The Centre for Ethics in Medicine (CEM) Research Seminar series continues with a talk by Dr David Lawrence. 

Abstract

Emerging biotechnologies including synthetic genomics and cerebral organoid development are likely to create new forms of morally valuable life. This will pose global challenges for society and for law as regards the status of these ‘novel beings’, their protections, their obligations, and our own. Existing law is proving insufficient to manage the same issues already arising in the context of animal status and personhood cases, leading to ethical and social quandaries (Lawrence, Brazier 2018). This talk will outline the next steps of work I have been developing over a number of years as a founding member of the Novel Beings Network. The core goal is to determine the most pragmatic means of calculating moral standing for both the advent of novel beings and for existing cases around animal personhood, in order to best mitigate the serious challenges for society that these can bring. An important element in this process will be to evaluate the wide range of metrics that may be applicable, including morally significant cognitive capacities, complexity science and emergent consciousness, interests, rationality, responsibility, and relationality. I will (ultimately!) propose a practical hierarchy of moral status that can provide for this need, with an actionable set of standards that can be applied in both law and policy.