[an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive]
Navigation for This Section: Center for Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics
Abstract: I will explore the implications of findings in behavioral genetics for two conceptions of equality: equality of opportunity and the equal moral worth of persons. New findings in behavioral genetics showing that behavioral traits, and the variance in behavioral traits, have some genetic underpinnings would not seem in themselves to threaten either of these notions of equality--we have long known that there is significant variation in these traits across persons and have assumed that some significant portion of that variation has genetic sources. I believe it is the uncertain and probably distant prospect of genetic interventions to enhance some behavioral traits, which could greatly increase the range and inequality of those traits in humans, that may seem to threaten these two notions of equality. I will argue that significant capacities to enhance behavioral traits could indeed threaten and erode equality of opportunity, but that it should not undermine the equal moral worth of persons.
Click to play video
Download presentation slides (99kb)
About Dr. Brock
Professor of Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School
Dan W. Brock is the Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics in the Department of Social Medicine and Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at the Harvard Medical School. He is also Director of the Harvard Program in Ethics and Health. Previously he was Senior Scientist and a member of the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. Until July 2002, he was Charles C. Tillinghast, Jr. University Professor, Professor of Philosophy and Biomedical Ethics, and Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Brown University where he had a joint appointment in the Philosophy Department (of which he was Chair in 1980-86) and in the Medical School. He received his B.A. in economics from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University.
He served as Staff Philosopher on the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine in 1981-82, and in 1993 was a member of the Ethics Working Group of the Clinton Task Force on National Health Reform. He has been a consultant in biomedical ethics and health policy to numerous national and international bodies, including the Institute of Medicine, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the World Health Organization. He is a fellow and former Board member of the Hastings Center. He was President of the American Association of Bioethics in 1995-96, and was a founding Board Member of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.
He is the author of over 150 articles in bioethics and in moral and political philosophy, which have appeared in books and peer-reviewed scholarly journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Science, Hastings Center Report, Philosophy and Public Affairs, and Ethics. He is the author of Deciding For Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision Making, 1989, (with Allen E. Buchanan), Life and Death: Philosophical Essays in Biomedical Ethics, 1993, and From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice (with Allen Buchanan, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler) 2000, all published by Cambridge University Press. He is currently an editorial board member of 14 professional journals in ethics, bioethics and health policy, and has lectured widely at national and international conferences, professional societies, universities, and health care institutions. His current research focuses on the prioritization of health resources and rationing, with a special focus on cost-effectiveness analysis, and on genetic selection for enhancement and to prevent disability.
Internal Staff Login