The Ethics of Other Worlds
Peter L. Edman
July 1, 2000
When news of Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, took the world by storm in February, 1997, I was ready. Although the controversy that ensued seemed to catch many of the most thoughtful people flat-footed, I was able to join the discussion that followed with my arguments already clear in my head. Not surprising, you might say, since I was working at a nonprofit ethics foundation at the time, and thus presumably thinking about this sort of stuff for a living.
But what prepared me for Dolly's arrival was not the deep-thinking ethicists, philosophers, and theologians who are my friends and coworkers—it was two pulp novels with paintings of spaceships on their covers. Brothers in Arms and Mirror Dance, both by master science fiction novelist Lois McMaster Bujold, had already introduced me to many of the issues surrounding cloning, and through them, I had already learned to see cloning not as a vague possibility, but as a reality affecting a set of very human characters.
When it comes to scientific technologies nearly every news report and commentary mentions science fiction, not some thoughtful treatment of bioethics or the philosophy of science. This is no accident. For various reasons, what most people think of as hard philosophy, to say nothing of theology, makes little immediate impression on the cultural consciousness. Science fiction is the vehicle our popular culture—and many scientists, philosophers, and even ethicists like me—use to explore ethical issues round science and technology.
This is not to say we have no interest in pure ethics. We want to be responsible and thoughtful. But we want to get down to cases. We want to consider the issues—to explore what it means to be human—in a practical ...
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