Bioethics Concepts & Skills

Biology 1
Exploring Bioethics

What is bioethics?
What ways do ethical considerations relate to
biology?
What some tools and questions to use when
examining the choices you will face as citizens
of the 21st century?
How do we define “Ethics?”

Ethics seeks to determine what a person should

do, or the best course of action, and provides
reasons why. It also helps people decide how to
behave and treat one another, and what kinds of
communities would be good to live in.
Exploring Bioethics

Bioethics offers ways to think about,

analyze, and make decisions about
difficult ethical questions related to
biology and its applications.
Examples of Bioethics

New inventions, medicines, and

biomedical procedures are in the news
daily. For example, what if a new genetic
test was available for a fatal disease that
you knew ran in your family? Should you
have the test?
Examples of Bioethics

People who used to die due to organ failure can

now continue living if they receive an organ
transplant. But the number of available organs is
limited. Who should receive an organ transplant?
Should the organ go to someone who is sickest
or someone who is most likely to live the longest
if they receive it?
Case Study: Caffeine & Modafinil
A group of college students is staying up late together to study for exams. Several
of them have been drinking coffee all day and are wide awake, although feeling
jittery. One of the students, Lisa, mentions that she has recently started taking a
prescription medication that helps her stay awake because of a medical condition.
Lisa had previously been a heavy coffee drinker, consuming four or more cups of
coffee a day in her struggle to stay awake. Since starting on the new medication,
she is able to stay awake easily for more than 24 hours and is not experiencing any
serious negative side effects. “It’s better than coffee,” she tells her friends, “but it is
a lot more expensive.”
Case Study: Caffeine & Modafinil

Should Lisa give her friends

her medication?
Ethics: Finding & Providing Reasons for a Position

Why?
Why is Ethics Important?

Thoughtful people will disagree, so we need to

find ways of discussing and analyzing
conflicting ideas to arrive at the best answer.
Ethical Questions

Identifying the ethical question that needs to be

addressed is the first step in analyzing any
ethical issue.
Identifying Types of Questions
Identifying Questions

There are two main types of questions in the

gold cards. You job is to sort the questions into
two piles based on similarities.
Identifying Questions

What two types of questions do you think you

have been sorting?
Ethical vs Scientific Questions

Scientists seek to understand phenomena in the world—they

want to describe what is. They answer scientific questions with
observations and experimentation.

Bioethicists seek to understand what people should or ought

to do. They answer ethical questions with reasons, using both
the facts at hand and relevant ethical considerations, such as
respect for persons and fairness.
Ethical vs Scientific Questions

The difference between “is” and “ought” is a good way

to summarize a main difference between scientists (who seek
to describe and understand the natural world) and ethicists
(who seek to determine what one ought to do).
Identifying Questions

There are two main types of questions in the

pink cards. You job is to sort the questions into
two piles based on similarities.
Identifying Questions

What two types of questions do you think you

have been sorting?
Ethical vs Legal Questions

Ethical analyses should take the legal context and local laws
into consideration, but something can be illegal yet ethical.

Something can also be legal and unethical, such as the Jim

Crow laws that prohibited African Americans from using public
water fountains used by whites. It is not illegal to lie about
breaking a cereal bowl at your house, but it may be unethical.
Ethical vs Legal Questions

With respect to performance enhancers in sports, some

interventions could be considered unethical even if they are
not yet illegal and vice versa.

The law typically sets the minimum standards to which people

must adhere; ethical standards sometimes focus on ideals or
what would be the best thing to do, and not just the minimum
or what would be merely acceptable to do.
Identifying Questions

There are two main types of questions in the

blue cards. You job is to sort the questions into
two piles based on similarities.
Identifying Questions

What two types of questions do you think you

have been sorting?
Ethical vs Personal Preference Questions

Ethical analyses should take customs into consideration, but

something can be ethical and yet not in accord with personal
preference, custom, or habit.

Something can be in accord with personal preference, custom,

or habit but still be unethical. For example, not long ago in the
United States, it was customary to discourage women from
becoming business managers, but this was not ethical.
Characteristics of an Ethical Questions

Ethical questions are often about what we should or ought to

do. (While the word “should” frequently appears in ethical
questions, it is not always there.)

