Читать книгу This Is Bioethics - Udo Schüklenk, Ruth F. Chadwick - Страница 35

3.26 The view that one should not ‘play God’ is commonly expressed in situations where one person or group of people is making decisions about the lives of others (such as whether they should live or die), or using new technologies that go beyond what humans have been able to do before, for example, using gene editing techniques to ‘design’ future children. When we start to look into exactly what is meant by ‘playing God’, however, we are forced to ask if there is anything to it more than mere rhetoric. Is it actually an argument at all, let alone a knockdown one? A generous interpretation, which does not dismiss it entirely, is that it is shorthand for different kinds of claims (Gillon 1999⁴⁵). In the first type of case, where someone has the power to decide whether another should live or die, it expresses a point about equality, that it is wrong for someone to consider themselves to be sufficiently superior to another to take a decision about the worthwhileness of another’s life. This is at least an understandable argument, but it fails to deal with the fact that sometimes decisions about whom to save are inescapable, although it may be claimed that such decisions do not inevitably involve decisions about the value of another’s life.

3.27 In the second type of case, ‘playing God’ may be regarded as a warning about the possible adverse consequences of ‘going too far’. In this sense it is closest to what are arguably the roots of the ‘playing God’ argument, the notion of ‘hubris⁴⁶’ in Greek mythology. Individuals who displayed hubris, or excessive pride, were liable to severe punishment for putting themselves on a par with the gods and trying to rise above the proper limits of human beings. Arguments about interfering with nature (see below), and opening ourselves and the planet to unforeseeable risks, express similar concerns.

3.28 In this sense the ‘playing God’ argument may reduce to a type of consequentialist argument, advising us to be aware of dangerous consequences when taking decisions in conditions of uncertainty. There are well established strategies for assessment and management of risks in such circumstances, but the fact that in dealing with new developments there are many ‘unknown unknowns’ remains for some a matter of considerable concern.