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POTTER'S PERSONAL HISTORY OF
BiOETHics. A N EXAMINATION AND SURVEY*
Russo Giovanni
R E S U M E N En este aitículo se consignan los principales puntos de la estructuración Bioética hecha por V.R. Potter. El comienzo global de la Bioética fue basado en la definición que Potter hizo de ésla a manera de Ciencia de la Supervivencia, derivada de la Ética de la Tiena de A. Leopold. La supervivencia es subdividida en 5 categorias de las cuales es la Stipeiyivencia Aceptable la meta moral del ejercicio bioético, ejemplificada a nivel social con el DesaiTollo Sostenible, pero que añade el deber de la auto-regulación para el ser humano en la era actiial. De no alcanzai' la contención moral sobre los desarrollos técnicos y económicos, el flujo de los acontecimientos seda fatal para la humanidad y el planeta. La Bioética Global llama por una articulación, entre las ramas del conocimiento médico y ambiental, que deben trabajar sobre las actuaciones moralmen- te negativas de la sociedad civil actual.
A B S T R A C T lilis article surmnaiizes main viewpoints on V.R. Potter's Bioetlúcal framework. World-wide beginning for Bioetliics was based on Potter's definition considering it as Science ofStii-vival. That proposal respectively had its root on AldtfLeopold's Land Ethic. Survival is subdivided in 5 categories from which Acceptable Sitr\nval represents the moral goal for Bioethics. Acceptable Survival, for social instance, might be related to Sustainable Development idea. However, an emphasis on mankind self-restraint duty is strongly advised. In case of losing tliat moral contention, technical and economical developments would be fatal for humanity and planet Earth. Global Bioetliics calls for an articulation, between medical and enviromiiental knowledge branches, that must work on negative moral acts done by present society.
- THE BIRTH OF BIOETHICS
The prefix bio was attached to the word ethics when Van Rensselaer Potter began to be concerned about the failure of traditional system of morality to deal with the effects of technology upon the natural world and the future of human species'. Technology promotes a growth-oriented profit-making economy that exploits the
Tomado de internet, de la revista Global Bioethics. Vol. 14. N« 4- 2001.
natural environment without concern for the distant future. The basic ecological premises in the case against the excessive use of technology was stated decades ago in Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic-.
V.R. Potter. Bioethics : The Science of Survival, in «Perspectives in Biology and Medicine» 14 ( 1970). 120-15?,. A. Leopold. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford University Press. New York 1949. p. 224.
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Aldo Leopold believed that the human species is dependent upon the plants and animals that in turn depend upon the soil, water and air in the natural environment. And he believed that the natural environment could not be maintained if the human population increased its number indefinitely. Leopold's recog- nition that the human species is part of, and dependent upon, the natural world is a basis for a normative universal morality that according Potter might be called bioethics. It is now a moral issue to question the exercise of technological power for human increase without restraint. The health of the human species has become defined not in terms of numbers, but in terms of harmoriy with the natural environment on a continuing basis. Quality of life, with health a basic requirement, is a moral issue'. Bioethics has moved beyond the morality of indivi- dual behaviour to the morality of groups, especially corporations, churches, governments, political parties, and special interests in relation to natural world. While the flow of thought had been from biology and ecology across a disciplinary chasm into ethics, a counterflow was almost immediately let loose when firmly established ethicist in departments of philosophy used «bioethics» to describe their applications of traditional ethics to the problems engendered by medical terminology and genetic engineering*.
According to Potter, bioethics can be defined as the reexamination of moral traditions in the light of increasing
biological knowledge. Today the increases are occurring so quickly that the impact on moral traditions cannot be easily assessed. One of the virtues implicit in bioethics is self-restraint, a virtue difficult to practice in a corporate structure that aims at short term profit. The application of biotechnology to agriculture will undoubtedly accomplish miracles, yet must be pursued with caution. Before shifting to a monoculture of some high-producing, we should make sure that the diversity of the gene pool in the wild plants is not lost. If biotechnology accelerates the separation of the human species from the agricultural enterprise and fosters increasing urbanisation, the ability of the species to survive will become more and more fragile. The bioethical rule should be to exercise restraint and proceed with caution.
The concept of bioethics that ethics cannot be separated from biological facts is especially needed in the areas of bio- technology, and genetic engineering. Bioethics is a system of morality that covers not orily human relationships to human beings, but also human rela- tionships to the natural living world, now being dominated by the human species as never species as before.
