Human-Animal Chimeras and Hybrids: An Ethical Paradox behind Moral Confusion?

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

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  • Dietmar Hübner

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OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)187-210
Seitenumfang24
FachzeitschriftJournal of Medicine and Philosophy (United Kingdom)
Jahrgang43
Ausgabenummer2
Frühes Online-Datum13 März 2018
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - Apr. 2018

Abstract

The prospect of creating and using human-animal chimeras and hybrids (HACHs) that are significantly human-like in their composition, phenotype, cognition, or behavior meets with divergent moral judgments: On the one side, it is claimed that such beings might be candidates for human-analogous rights to protection and care; on the other side, it is supposed that their existence might disturb fundamental natural and social orders. This paper tries to show that both positions are paradoxically intertwined: They rely on two kinds of species arguments, "individual species arguments" and "group species arguments," which formulate opposing demands but are conceptually interdependent. As a consequence, the existence of HACHs may challenge exactly those normative standards on which the protection of HACHs may eventually be based. This ethical paradox could constitute the ultimate source of the "moral confusion" that some authors have suspected HACHs to provoke.

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Human-Animal Chimeras and Hybrids: An Ethical Paradox behind Moral Confusion? / Hübner, Dietmar.
in: Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (United Kingdom), Jahrgang 43, Nr. 2, 04.2018, S. 187-210.

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

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