Ethical questions often arise when people aren’t sure what the
right thing to do in a certain situation is or when there is a
choice or a controversy about what is best.
Identifying Questions

All four main types of questions (scientific,

legal, personal preference, and ethical) can be
found in green cards. You job is to sort the
questions into four piles based on similarities.
Oscar Pistorius-The Fastest Man With No Legs

Read Oscar Pistorius—The Fastest Man with

No Legs and write down five questions the case
raises. These could be scientific, ethical, or
legal questions, for example. Indicate what type
of question you think each one is.
Oscar Pistorious-The Fastest Man With No Legs

Ethical Question:
Should Oscar Pistorius be allowed to compete
in the Olympics?
Four Key Questions
Oscar Pistorius-The Fastest Man With No Legs

What questions did you come

up with?
What type of questions are
they?
Four Key Questions to Bioethics

1. What is the ethical question?

2. What are the relevant facts?
3. Who or what could be affected by how the
outcome is resolved?
4. What are the relevant ethical considerations?
 1.What is the ethical question?

These are about what a person should do, how

people ought to interact, what sort of person one
should be, and what kind of communities it would
be good to live in.
1.Oscar Pistorius-Ethical Question

What’s the ethical question?

Should Oscar Pistorius be
allowed to compete in the
Olympics?
2. What are the relevant facts?

These are the biological, psychological,

sociological, economic, and historical facts you
need for thinking carefully about the ethical
question and answering it.
2. Oscar Pistorius-Relevant Facts

What relevant facts would

you want to know to carefully
assess what the IAAF should
do?
3. Who are what could be affected?

The people and entities affected by ethical

decisions are considered stakeholders.
Stakeholders are not always human beings or
human organizations; animals, plants, organisms,
or the environment might be affected by the way
an ethical issue is decided, so they can also be
stakeholders.
3. Oscar Pistorius-Who or what could be affected

Who or what might be

affected by what the IAAF
decides to do?
4. Relevant Ethical Considerations

Issues that are morally relevant in a case and

that ought to be taken into account when
thinking about what the best course of action
should be.
Core Ethical Considerations
Core Ethical Considerations
Respect Harms & Benefits
What are examples of harms? What are
When you show respect to examples of benefits? Can you think of
someone, what do you do? What actions or policies that minimize harm?
are examples of disrespectful What are some examples of actions or
actions? policies that maximize benefits?

Fairness Authenticity
What are examples of fair actions or What is it about a performance that we
policies? Can you think of examples of value? What makes a sports performance
unfair actions or policies? “authentic” (that is, valuable and true to its
essential nature)? What might make it
“inauthentic”?
Respect-Definition

Respect for Persons: Not treating

someone as a mere means to a goal or
end.
Respect-Definition

This is often a matter of not interfering

with a person’s ability to make and carry
out decisions. In some cases, it is also a
matter of enabling a person to make
choices or supporting the person in the
choices he or she makes.
Harms & Benefits-Definition

Minimizing harms while maximizing

benefits: Acting to lessen negative
outcomes and promote positive
outcomes.
Harms & Benefits-Definition

This ethical consideration focuses on

trying to promote positive consequences
and lessen negative consequences.
Fairness-Definition

Sharing benefits, resources, risks, and

costs equitably.
Fairness-Definition

Sometimes what is fair is described as

giving each person an equal amount of
something. Other times, it is described as
providing according to each person’s
need or according to each person’s merit
or contribution.
Authenticity-Definition

Achieving a goal in a manner consistent

with what is valued about the
performance and seen as essential (or
true) to its nature.
Authenticity-Definition

People sometimes use the word

authentic to point out that there are
certain ways of doing something that are
considered essential to the action and
are, therefore, highly valued as
intrinsically important or “true.”
Authenticity-Definition

For example, climbing a ladder to get the

basketball through the hoop would not
be considered an authentic way to play
basketball unless agreed to beforehand.
4. Oscar Pistorius-Relevant Ethical
Considerations

What are the relevant ethical

considerations?
Oscar Pistorius-Fastest Man With No Legs

What Should the Committee

Decide?
Ethical Considerations In Carl’s Case
Carl’s Case

Read the passage entitled “Carl’s Case” and

complete a “Four Key Questions & Statement of
Position/Justification” sheet for the case.
Carl’s Case-Ethical Question

What’s the ethical question?