Bioethics is an evolving system of morality that demands the exercise of humility, responsibility, and competence^. It has been suggested that what bioethics calls for «is neither optimism nor pessimism, but an informed realism that includes humility: a humility in which we admit that
15
3 V.R.Potter.Bioelhics.BridgelolheFulure, Prentice- Hall. Englewood Cliffs 1971. 4 G. Russo - V.R. Potter. L'idea originaria di bioética, in «ltinerarium» 2 (1994) 2. pp. 11-25.
5 V.R. Potter. Humility with Responsibility - A Bioethic for Oncologists: Presidential Address, in «Cancer Research» 35 (1975). Sept.. pp. 2297-336.
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needs over many generations without explicitly commenting on the issue of survival».'
According to Potter, humanistic biology may be an appropriate discipline for the organisation of a code of bioethics for survival.
- ACCEPTABLE SURVIVAL AND BIOETVIICS
Bioethics was proposed by Potter in 1970 as science of survival, with careful attention to what is meant by «survival» and what is ethical activity is pursuing health care and related concept, «earth- cam», on a global basis. Survival is easily defined. Survival for an individual is postponement of death: survival for a species is postponement of extinction; survival of a civilization is the post- ponement of an inevitable collapse or crash, with overwhelming decreases in to- tal numbers of people. The question is whether a decent civilization could be rebuilt after a crash. The phrase «global survival» does not specify what kind of survival is called for'".
Potter suggests five categories, or kinds, of survival' '. There will now he discussed and it will be proposed that the term «survival» be understood to mean «sustainable» and
9 Ibidem, pp. 184-185. 10 V. R. Potter. Getting to the Year 3000: Can Global Bioethics Overcome Evolutions Fatal Flaw?, in «Perspectives in Biology and Medicine» 34 (1990)
- pp. 89-98. 11 V.R. Potter. Bioethics and the Human Prospect, in The Culture of Biomedicine: Studies in Sciences and Culture, vol. l.University of Delaware Press. Newark 1984. Idem. Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy. Michigan State University Press. East Lansing 1988. chap. 2.
«acceptable» survival. Mere or miserable survival is not enough and irresponsible survival cannot last.
a) Mere survival. More survival is a term used scornfully by people who dislike talk about survival, mere survival implies food, shelter and reproductive maintenance, but no progress beyond a more or less steady state. It implies no libraries, no written history, no cities, and no agriculture for urban support. Essentially a «hunting and gathering» society. For many thou- sands of years the Eskimos on the shores of the Arctic Ocean appear to have been archetypal examples of mere survival. But they had pride and standards of behavior. They had a survival bioethic insofar as they had learned over many generations what they had to know about their environ- ment (the philosophers' «is» concept) and what they had to do to survive in perpetuity (the «ought» concept). Life was not too bad. Now the Eskimos have outboard motors and rifles and their future is in doubt. They appear to be doing on a small scale what the rest of the world is doing on a large scale. Primitive societies in desert lands were also able to survive for thousands of years with not too bad a life. The discovery of the Yanomama tribe in the Amazonian rain forest in the 1950s and the intensive study of them since the 1960s led to an appreciation of their culture and has highlighted lessons we might learn from them. Many primitive societies have gone from mere survival to miserable survival, as a result of encroachment by white settlers. Meanwhile large segments of industrial societies have
POTTER'S PERSONAL HISTORY OF BIOETHICS. A N EXAMINATION AND SURVEY (^39)
gone to irresponsible survival that cannot last. We need to define a survival that will last and be acceptable, sustainable, realistic and global.
h) Miserable survival. Miserable survival is a state ttiat tends to he identified with the ravages of disease or war, and the toll of malnutrition, starvation, or parasitism. Alt of these disasters occur in combinations. Diseases caused by parasites afflict more than half the world's people. Even when not seriously itt, people who have parasitic disease are chronicatty sick, weaker, less competent, tess productive, and less content than they would be otherwise. ITiat is miserable survival. Since that occasion the sexually transmitted disease known as Aids has burst upon the global scene and has given millions of people miserable survival until they die.
