Stem Cells and Slippery Slopes

From guest blogger, William.

In class we talked about stem cells and the moral arguments for and against the use of them. There are two types of stem cells. The first type is Human Embryonic Stem Cells (HESC). These are harvested from embryos inside of the womb and have many medical and industrial uses. The moral arguments against using this type of stem cell are very similar to the moral arguments against abortion. The second type is Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (IPS). These are created from skin cells and have the same uses as HESCs. The moral argument against using IPSs is interesting to say the least. Because IPSs are created using skin cells which are readily available and slough off of our bodies constantly, the arguments that are used to paint the use of HESCs as immoral do not work. Pretty much every modern philosopher thinks that the use of IPSs is completely moral. However, some philosophers have still tried to call the use of IPSs immoral. To do so they have made use of the slippery slope fallacy.

The slippery slope fallacy is a dangerous argument to use. In my opinion, it is an extremely poor argument to use in almost any debate. The premise of this argument is that the use of IPSs for medical and industrial use would send society down a dangerous path. This argument conjures up images of clone armies and forced cell harvesting, things that are clearly immoral. The issue with this argument is that it is essentially fear-mongering. There is no evidence that the use of IPSs will lead to the consequences laid out previously. Another problem with this argument is that it does not allow for any middle ground. It implies a direct movement from the use of IPSs for medical use and product testing to clone armies. However, the world simply does not work that way. Nature and society always regress back to the mean. While extremes may happen they are extremely unlikely. Yes, unintended consequences are guaranteed from any decision. But, in this argument they are simply incomprehensible. The argument against IPS use is a futile grasp at straws.

Destroying Embryos for Research

From guest blogger, Alex.

We just discussed the use of stem cells for research in class, and I find it to be a very interesting topic. The potential healing benefits of HESC research provide strong grounds in favor of the research. If looked at from a consequentialist perspective, the potential health benefits from the research seem to outweigh the loss of embryos involved and whatever suffering results from that loss for people who want to protect embryos. However, most of those who oppose the research argue that the constraints against killing innocent people to promote social utility apply to human embryos. Thus, as long as we accept non-consequentialist constraints on killing persons, those supporting HESC research must respond to the claim that those constraints apply to human embryos. What do you guys think? Do human embryos have moral status? If so, why? If not, why not?

I think it helps to map out the argument that killing human embryos is immoral. From my very brief research, in its most basic form, the central argument supporting the claim that it is unethical to destroy human embryos seems to go as follows: It is morally impermissible to intentionally kill innocent human beings; the human embryo is an innocent human being; therefore it is morally impermissible to intentionally kill the human embryo. It is worth noting that this argument, if sound, would not suffice to show that all or even most HESC research is impermissible, since most researchers engaged in HESC research do not participate in the derivation of HESCs but instead use cell lines that researchers who performed the derivation have made available. It has now also been shown that embryonic cells can be derived from a human embryo without killing the fetus, so would it still be immoral to conduct HESC research? Let me know what you guys think…is it immoral to conduct stem cell research? Or do the potential health benefits make it morally permissible? Thanks.