Transcript ｽﾗｲﾄﾞ ﾀｲﾄﾙなし

Bioethical Challenges and
Opportunities of Greater
Understanding of Ourselves
and Nature: The era of the
Human Behaviourome
Darryl R.J. Macer, Ph.D.
Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Tsukuba,
Tsukuba Science City, 305, Japan
Director, Eubios Ethics Institute
<http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/index.html>
Affiliated Professor, United Nations University
Director, International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) Bioethics Program
Principles or ideals for bioethics
Conventional language
Alternative language*
Autonomy
Justice
Do no harm
Beneficence
self-love
love of others
loving life
loving good
*Darryl Macer, Bioethics is Love of Life,
Eubios Ethics Institute 1998.
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While ethical principles may be pre-human in
biological, social and spiritual heritage, and thus
almost universal, the balancing of them varies
between individuals.
-Bioethics is Love of Life (Macer, 1998)
The behaviourome is a project
to understand ourselves
•It is a research project to integrate social science
methodologies.
•One of the most interesting questions before a thinking
being is whether we can comprehend the ideas and
thoughts of other beings, and conversely whether they
can also read our mind.
•We have already the means to embark upon a human
mental map with the goal of describing the diversity of
ideas a human being makes in any given situation or
dilemma.
•This is the behaviourome or human mental map.
•This is not of a physical structure but a map of "ideas"
used in moral decision-making.
nature
14 November 2002
Volume 420, 121.
The next challenge is to map the human
mind
An ambitious project aims to chart the territory of ides:
vast but, conceivably, not infinite.
- Darryl Macer
“The human genome has been, largely, sequenced. And work continues to the
proteome and transcriptome. Now comes a call to map the human
‘behaviourome’….” - Nature Editors.
[email protected]
Now the human DNA has been
sequenced, the genome…
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We still understand so little about
what is inside our mind!
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Uses of a mental map
include:
1) To understand ourselves, and whether the
number of ideas is really finite.
2) To compare mental maps and idea
diversity between persons and species.
3) To aid in policy making to make policy
that respects the diversity of people in a
culture, and globally. This would help
develop bioethics for the people by the
people.
Uses for individual decision
making
4) If we can make individual mental maps, this
would offer persons assistance when making
moral decisions. This would give them a
chance to consider all their ideas, and to
make a more considered moral choices. This
would also be useful in the testing and
implementation of better bioethics education.
Figure 1: An e xample of the interplay between the multiple
ideas and choices behind a single response to a dilemma
Situation
Dilemma
Idea 1
Others (e.g. time, memory,
experience)
Idea 2
Idea 3
Choices A, B, etc.
Idea 4
Decision
Idea 5
Response
Types of Ideas
1) conceptualization of
physical objects
2) psychological
meanings of images
associated with
objects (like colours)
3) Memories
4) 4)plans for both short
and long term future
5) intention to modify
behaviour of self
6) intention to modify
behaviour of surrounding
beings and the
environment
7) processing of sensory
states
8) inhibition of a response
based on immediate
evolutionary benefit
9) interactive
conceptualization of ideas
in a community based
response
Are the number of human ideas finite?
In 1994, based on the results of the International Bioethics
Survey, which gathered opinions from 6000+ persons in 10
countries on 150 questions of bioethics dilemmas, I
proposed that the number of human ideas for moral
decision making is finite.
Since then, the evidence continues to suggest the number is
finite, and thus countable!
We will only know after we map the ideas and the way they
are linked together. We need to develop a common
framework for interdisciplinary studies of human ideas.
On the map ideas are not single points but spheres of varying
intensity, sometimes merging with others - and a person's
response to each dilemma links some of these ideas.
In the first year of the international behaviourome project
several frameworks are being tested to map human ideas.
Human mental map version 2
•A 5 dimensional model including
points which represent ideas on a
matrix for all the types of ideas (9
colours at present) within a
framework of 7 sides.
•The seven sides are self-love, love
of others, loving good, loving life,
loving harm, memories and hopes.
This model adds our heritage - memories
and hopes, to the four ideals in decision
making!
Memories include our biological, social and
spiritual heritage seen in
biology,medicine,society,religion…
We all hope that our moral decisions will be
for the best!
The map is represented in a 2-d picture …
Love of good
Loving harm
Hopes
Memories
Love of others
Loving life (do no harm)
Self love
The project is now trying to integrate the
data to map human values and ideas.
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9 methods groups (1/2)
1) Matrix Mapping of Ideas Relating to
Bioethics Choices from Biotechnology
2) Introducing the Elementary Pragmatic
Model (EPM) in the Behaviourome
3) Ideas Counter and Software Testing
4) Testing of the Ten Ethical Laws Of
Robotics in a Cross-Cultural Matrix
5) Evolution of Thinking and Ideas
9 methods groups (2/2)
6) Can Any Physical Model Map Human Insight
and Creativity, or is There Something
Metaphysical About The Mind?