c) Idealistic survival. Peopte cannot agree on the components of idealistic survival, but they can universally agree en the desirabitity of health and the undesirability of preventable disease. No culture or religion, has ever placed a premium on, or aspired to, starva- tion, malnutrition, diarrhea, intestinat worms, or other parasitic infestations. Clearly, the elimination of these scourges is some tiling that aU can agree on as a component of idealistic survivat but today we can offer acceptable survival its a proposed goat for idealistic survivat: global survival in the form of acceptabte survival that is world-wide and sustainable. d) Irresponsible survival. Irresponsible survival is doing anything that runs counter to the concepts of idealistic
and acceptable survival. Many people have more than any society could duplicate and yet have little concern for people who suffer with miserable survival. This cohort continues to survive from ^neration to generation with tittle thought for its miserable neighbours in the tong term or for the species in the long term. According to Potter overpopulation and overcon- sumption, and the depletion and degradation of the biosphere, are examptes of irresponsible survival. The dominant culture has been based on conspicuous consumption that has b)een coupled with the exptoitation and progressive depletion and degradation of the natural resource base. It has been claimed, though not in so many words, that this consumption of mate- rial goods, fueled by advertising in a throwaway society, is necessary for employment. The present economic model provides employment at high wages for a privileged few while millions are below the poverty level. The dominant culture is irresponsible and not acceptabte. It cannot survive in the long term.
e) Acceptable survival. In proposing «acceptable survival», as the goal of bioethics two questions arise at the outset acceptable survivat/or whom and acceptable to whom? And what about another term frequentty employed, i.e. sustainable develop- ment? According to Potter the answer to the first question, in the broad sense, is acceptable survivat for all the world's people and acceptable to a universal sense of what is morally right and good and to what will realistically continue in the long term.
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POTTER'S,PERSONAL HISTORY OF BIOETHICS. A N EXAMINATION AND SURVEY (^41)
must do to survive and what we cannot and must not do if we hope to maintain and improve the quality of life'-*.
- FROM BIOETHICS TO GLOBAL BIOETHICS
The fate of the world according to Potter rests on the integration, preservation, and extension of the knowledge that is possessed by a relatively small number of men who are only just beginning to realise how inadequate their strength, how enormous the task. What is needed is a new discipline, bioethics, to provide models of life styles for people who can communicate with each other and propose and explain the new public policies that could provide a «bridge to the future». The new discipline will be forged in the heat of today's crisis problems, all of which require some kind of a mix between basic biology, social sciences, and the humanities. From many uninformed quarters we now hear demands far a moratorium on science, when what we need is more and better science. We need to combine biology with humanistic knowledge from diverse sources and forge a science of survival that will be able to set a system of priorities''.
Potter suggests that evolution's fatal flaw, defined roughly as the biological predilection for short-term gain, is built
14 V. R. Potter. Bioética globale: la mia filosofía, in G. Russo (ed.). Bilancio di venticinque anni di bioética. Un rapporto dai pionieri. Elle Di Ci. Leumann-Torinp 1997. pp. 69-82. V.R Potter. Humility with Responsibility, pp. 2304-2305. 15 V. R. Potter. Biotechnology: An Overview and Evaluation, in «Biotechnology and Ethics». November 1987. pp. 556-576.
into «our very selves» by the process of natural selection. In other words the fatal flaw is part of the process «that made us what we are» and hence the primary basis for the problems of the future. The vision of global bioethics is to further the development of a morality that will attempt to respond to the concerns of many scientists who hope that their speciality will somehow lead to better understanding of the world-wide crisis humanity faces. It is questionable for Potter whether we now have either the understanding or the mo- ral stature that is needed.
«The goal of global bioethics, as I see it, is to attempt to overcotne evolutioti's fatal tlaw by developing a motality that places long-raiige goals othumati survival ahead ot" short-temi ecotiotnic gains that biological and cultural evolution have tnade pre- emptive [..]. Global bioethics, according to tTiy vision, calls tor tnoral responses based on continually developitig the best possible itnderstandiiig of tlie world and hiuiiankind's place in it. As ati evolving tnorality, global bioethics must proceed with humility, responsibility, and competence explicitly directed toward the long-range survival of the human species, atid coupled with a genuine cotnpassioti for present populations in terms of the protection of human dignity»'^.
Because of the fatal flaw. Potter demands forcefully that we need to start action in the areas where knowledge is already available, and we need to reorient our research effort to get the necessary knowledge if it is not available. The age- old questions about the nature of man and his relation to the world become increasingly important as we approach the remaining three decades in this century, when political decisions made in ignorance
. I
16 V. R. Potter. Getting to the year .3000. pp. 90-91.
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of biological knowledge, or in defiance of it, may jeopardize man's future and indeed the future of earth's biological resources for human needs. As individuals we speak of the «instinct for survival», but the sum total of all our individual instincts for survival is not enough to guarantee the survival of the human race in a form that any or us would willingly accept.
