Transvision 2003 Panel 

SATURDAY   June 28, 2003    

1:30-3pm

Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 62 High St., New Haven CT

 

Personhood, Identity and Rights

Linda MacDonald Glenn LLM

Institute for Ethics, American Medical Association

"The Future Boundaries of Personhood: Evolving Technological, Legal, and Ethical Definitions"

Abstract: As barriers between the species and man/machine begin to blur and blend, how will these affect legal and ethical notions of "personhood"?

Bio: Linda MacDonald Glenn, LLM is currently a senior fellow at the Institute for Ethics at the American Medical Association. Her thesis was entitled, "Biotechnology At The Margins of Personhood: An Evolving Legal Paradigm." Prior to returning to an academic setting, she consulted and practiced as a trial attorney with an emphasis in patient advocacy, bioethical and biotechnology issues, end of life decision-making, reproductive rights, genetics, parental/biological "nature vs. nurture", and animal rights issues. She was the lead attorney in several "cutting edge" bioethics legal cases, including Gray v. Romeo (697 F.Supp. 580, District of Rhode Island, 1988). She has advised governmental leaders and agencies, published numerous articles in professional journals, and has a book chapter in Nursing Malpractice: Sidestepping Legal Minefields (Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins Publishers, 2002.). She has taught at the University of Vermont School of Nursing and the Community College of Vermont, and addressed public and professional groups internationally. Her extensive experience and passion for the issues facing the legal and medical professions make her a compelling and thought-provoking lecturer. Her current research areas encompass End-of-Life Care and evolving notions of personhood.

John Alan Cohan J.D. 

Law Offices of John Alan Cohan

"The Question of Self-Identity and Brain Transplants"

Until recently, the concept of human brain transplantation was considered to be the realm of science fiction. The body for transplantation would be a decedent who had been declared brain dead but whose other vital organs were extant. Is the real person

John Alan Cohan is an attorney in California.

Susantha Goonatilake Ph.D. 

Center for Studies of Social Change New School for Social Research

"Body, self and environment as constructed and reconstructed: Insights from Buddhist philosophy for the ethics of the future transhuman and posthuman"

When we are constructed and reconstructed, from new developments in biotechnology and information technology as say clone or robot or admixtures of both, deep questions are raised that challenge existing ethical systems. Dominant Western ethical systems are derived from Christianity, Judaism or Islam (the latter included as part of the larger Western "Abrahamaic" family of religions); the ethical system being "revealed" and to be "God's word". New developments from abortion, to cloning and in the future, artificial genes and artificial chromosomes challenge some of these ethical assumptions. Recent approaches to the living world and the environment have utilized cultural elements from major non-Western philosophies as well as those of simpler belief systems. A major cultural approach that has change as its core is Buddhist philosophy. Some core Buddhist approaches have direct relevance to a future where both the human and his/her environment is constructed and reconstructed. The paper describes the central Buddhist position on both the human person, including his body and mind, as well as the environment he operates in, as not given or sacred but constructed and changing. The paper suggests that an orientation from this core Buddhist perspective of continuous change, no permanent self and both human and nature as constructed would fit better as a cultural orientation to examine and live in a future world under continuous change and where man and nature are continuously reinvented and reconstructed. It also suggests that Buddhist ethics derived from such a perspective (which unlike the revealed religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is not absolute but contingent and situational) may better fit as a means of navigating the coming interconnected world of the clone, the robot and the cyborg. The paper describes what such an ethical perspective could be and its implications for a transhuman and posthuman society.

Susantha Goonatilake teaches at the New School of Social Research, and is author of Merged Evolution: the Long Term Implications of Information Technology and Biotechnology and Evolution of Information: Lineages in Genes, Culture and Artefact.