Why Vanilla?

The solitary word “vanilla” is used as a pejorative term, meaning boring, not exciting, standard, or basic. Just meh. However, vanilla can be a solid and dependable base upon which we place our rainbow sprinkles, chocolate syrup, walnuts, and cherries on top. But what do these definitions of vanilla have to do with a blog about ethics? To answer this question let’s first examine a popular branch of ethics that concerns itself with medical and biological research, bioethics.  

Bioethicists, or philosophers interested in the field of bioethics, are tasked with determining whether certain treatments, technologies, or research protocols are licit to perform or develop. A brief list of positions supported by “world renowned” bioethicists/philosophers include: infanticide, lethal experimentation on unwilling innocents, abortion, surgical removal of healthy body parts, human embryo experimentation, cloning, eugenics, and euthanasia. These positions are anything but boring, nor are they grounded in a solid dependable base. Moreover, bioethicists seem to be less concerned with human nature and its value and more interested in acting as an official stamp of approval for the next popular biotechnology or controversial issue of the day. 

A perfect illustration of the quick rubber stamping of bioethicists can be read in the article “Bioethics Today” published at Human Life Review and written by University of Reading Professor of Philosophy David Oderberg. In the article Prof. Oderberg critically examined Oxford professor, bioethicist, and director of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Julian Savulescu. One example includes the analysis of Prof. Savulescu on the topic of whether parents should be allowed to intentionally use sperm from a congenitally deaf man to conceive a deaf child. Savulescu argues two points. First, that the couple has a right to procreate with whomever they want. Second, the parents only harm the reproduced child if the life of the child is so bad that it is not worth living. But, according to Savulescu, the parents aren’t harming the disabled child because “Deafness is not that bad.” Parents may intentionally procreate a deaf child because deafness is not that bad? Definitely not vanilla. Prof. Oderberg, somewhat exasperated, responds: 

That’s his answer to the vague and fuzzy question ‘Have they harmed the child?’—a question that covers a multitude of philosophical sins. That the couple have brought into existence, through their own free choice, a damaged person has no place in Savulescu’s perverse reckoning. 

Prof. Oderberg isn’t the only voice raising the alarm about the competency of bioethicists.  Surveying this disappointing landscape, BioEdge editor Michael Cook pronounced, “…I'm fed up. It’s time to abolish bioethics and bioethicists.” Commenting on Cook’s call to abolish bioethics, Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism at First Things writes, “Bioethics doesn’t really believe in any firm principles. It’s all relativistic and free floating. In such a milieu, and in an age when anti-human exceptionalism and bioscience radicalism is in baby, the more extreme you are, the better you do.” 

It appears that what is infecting popular bioethics is also infecting the wider public discourse in general. Virtues such as truth, prudence, justice, and temperance have been replaced by bodily autonomy and murky rights language. What do we need to reverse the tide? Again, from Cook, “You need common sense, a breadth of experience and a deep and sympathetic appreciation of human nature. In short, you need to be a plain vanilla ethicist.”