No, my assumption is that "moral personhood" doesn't exist. Let's assume that you are right, and it's not based on a biological judgement. What characteristic are you going to judge it by? Intelligence? Then surely a dolphin is a moral person? And a cockroach?
If you can suggest a clear, non-arbitrary division of the characteristic space which defines "humanity", I will happily agree with any arguments you choose to make which involve moral personhood. However, simply belonging to Homo sapiens sapiens doesn't impart any moral qualifications.
I think the real issue here, which no one seems to have raised, is that this kind of experimentation makes it clear that genetic engineering ethics exist on a gradient. By which I mean, there is no clear point at which it stops being "animal" g.e. and becomes "human" g.e. Most people would deplore the latter, even if they find the former acceptable.
What this does is force us to review our moral assumptions. If we accept that experimenting with a mouse's DNA is ethical, and that there is no "magical" distinction between mouse DNA and human DNA, then we are forced to conclude that experimenting with human DNA is ethical.
My view, which no doubt many will disagree with, is that there is no axiom of morality that can decide consistently on this issue. What we call morality is simply a social equilibrium state. If genetic engineering changes that equilibrium, so be it.
Apart from the (numerous) technical problems, I have a philosophical problem with this company. As has been pointed out, their "product" appears to be vaporware. A quick read of their FAQ ("How can a licensee profit?") reveals the truth: This company has simply cottoned on to an idea they believe will become significant in the future. They are, essentially, claiming "first dibs" on some intellectual territory, and hope to sit back and reap the license fees.
So no, I wouldn't expect to see any tubes erected by ET3. Now or ever. This is just another example of the deep flaws in the patent system.
Actually, I for one am rather disappointed with the direction Blizzard is taking. They made great RTS games (Warcraft I/II, StarCraft), and great RPGs (Diablo)... and then they decided that if the two genres were so popular, they ought to mix them.
Warcraft III was like Shakespeare writing a comedy-tragedy. Romeo and the Merry Wives of Windsor, anyone? From what I gather, Ghost is more of the same.
Just as a matter of interest... Wine is coming along surprisingly well. I installed Office 2000 today - onto a ReiserFS partition - and it worked first time. What's left are mostly minor irritations (font selection, some bugs in the pop-up menus, common dialogs, etc.), and, admittedly, one or two major design issues (mostly revolving around NT and filesystem issues).
If Quake and Office work, I for one see no compelling reason to stick with Windows:-).
IMHO the vast majority of everyday users just want "The Internet" and "Mail" and "Word" plus maybe "Some Games" (especially Solitaire).
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Shall we agree then that ethics are arbitrary, same as phenotypes? ;-)
Nice argument, btw.
No, my assumption is that "moral personhood" doesn't exist. Let's assume that you are right, and it's not based on a biological judgement. What characteristic are you going to judge it by? Intelligence? Then surely a dolphin is a moral person? And a cockroach?
If you can suggest a clear, non-arbitrary division of the characteristic space which defines "humanity", I will happily agree with any arguments you choose to make which involve moral personhood. However, simply belonging to Homo sapiens sapiens doesn't impart any moral qualifications.
I think the real issue here, which no one seems to have raised, is that this kind of experimentation makes it clear that genetic engineering ethics exist on a gradient. By which I mean, there is no clear point at which it stops being "animal" g.e. and becomes "human" g.e. Most people would deplore the latter, even if they find the former acceptable.
What this does is force us to review our moral assumptions. If we accept that experimenting with a mouse's DNA is ethical, and that there is no "magical" distinction between mouse DNA and human DNA, then we are forced to conclude that experimenting with human DNA is ethical.
My view, which no doubt many will disagree with, is that there is no axiom of morality that can decide consistently on this issue. What we call morality is simply a social equilibrium state. If genetic engineering changes that equilibrium, so be it.
So no, I wouldn't expect to see any tubes erected by ET3. Now or ever. This is just another example of the deep flaws in the patent system.
Warcraft III was like Shakespeare writing a comedy-tragedy. Romeo and the Merry Wives of Windsor, anyone? From what I gather, Ghost is more of the same.
Just as a matter of interest... Wine is coming along surprisingly well. I installed Office 2000 today - onto a ReiserFS partition - and it worked first time. What's left are mostly minor irritations (font selection, some bugs in the pop-up menus, common dialogs, etc.), and, admittedly, one or two major design issues (mostly revolving around NT and filesystem issues). If Quake and Office work, I for one see no compelling reason to stick with Windows :-).
IMHO the vast majority of everyday users just want "The Internet" and "Mail" and "Word" plus maybe "Some Games" (especially Solitaire).