PHI 2396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Distributive Justice, Human Genetics, Deontological Ethics

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 2396
• Professor: Iva Apostolova

Document Summary

Resnik"s thesis: before judging the moral signiicance and consequences of human geneics, we should make a disincion between geneic therapy and geneic enhancement. The disincion, however, doesn"t mark a irm moral boundary between moral and immoral geneic intervenion. Geneic therapy and geneic enhancement and health: two approaches to health and disease: descripive and value-laden. Descripive approach: normal is typical and anything that does not fall under the species-typical traits is considered abnormal. Geneic therapy should not be considered a threat to normality but geneic enhancement performed on healthy people, should be. But the descripive approach can"t tell us whether one or the other is moral or immoral. The value-laden/normaive approach: our understanding of health and disease is based on moral, cultural and social norms. Under this approach, geneic therapy is morally god because it helps us ight disease which is considered bad. Resnik: the answer depends on the scope of our deiniions of health and disease.