Cover

Half-title

Title

Copyright

Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Contributors

The Human Genome Project: Research Tactics and Economic Strategies

I. THE ALLEGORY OF THE PHONE BOOKS

II. STRAW ALLEGORY?

III. THE MANHATTAN PROJECT, THE AIDS CRUSADE, AND THE HGP

IV. PRIVATE CHOICE AND PUBLIC GOODS

Choosing Who Will Be Disabled: Genetic Intervention and the Morality of Inclusion

I. HOPES AND FEARS OF THE NEW GENETICS

II. ATTACK ON THE NEW GENETICS: OBJECTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE DISABLED

III. JUSTICE AND GENETIC INTERVENTION

IV. THE EXPRESSIVIST OBJECTION: "GENETIC INTERVENTIONDEVALUES DISABLED INDIVIDUALS," DEPRIVING THEM OF THEIRFUNDAMENTAL STATUS AS PERSONS OF EQUAL VALUE

V. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF DISABILITY

VI. APPRECIATING THE FULL RANGE OF OPTIONS FOR PREVENTINGOR REMOVING DISABILITIES

VII. WHY CHOOSING A DOMINANT COOPERATIVE SCHEMEIs A MATTER OF JUSTICE

VIII. CONCLUSIONS

Germ-Line Genetic Engineering and Moral Diversity: Moral Controversies in a Post-Christian World

I. INTRODUCTION: HUMAN NATURE IN THE PLURAL

II. HUMANITY, HUMANITAS, AND THE NORMATIVELY HUMAN

III. THE LOSS OF HUMAN NATURE AS A GIVEN FOR MORALAND POLITICAL THEORY

IV. FROM SANCTITY TO HAPPENSTANCE: THE LOSSOF ULTIMATE ORIENTATION

V. SECULAR MORAL CONSTRAINTS: SOME GUIDANCE,No SPECIFIC CONTENT

VI. GENETIC ENGINEERING: FACING THE POSSIBILITIES

VII. DISEASE, HEALTH, AND HUMAN ENHANCEMENT

VIII. CONCLUSION

Self-Critical Federal Science? The Ethics Experiment within the U.S. Human Genome Project

I. INTRODUCTION

II. THE VERY IDEA OF ELSI

A. Putting the cat on TV

B. Ethics with strings attached?

III. THE ELSI PROGRAM AND THE MECHANISTICPOLICY WORLDVIEW

IV. REINVENTING ELSI

A. The ELSI program's mission

B. The ELSI program's methods

C. The role of the MH-DOE ELSI Working Group

V. AN ELSI SUCCESS STORY

VI. CONCLUSION: TIME FOR THE UN-COMMISSION?

When Politics Drives Science: Lysenko, Gore, and U.S. Biotechnology Policy

I. LYSENKO, OPPRESSOR OF SCIENCE—AND SCIENTISTS

II. GORE ET AL.: LYSENKO'S HEIRS-APPARENT?

A. Al Gore: New Age philosopher, psychologist, environmentalist

B. The rest of the biotech team

III. BIOTECH'S DIRE STRAITS

IV. THE GULAG, AMERICAN STYLE

V. SUMMARY

Biotechnology and the Utilitarian Argument for Patents

I. INTRODUCTION

II. PROBLEMS WITH PATENTS AS INCENTIVES TO INVENT

A. Underinvestment, overinvestment, and the inefficientallocation of resources

B. Work-arounds

C. Allocation of research funds

D. The legal and administrative costs of the patent system

E. Secrecy and disclosure

F. Patents and stages of industry development

G. Economic assessments of the patent system

III. ALTERNATIVES TO THE PATENT SYSTEM

IV. THE UTILITY OF PROMOTING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

V. CONCLUSION

Property Rights Theory and the Commons: The Case of Scientific Research

I. INTRODUCTION

II. THE PUBLIC SPHERE, THE SCIENTIFIC COMMONS,AND FORMAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

A. The nature of scientific research

B. History of explicit proposals for formal property rights in scientific discoveries

C. The rise of patents for the results of "pure" science

D. Incentives to seek property rights despite community norms

E. Contemporary research on common-property regimes

F. Scientific research as a common-property resource

III. THE NEW NORMS OF SCIENCE: TWO-TIERED PROPERTY RIGHTS

IV. SOME TENTATIVE POLICY IDEAS

A. Specific policy proposals

B. "Open-access absolutism": A policy to avoid

V. CONCLUSION

Property Rights and Technological Innovation

I. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, INNOVATION,AND PROPERTY RIGHTS

II. PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE FLOW OF INNOVATION

A. Alternative types of property rights and freedom to innovate

B. Alternative types of property rights and incentives to innovate

C. Alternative types of property rights and the power to innovate

D. Alternative types of property rights and the integration of innovation into the economy

III. CONCLUSION

Medicine, Animal Experimentation, and the Moral Problem of Unfortunate Humans

I. INTRODUCTION: THE USE OF ANIMALS FOR HUMAN BENEFIT IN MEDICINE

II. ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION AND THE MORAL STATUS OF ANIMALS

A. Pain and suffering and the "anything goes" position

B. The moral significance of animal pain and suffering

C. Animal research and animals' quality of life

D. Searching for the moral difference between humans and animals

E. The "partiality position"

F. Justifying animal research by appeal to tradition

III. COMPARING THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE AND ANIMAL LIFE

A. The greater-value thesis

B. The equal-value thesis

C. The argument from benefit

A World of Strong Privacy: Promises and Perils of Encryption

I. THE TECHNOLOGIES

A. Public-key encryption: A very elementary example

B. Using public-key encryption

C. Digital cash

D. Anonymous remailers

II. A WORLD OF STRONG PRIVACY

III. CAN STRONG PRIVACY BE STOPPED?

Computer Reliability and Public Policy: Limits of Knowledge of Computer-Based Systems

I. INTRODUCTION

II. EXPERT SYSTEMS

A. Computers as data-processing machines

B. Expert systems as "knowledge-based"

C. Expert systems as performance systems

III. KNOWLEDGE AND REASONING

A. "Information" versus "knowledge"

B. The nature of knowledge

C. The analytic-synthetic distinction

D. Conclusive versus inconclusive reasoning

E. Formal science versus empirical science

F. Implications for computer science

G. The arithmetic and logic unit

H. The question of reliability

IV. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES, MODELS, AND THE WORLD

A. Programming languages and virtual machines

B. Programming languages and physical machines

C. Programs as causal models of algorithms

D. Smith's analysis of the role of models

E. The model-world relationship

F. The importance of specifications

G. The models used in computer science

V. THE RELIABILITY OF COMPUTER SYSTEMS

A. The limits of formal methods

B. The limits of empirical methods

C. The uncertainty of reliability

VI. IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY

Responsibility and Decision Making in the Era of Neural Networks

I. INTRODUCTION

II. ELIMINATIVE MATERIALISM AND CONNECTIONIST NETWORKS

III. DECOMPOSING DECISION MAKING IN NEURAL NETWORKS

IV. MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND NEURAL NETWORK-LIKE DEVICES

Preposterism and Its Consequences

I. INTRODUCTION

II. PSEUDO-INQUIRY, AND THE REAL THING

III. A PREPOSTEROUS ENVIRONMENT

IV. THE PERILS OF PREPOSTERISM

Index