Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Dissolving the Dilemmas over Stem Cells


The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein cautioned that we must be on guard against “the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” What the most important philosopher of the 20th century was concerned about here are the problems and confusions dualistic terms (i.e., mind & body) can generate when language goes on holiday. More concretely, the use of conceptually separate terms like mind and body force us to think that there must be real ontological entities to which those terms refer. If I say “It is raining,” for instance, I certainly do not mean to suggest there is an entity called “It” that is raining.

Virtually every neuroscientist recognizes that the terms mind and brain are two ways of talking about the same thing. Of course, brains are “things” only in a loose way of speaking. After all, brains give rise to subjectivity, which is a rather awe inspiring phenomenon. As Wittgenstein noted, “It is the “I,” it is the I that is deeply mysterious.” However, Wittgenstein – like most scientists today – was a monist, which is the say he believed the brain/mind was a single substance (or process).

This is a good thing, since dualism, the notion than the mind is a separate entity from the physical brain, has for all practical purposes been discredited as incoherent and unempirical. Unfortunately, dualism lives on for the scientifically and philosophically illiterate. In fact, dualistic thinking permeates pro-life arguments against abortion. Put simply, if dualism is false – and the scientific and philosophical case against dualism is overwhelming – then the central arguments pro-lifers make against abortion and stem cell research rest on unsound assumptions.

Pro-life groups maintain every embryo is an individual from the moment of conception. From this it follows that every embryo is: 1) sacred, 2) part of the human community, and 3) entitled to the rights and protections we afford every member of the human family. Using words like “scared,” “community,” and “family” in association with the embryo, of course, primes audiences to see things a certain way. Science uses similar rhetorical techniques, but the way scientists use language tends to make objects seem more impersonal. Language, in a sense, can create reality, or at least frame our perception of reality.

The way pro-life advocates use language in relationship to embryos is instrumental in creating moral dilemmas that evaporate if one approaches the matter more objectively. To begin with, the notion that the “moment of conception” marks some miraculous, transcendental, or non-physical event is not an idea that holds up to rational scrutiny. First of all, the so-called moment of conception is not a moment at all, it is an entirely biochemical process that lasts several hours at a minimum. Second, individuality is not something present (or created) at the moment of conception. After all, many zygotes split in two several weeks after conception, a phenomenon which leads to twins.

But the most damning argument against assuming there is anything sacred or miraculous about the typical embryo comes from Mother Nature. Simply put, most embryos never develop into human beings because embryos frequently fail to implant or because they spontaneously and naturally abort.

Pro-lifers frequently resort to false choices. Writing in the Washington Post, for instance, Michael Gerson offers the following either/or choice: 1) embryos are sacred or 2) embryos are protoplasmic rubbish.

Thinking in terms of moral absolutes is what gets us in to trouble here. Put simply, context matters. For instance, imagine the following thought experiment: a fertility clinic housing 1,000,000 surplus embryos is on fire. There is a fifty-fifty chance the embryos can be saved, but only at great risk to the firefighters. Should we ask the firefighters to risk their lives to save the embryos? I would argue, the loss of 1,000,000 insentient embryos is not worth the life of even one human being embedded within a family and a community.

Conversely, it is possible to imagine another thought experiment: a plague has broken out which has rendered every woman of childbearing age on the planet infertile. Only a handful of viable embryos remain anywhere on earth. Under such circumstances, shouldn’t the safety and well-being of such embryos be preserved at all costs until some way is found to perpetuate the human race?

The moral value of an embryo is not nil, nor is it absolute. To a large extent, the moral dilemma of using embryos to create stem cell lines exists because of the way pro-life advocate use – and very often misuse – language. Wittgenstein recognized that the mind/body problem was a function of our language games. There is a lesson here for pro-life advocates.

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