus, every parent creates life.