7) Integrative Mapping of All Ideas and Integrative
Ethical Decision-Making and Behaviour
8) 'One Page Management System' Instead of
Prose Mode
9) Universal Functional Reductionism in
Integrative Mental Mapping: The Tenth Class of
Cosmist Creative Ideas
Ideas and ethical principles have a
biological, social and spiritual heritage
This model does not necessarily exclude beings
who cannot "think", as they still share a
memory (history) and a future heritage, and
the principles have a long biological heritage.
Pre-rational ideas
• Ideas are linked to rationality, but ideas
may be considered as something prerational. Rationality emerges after the
processing of ideas, in what we call
thinking.
• Do only humans think? If we consider
thinking to be the processing of motor
images or sensory images it clearly
emerged much earlier in evolution.
Speech and ideas
• In ethical theory usually animals that can plan
and dream of the future are considered as being
of higher rationality, and therefore need to be
given greater protection.
• There has been much enthusiasm with the
discovery of a single gene that is very
important in human speech, FOXP2 (in 2002),
as it may have enabled the social emergence of
modern human communities, we do not
understand yet the extent to which the diversity
of ideas is extended by linguistic dialogue
(whether vocalized or not).
Science tells us 91 genes are in
humans that are not in
chimpanzees … of 30,000 genes.
Enhanced studies of cross cultural
bioethics -recognising diversity
•There are implications for cultural identity. How
should a culture that tries to maintain its cultural
uniqueness by claiming everyone thinks the same, face
up to the reality that in every culture the full range of
idea diversity is found.
• This diversity is found in almost all groups, excluding
those particularly finite groups that are formed to
promote particular political aims, such as those who
fight for or against abortion, or euthanasia.
•Religions which have observed already that
humankind is universal will have less challenges than
religions which claim a special religious status for their
"chosen" people.
How to map the mind?
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Culture and ideas
•The individual human mind is a societal
creation, formed through a series of interactions
with other persons.
•After an initial response to a dilemma, real or
hypothetical, our mind generates an idea. That
idea is subject to genetic, environmental and
cultural factors. Then the process of idea
development occurs, subject to the cultural
restraints and lessons of the past to that person.
• The action is taken, but this is not the end of the
idea for a normal human mind. The consequences
are considered, there may be guilt or selfgratification, through the interplay of the
conscience and ego.
How to map ideas onto this matrix?
• Each of the 9 methods groups is exploring the
best methodology to do this.
• In the case of method 1, each idea is given a
score for each of the 7 axes (from 0-100) and
placed at the interacting point on the 3-d box.
• Other dimensions include the type of idea, and
links for information to source of the data, the
moral dilemma from which it was observed.
Love of good
others
Loving life (do no harm)
+
Loving harm
Example idea - Let us eat lunch
Hopes
Memories
Love of others
self
Self love
Practical bioethics is action to make the
world more bioethical, for example, health
projects for medically deprived
populations, and environmental activism.
-Eubios Declaration of Bioethics
Mental mapping is a way to
progress endless debates about
human ideas and moral
decision-making.
Recognition of Diversity and
Depth of Asian Bioethics
• Bioethics is pre-human.
• Bioethics in human culture was discussed for
millennia in Asia, as everywhere.
• Bioethics is not a luxury for rich countries, it is
something everyone does - and can make better.
• It is a global realization of a way of moral decision
making that occurred before people were aware of
it.
• Bioethics includes methods of anthropology,
sociology, biology, not just philosophy or theology.
The way forward in bioethics
• In conclusion we can see that the human mental
mapping project will develop Asian and international
bioethics of the twentieth century onto a more concrete
and transdisciplinary basis in this century.
• We need to develop a common language for studies of
life and ideas, and it is hoped that these projects will
allow this.
• There will be challenges for many aspects of our
understanding of human beings, though we should be
clear, there will always be more questions than answers
for humans to attempt to understand ourselves and
nature.
• Asking questions and having free will to make decisions
is part of the image of God.
Please join the project!
[email protected]
All are welcome!
Bioethics for Global Dialogue!
Working for a good life for all globally…
Eubios Ethics Institute
Branches in New Zealand, Japan, India, China, Philippines…
Available for consultancy in bioethics, aiming to produce publicly available resources
in bioethics bridging geography, discipline and values.
A non-for-profit organization founded in 1990.
[email protected]
[email protected]
Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics
Asian Bioethics Association
International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) Bioethics
Bioethics resource library
UNESCO/IUBS/Eubios Bioethics Dictionary
Tsukuba International Bioethics Roundtables
Resources are available On-line, CD and hard copy
<http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/index.html>