Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
what might count as a disease or correctable condition) and a human
telos (and thus what counts as suitable for companionship). He thinks
that these ambiguities should be settled politically.
Lisa Cahill's “Nature, Sin, and Society” is an exploration of the con-
cerns regarding genetic research and engineering from the perspective
of theological ethics. Echoing Elshtain, she asserts that traditional, theo-
logical understandings of human nature carry the resources to respond
to current concerns with genetic work, and in particular these resources
call for serious limitations. Her argument, however, is not an intrinsicist
or essentialist one; rather, it springs from the focus of Catholic social
teaching on the social and political nature of human beings. Thus, her
primary concern is with social justice and the social context within which
the results of genetic work will be expressed and manipulated. Like
Rollin, she is optimistic that not only are limits on genetic work neces-
sary and desirable but indeed they are possible.
Cahill's starting point is Catholic social teaching, particularly that
tradition that began with Pope Leo XIII's encyclical
Rerum Novarum
(
On the Condition of Labor
), and that has been developed and expanded
in a variety of encyclicals by Pope John Paul II. The well-known elements
of that position include an appeal to objective and universal standards
of behavior, human solidarity, a trust in the “human propensity for coop-
erative social living,” and “imaginative empathy with our fellow human
beings” enlivened by biblical symbols and commands. Generally speak-
ing, there is a common good that draws human beings together, both in
individual societies and ultimately in a global community.
Important to Cahill's ultimate position is the moderation of Catholic
social “optimism” by a discussion of Reinhold Niebuhr's “Christian
realism.” Neibuhr suggests that in the tension between human freedom
and human finitude resides human sin, a problem less manageable on
the social level than it is for the individual. The pride and sensuality that
arises from sin is structuralized in society, and acts much more power-
fully as a force for division and conflict. For Neibuhr, coercion is a nec-
essary element of social ethics, enforcing reasonableness on society and
its members. Cahill finds this darker picture a needed corrective to the
“encyclical tradition's nonconflictual social optimism.”
Cahill then concludes her argument with a critique of global capital-
ism, particularly the waning power of the liberal welfare state in the face
