A NEGLECTED SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF THE METAPHYSICAL AND MORAL STATUS OF THE HUMAN-ANIMAL CHIMERA

Ethics & Medicine, Summer 2004 by DiSilvestro, Russell

Winner of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity 2003 Essay Contest

Introduction*

Biotechnologies that seek to create human-animal chimeras raise many interesting philosophical questions, and these questions are of different kinds. Some of these questions are primarily metaphysical, focusing on the nature and proper biological classification of human-animal chimeras. Some of these questions are primarily moral, focusing on ethical aspects of the creation and treatment of human-animal chimeras. Finally, some of these questions are primarily epistemological, focusing on how we can know or reasonably believe certain things about human-animal chimeras.

These various philosophical questions are not completely independent of one another; they relate to each other in various complicated ways. Still, it is helpful when possible to keep the questions distinct in our minds. The purpose of this present essay is to treat one specific metaphysical question and one specific moral question. The metaphysical question is whether it makes sense to consider the possibility that the human-animal chimera could be a member of two different species at the same time. The moral question is what moral status we should accord to a being if we believe that being is in fact a member of two different species.

The answers I offer to these two philosophical questions will rely on a particular sort of Christian theology-namely, what is often referred to simply as "orthodox" Christian theology and what C. S. Lewis called "mere Christianity." This theology has among its central claims two which relate directly to this essay: the claim that Jesus is one person possessing two natures, and the claim that God is three persons possessing one nature. We can accent these two claims by referring to the view as duophysite Trinitarian Christian theology. Since I wish to avoid cumbersome formulations throughout the paper, I will simply refer to this view below as "what Christians believe," and since I count myself and many of my readers as adherents of this view, I will often use the first person plural voice, speaking of what "we" believe. If the reader does not share these assumptions, she should simply substitute the longer phrase, "duophysite Trinitarian Christians" in the appropriate places.

In answering the metaphysical question posed above, I argue that the doctrine of the Incarnation, and in particular the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, provides good reasons for thinking that such a two-species creature is possible. Just as Jesus was fully human and fully God, it makes sense (even if it never in fact comes about) that a human-animal chimera could be fully a member of species a and fully a member of species b. In answering the moral question, I argue that the doctrine of the Incarnation helps us arrive at what I will call the Maximum Respect Principle: namely, that if the moral status of an a (something with nature a) is greater than the moral status of a b (something with nature b), then a thing with both natures has the moral status of an a.

Methodology

I believe that a Christian response to the issues raised by human-animal chimeras should embody at least three features: it should be unapologetically theological, multi-disciplinary, and forward-looking. First, Christians should be deliberate and unashamed about integrating their theological knowledge with conceptual issues in the various sciences and the various branches of philosophy. When so integrating, our approach should go beyond what J. P. Moreland calls the "doxological approach" and should embody what Thomas Morris calls "theological realism." According to the doxological approach,

The Christian integrator holds to and teaches the same beliefs about his/her subject matter that non-Christians accept but goes on to add praise to God for the subject matter. Thus, the Christian biologist simply asserts the views widely accepted in the discipline but makes sure that class closes with a word of praise to God for the beauty and complexity of the living world.1

Moreland rightly recognizes that although the doxological approach is good as far as it goes, it does not go far enough. He therefore goes on to develop and utilize a fuller and more comprehensive approach in articulating a robust Christian anthropology. This is the sort of approach described by Thomas Morris:

The Judeo-Christian religious tradition is not just a domain of poetry, imagery, mystical transport, moral directive, and noncognitive, existential self-understanding.... I [take for granted] theological realism, the cognitive stance presupposed by the classical theistic concern to direct our thoughts as well as our lives aright. It has been the intent of theologians throughout most of the history of the Christian faith to describe correctly, within our limits, certain important facts about God, human beings, and the rest of creation given in revelation and fundamental to the articulation of any distinctively Christian world view. In particular, reflective Christians throughout the centuries have understood their faith as providing key insights into, and resources for, the construction of a comprehensive metaphysics.2