Carl’s Case-Relevant Facts

What relevant facts would

you want to know to carefully
assess what Carl should do?
Carl’s Case-Who or what could be affected

Who or what might be

affected by what Carl decides
to do?
Carl’s Case-Respect for Persons

Should society respect a person’s choice

to use an enhancement technology even
when doing so will negatively affect the
person’s health?
Carl’s Case-Harms & Benefits

Are enhancements harmful or beneficial

to individuals who use them?
Are enhancements harmful or beneficial
to society when individuals use them?
Carl’s Case-Fairness

Is it fair for an individual to use an

enhancement?
Does fairness require that everyone in
society have equal access to
enhancements?
Carl’s Case-Authenticity

Does using enhancements in sports

performance violate what people most
value about sports?
Carl’s Case-Variations

What if Carl has surgery for an arm injury

and that surgical change later enables
him to throw a ball with more force?
Carl’s Case-Variations

What if, instead of steroids, Carl uses a

supplement sold over the counter that is
not illegal? Or has no known negative
side effects?
Carl’s Case-Variations

What if there is no way to test for the

presence of the drug, and he could take
it without anyone finding out?
Carl’s Case-Variations

What if all the other players on the team

are taking the steroid, and Carl’s coach is
asking him to do it for the good of the
team?
Carl’s Case-Variations

What if Carl ends up taking the steroids,

and he breaks the high school record for
home runs in one season? Should his
record count?
Big Picture Extension Questions

Is it ethically permissible to do anything

one wants to one’s own body?
Big Picture Extension Questions

Does someone’s intent or the nature of

the activity they might be using the
enhancement for make a difference?
More Case Studies
Case Study: Myostatin
Doctors in Germany noted the birth of an extraordinary boy.
While not heavy at birth (his weight was in the 75th percentile),
he was unusually muscular. Muscles in his thighs and upper
arms were very pronounced. Except for the fact that he had
strong reflexes, his physical examination was normal. His
levels of testosterone and growth factors were also normal. By
age four, the boy could hold two 3-kg (6.6-lb.) dumbbells out
at his side with arms extended.
Case Study: Myostatin

His mother had been a professional athlete. She was healthy

and had a normal pregnancy. Several other family members
were also reputed to be very strong. Researchers analyzed
the DNA of both mother and son and found a mutation in the
myostatin gene, resulting in an abnormal myostatin protein.
Myostatin normally inhibits muscle growth.
Case Study: Myostatin

When the protein is not functioning, that inhibition is lifted and

muscles grow as a result. Myostatin inactivators might help
people with muscular dystrophy and other muscle-wasting
diseases or with sports injuries. However, the possibility also
exists that healthy athletes would use such inactivators for
enhancement purposes.
Case Study: Myostatin

Imagine that a top athlete has that myostatin-

gene mutation. A competitor is taking myostatin
inactivators. Is there a difference in how these
two athletes should be treated? Should they
both be allowed to compete? Why or why not?
Case Study: Human Growth Hormone
Ryan knew he was shorter than other boys, and he was
beginning to feel uncomfortable about it. His father had taken
him to the doctor, who assured them that Ryan was within the
normal range for height, even though he was on the lower end
of that range. His sisters were small for their age, too, although
they weren’t getting teased like Ryan was. His doctor had
Ryan’s blood tested, and all the results came back normal—he
had adequate amounts of growth hormone.
Case Study: Human Growth Hormone

One night, Ryan’s parents asked him if he wanted to try to

increase his height with additional growth hormone. They had
read about the treatment for individuals with short stature and
wanted to bring it up at his next doctor’s appointment. Even
though his hormone levels were normal, they reasoned that
additional growth hormone would make him taller.
Case Study: Human Growth Hormone

Ryan’s parents had heard on TV that taller men were more

likely to have successful careers. Even though they weren’t
sure whether they could trust the TV report, they were
concerned that Ryan might have fewer opportunities later in
life if he was shorter than average as an adult.
Case Study: Human Growth Hormone

Should Ryan take the growth hormone?

Why or why not? What if Ryan doesn’t
want to but his parents want him to?
Case Study: Human Growth Hormone

Ryan’s parents had heard on TV that taller men were more

likely to have successful careers. Even though they weren’t
sure whether they could trust the TV report, they were
concerned that Ryan might have fewer opportunities later in
life if he was shorter than average as an adult.