The looming ethical and moral dilemmas and debates... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, May 12, 2012, 21:02 (402 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust

Stephen, there have been a few posts on the forum recently of news reports on brain and neuron research. We are still babes in the woods in understanding how our own bodies work, let alone our brains. (See, for example, the posts in this string: www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=102143. I suspect down the track humankind will begin to get some answers into the sort of questions you have been posing. When we do I suspect there's going to have to be a lot of "back to the drawing board" in the realms of theology and morality. Huge ethical questions are going to be raised which, at this stage, institutional Catholicism is almost entirely incapable of even beginning to consider. For example, today through various "unnatural interventions" we can cure various diseases and replace certain damaged organs. (Ya mustn't use a condom but!!!) In time one can foresee the possibility that a person with some genetic defect, or some developmental phase occurence, causing paedophilia may be able to be changed or reversed by chemical, biological or surgical intervention. Same for homsexuality — or heterosexuality for that matter. How do you define what is a "defect" and what is part of the innate Divine plan, or part of the "natural order"? How does a society determine what interventions against the natural order are ethically or morally permissible and which are not?

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]