An instinct for survival is not enough. We must develop the science of survival, and it must start with a new kind of ethics: bioethics. The new ethics might be called interdisciplinary ethics, defining inter- disciplinary in a special way to include both the sciences and the humanities. This term is rejected, however, because the meaning is not self-evident. As a discipli- ne, traditional biology has reached the stage where it can be taught in terms of principles, recognising that it is impossible for any individual to become familiar with all the available examples that illustrate the principles. Bioethics can serve no useful ends if it is to be merely a watered-down version of contemporary biology.
It is generally understood that the goal, or, if one prefers, the result of evolution is to make the members of a species better and better adapted to their ambient environ-ment. Successful reproduction of their kind and species survival have been considered the obvious outcome. The mechanism, of course, is the generation of diversity through mutation and recom- bination, which in turn leads to many unsuccessful genomes for each successful adaptation within the boundaries of the genome that defines the species. Meanwhile, the biotic environment is being altered by the products of diversity
so that the formula for success is conti- nually being rewritten. When sufficient alterations in the genome have accumu- lated and survived, a new «species» arises.
Potter quotes Theodosius Dobzhansky who, in contemplating the fact of almost inevitable species extinction, admirably articulated the view of evolutionists of the time when he wondered whether extinction is something built into the evolutionary process'''. He commented that most biological species of the past have become extinct, without issue, and yet their evolution was controlled by natural selection. This is because selection promotes what is immediately useful, oven if the change may be fatal in the long run. A striking example of the proposition is the evolution of the giant panda, a native of China, to a diet consisting exclusively of bamboo, over a period of some millions of years. When a whole bamboo forest temporarily disappears, many giant pan- das have starved to death, and the pandas are now considered an endangered species. Thus, not all extinctions can be attributed to cataclysmic changes in the environment, and the short-range adaptive phenomena deserve to be called the «fatal flaw» in evolution, as Potter have suggested in the entire book Global bioethics.
It is Potter's thesis that in pursuing perfect adaptation the evolutionary process has built into each member of the human species an instinct for short-term gains so strong that no prescient individual.
17 T. Dobzhansky. The Biological Basis of Human Freedom. Columbia University Press. New York 1956: Idem. Evolution at Work, in «Science» 127 (1958). pp. 1091-1098.
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In the development of global bioethics the idea of bioethics moved from a broad concept of integration of biology and the humanities to a narrower integration of medical and environmental bioethics. Then it became apparent that medical and environmental ethics had proceeded down separate paths. Global bioethics was proposed as an attempt to integrate the medical and environmental branches. In Potter's vision the evolution of bioethics as a discipline moved from humility, responsibility, and competence to encompass five cardinal virtues: 1) humility, 2) responsibility, 3) interdis-
ciplinary competence, 4) intercultural competence, and 5) compassion, but always with acceptable long-term survival of the human species in a world-wide civil society as the goat^'.
Global bioethics is proposed as an idea whose time has come. The concept catls for a coalition for all the efforts to bring science, religion, the humanities, govern- ments, business, industry and people together in interdisciplinary groups that can agree on the five cardinal virtues and a goat that goes beyond «stewardship» to embrace «acceptable survival».
21 V.R. Potter. Global bioethics: Buildings a Leopold Legacy', pp. 57-70: Idem. Humility with Respon- sibility. A bioethic for Oncologists: Presidential Address in «Cancer Resarch». S.*;. sept., p. 2301.
Acceptable survival, tn proposing «acceptabte stirVival», as tlie goal of bioethics two questiotis ari.se at the outset acceptable survival for whom and acceptable lo vvhotn? And what about aiiotlier term trequently employed, i.e. sustainable devetop-ment?
According to Potter the answer to the tlrst question, in the broad sense, is acceptabte survival for atl the world s people aiid acceptable to a universal sense of what is morally riglit atid good and to what witl reatisticalty continue in the long term. Acceptable survival is a tong term concept with a moral constraint wortdwide human dignity-, human rights, human healtli. Tlie dominant world culture at present tends to be quite irresponsible and not acceptabte in temis of "lobal SLU"vival. Ru.sso GIOVA.NM
