McFish

Ok, so I read a while back that there were some researchers trying to get some particular organ (kidneys come to mind, but I can't really recall) to grow in pigs for human transplant purposes.

This seems ok to me.

How many human(ish) organs can we engineer a pig to grow for us before there is a moral or ethical dilemma (assuming there is such a point)?



Another question that occurs to me involves cloning/god. If the main moral objection to cloning is that we are experimenting on humans or "killing the unborn" then how can the christian god be described as moral?

Doubting Didymus

Depends on the ethical dilemma you mean. If you're me, you can grow anything in a pig and remain moral. If you're a strict vegetarian, you cant kill any pigs at all. You need to be a bit more specific.

Glass*Soul

Are you asking how human(ish) we can allow a pig to become before we face the delimma of killing a quazi-human-pig in order to harvest the organs?

McFish

Yes. I know it's nowhere close to being a reality, but it's interesting (for me anyway to think about.

In some sort of sci-fi future it's conceivable that you could record the contents of someone's brain and transplant that data into a 'fresh' brain. If (in that future) you were growing 'pigs' that had most of the same organs as us for transplant purposes, what would be the moral situation?

I live in a predominately christian area and one concept I continually have difficulty with is, "If God did it, it is by definition good and righteous." This sounds rather like "might makes right" philosophy to me, and while it makes fine sense for someone living in fear of an ultimately benevolent creator, it doesn't make for warm fuzzies in my world filled with fundies, bosses, presidents, and dictators.

There was a short sci-fi story by Niven about a guy that was basically 'stranded' at relativistic speeds far from home and a god-like alien that brought him home. He made an analogy between his situation and that of a caterpillar on a sidewalk. There was a question as to the morality of an adult that would step on or ignore the hapless caterpillar compared to that of a child who picks it up and places it on a tree.

Our society (for the most part) thinks it's ok to do whatever we have the capability to do with respect to animals. I haven't hashed out my personal philosophy much yet, I'm still young But I hope it ends up somewhere better than "might makes right."

Glass*Soul

Yes. I see your dilemma. If one engineered a pig with a brain capacity capable of receiving a making use of the data that was to be transplanted, one might expect said pig to have an opinion on the use of his brain for this purpose. If he also had a human-like voice box he might be capable of vocalizing that opinion.

Shades of "Island of Dr. Moreau." "Are we not men?"

Your scenario may not be as far off as we might think. I saw a picture a few weeks ago, in Discover magazine, of a mouse with a very acceptable-looking human ear replacement growing out of it's back.

VonEvilstein

Personally, I think this ones never going to come up. By the time we can grow a full complement of human organs in a snigle pig, we'll probably be able to do it in a tank, too.

Purely out of curiosity, how would any vegetarian reading this, feel about meat that was never part of any real animal - you know, meat grown in a big tank of nutrients?

The Naked Mage

THE VEGETARIAN'S CREED: "If it doesn't scream when you bite into it, it's not really alive."

Ab_Normal

Hmm, I thought the big concern with cross-species transplants is the transmission of diseases between the species. Otherwise, I have no problems with it.

Sarpedon

Because pigs are not human, they have no place in a human society, and therefore have no rights at all that we have to respect. I battle with many people as to the origin of rights. They are entirely artificial. I am a strong believer and advocate of human rights, but I do not deceive myself into saying that they are in any way "natural." Just as a human has no rights that a pig has to respect, so too has a pig no rights. (grammer?) If the pigs were to agree to respect our rights, I might agree to respect their rights.

long winded fool

But doesn't this take us back to a variation of the "might makes right" philosophy? Is it really just an animal's species that gives it rights? Pigs do have some rights that humans have to respect in this society, just not rights that are equal to humans. Since humans give animals some rights, rights themselves seem to come from something other than simple species differentiation. The fact that an animal is not my species technically has no bearing on whether or not it has rights. Rights come from those who are intelligent enough to recognize them and seem to be assigned based on some value other than species alone. If a society declares that pigs have rights, then pigs have rights that all in the society must respect under penalty of whatever punishment the society dictates, regardless of the fact that pigs don't understand the concept of rights and thus do not respect human rights. Therefore, pigs do have rights, and any who violate them ought to be justly punished. You can argue that pigs ought not to have rights, but then you must support this argument, and I don't think many humans will agree that since non-humans don't understand rights, they ought not to be assigned any.

Any living thing valued by a majority usually attains rights. This is where PETA comes from. In a democracy, unless you are in the majority, it is wrong to say pigs have no rights that anyone need respect. If you want to stay out of trouble, then you need to respect the rights of animals in this society, at least for the time being.