FROM ISSUE NUMBER 150 - WINTER 2003 GO TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
A reply
THESE were deeply searching, very thoughtful, very well-considered comments. I regard these remarks from the four of you as an enormous gift to our enterprise. One way to join comments made by Diana Schaub, Charles Murray, and Bill Galston is to raise a question. Bill Galston raised it very nicely when he asked whether we are dealing in a moral realm of pruence or in one of absolutes and categorical imperatives. Are we in a realm without inflexible “Thou shalt nots” or are we in one where there really are abominations like slavery? If we are dealing with moral abominations, then to say “on the one hand, on the other” is, as Jody Bottum suggests, to lend countenance and cover to genuine evil. The report’s ambiguity on this question is not solely due to the chairman’s uncertainty but is I think a genuine perplexity. Is cloning human embryos for research really like slavery?
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