Robert's and Baylis' argument from moral confusion

Robert and Baylis are concerned with a more indirect issue. Short of absolute confusion, the candidate criterion employed to single out beings which should be accorded high and direct moral status might, in the process of classification of novel beings, become more and more dubious. Newly developed criteria, on the other hand, could lead to unwanted consequences regarding the moral status classification of human and nonhuman beings. Once they are applied not only to novel, but also to "conventional" beings, they might call into question the traditional consensus on moral status assignment, and, in turn, our treatment of humans and nonhumans. Robert and Baylis put it this way:

"Asking – let alone answering – a question about the moral status of part- human interspecies hybrids and chimeras threatens the social fabric in untold

ways; countless social institutions, structures, and practices depend upon the moral distinction drawn between human and nonhuman animals."348

The "moral distinction" mentioned here is easily identified as Speciesism: it is assumed that nonhuman beings are subject to a moral framework that is fundamentally different from (and incommensurable to) that applied to humans. While the latter enjoy "categorical" moral status, the status of the former is "contingent on the will of regnant human beings".349

But where exactly are the threats for our "social fabric"? Let us assume that the starting point is a Strong Speciesism which assumes that "being human" is defined in terms such as "organism with human DNA". Confronted with ambiguous beings "between" human and animal, a Strong Speciesist can, on one hand, change his definition of "being human" in order to accommodate beings that are deemed morally superior to "normal" animals. He could, for example, state that beings which show typical human behaviour like language use, problem solving, or human-like appearance, should "count" as full human beings. Alternatively, the Strong Speciesist could give up Strong Speciesism and admit beings that are not human according to his standards into the circle of beings with high moral status (as soon as they fulfil certain criteria). This would result in a position where "being human" in the biological sense (i.e. species membership) would not be a necessary condition for high moral status anymore. This, in turn, would call into question many of our current practices regarding nonhuman beings, such as hunting for sport, animal testing, etc., since the exculpatory remark "It's just animals" would not be persuasive anymore. (This is not to say many of our exploitative practices regarding animals could not be justified otherwise, but justification would have to consist in more than the simple declaration that "they're not human, after all.").

This perceived threat goes in the opposite direction, too. If species membership were, in this way, driven from the throne of morally relevant properties, other candidate properties would be put forward, such as rationality, language, free will, etc. Strong Speciesism could be substituted by Qualified Speciesism, i.e. the view that only some beings are, in virtue of having properties like rationality, capacity for moral agency, or self-awareness, morally superior, while, in general only human beings fulfil these conditions (and, possibly, some lucky human-nonhuman interspecifics). When trying to construct a consistent view of Qualified Speciesism, it is remarkably hard not to end up with a position that states that

348 _{Ibid., p. 10.} 349 _{Ibid., p. 9.}

human species membership is not only not necessary, but also not sufficient for high moral status – we will encounter this problem in the form of the Marginal Cases Problem in chapter 3, secion B.2 below. This is, I think, another danger Robert and Baylis see embedded in the debate around chimeras: it could surface that being human in the biological sense (species membership) would not be a sufficient condition for high moral status anymore; which would, in turn, challenge the categorical, high moral status of human beings that do not exhibit the properties one has worked out as morally relevant. Atypical human beings like embryos, infants, comatose and severely mentally handicapped individuals would then lose the prima facie privileged status they enjoy in Strong Speciesist accounts in virtue of their species membership. Asking the question of how human-animal chimeras should be classified morally could trigger a landslide that ends not only with questioning our treatment of nonhuman animals, but also challenges the high moral status we, as a matter of course, assign all human beings no matter their properties and capacities aside from "being human" in the biological sense. This looming danger could ultimately be used as an argument for strict regulation or even prohibition of human-animal interspecific creation.

Whether one finds this kind of argument persuasive (and many, including Robert and Baylis themselves, do not) crucially depends on the importance one assigns to keeping up a fundamental moral difference between human and nonhuman beings. For someone who does not assume such a fundamental difference (i.e. a non-speciesist), Robert's and Baylis' confusion argument will not be very compelling. To give three examples of its failure to persuade non-speciesists, Hilary Bok states that "Chimeras do not introduce confusion into our moral views. They reveal ways in which those views are inadequate and make us think about how we might improve them."350 _{In a similar vein, David Castle thinks chimeras are}

"no more ambiguous then any other living thing."351 _{He points out that chimeras must not}

be seen as made up of parts ("fallacy of composition"), but as organisms in their own right, and that "they will get whatever moral consideration they deserve on the same grounds that apply to any other organism, including human beings."352 _{Julian Savulescu goes even}

further when, in turn, attacking the conservative speciesist impetus the confusion argument is based on:

350 _{Bok (2003), "What's wrong with confusion?" American Journal of Bioethics, 3(3), p. 25.} 351 _{Castle (2003), "Hopes against Hopeful Monsters", American Journal of Bioethics, 3(3), p. 28.} 352 _{Ibid., p. 29.}

"The social costs of acceding to irrational confusion are, at least historically, much greater than the costs of clearing it up and reforming society. (…) Our job is to clear this up (…), not to perpetuate it or allow it to persist or base social policy on it."353

At this point we can see how Robert's and Baylis' confusion argument can be turned around in order to make speciesism (Strong Speciesism in particular) dubious, rather than defending or supporting it – a fact that will be important to our further discussion of the chimera debates' possible influence on questions of animal versus human moral status. Robert's and Baylis' confusion argument, like many arguments in this debate, hinges on the question whether speciesist attitudes are defensible. I have already explained that speciesism is a position which claims that the moral status of human beings (however defined) is fundamentally different from that of nonhuman beings. In order to understand and put in context this type of view – and, consequently, decide whether it should play a role in arguing against the creation of human-animal interspecifics – it is necessary that we understand what exactly speciesism is and what its problems are. To do this, I will in the next chapter include an excursus on the concept of moral status, which is crucial for Speciesism approaches as presented here. Building on this, I will elaborate on the problems of finding a suitable ethical principle of Speciesism. I will come back to an in-depth, concluding analysis of concerns against creating interspecifics in the last chapter 4.

353 _{Savulescu (2003), "Human-Animal Transgenesis and Chimeras Might Be an Expression of Our}

Chapter 3: Excursus on Moral Status and