New Academy for Life member:
Bioethics not about condemning everything
Feb 4, 2020
MANAGING EDITOR
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| Michael Wee, from the Oxford-based Anscombe Bioethics Centre. (Credit: Courtesy to Crux.) |
LEICESTER, United Kingdom - As the Pontifical Academy for
Life prepares for its Feb. 26-28 assembly, the Vatican body announced several
new appointments, including Michael Wee, from the Oxford-based Anscombe
Bioethics Centre.
Wee, the center’s education and research officer, was
appointed to the pontifical academy as a Young Researcher Member.
The Singapore-born academic was the only UK-based appointee
to the Young Researchers’ group of the Academy, and told Crux the
creation of this category for under-35s in 2016 “indicates a high degree of
trust in young people to be able to contribute to the Church’s intellectual
life.”
Besides his work at Anscombe, Wee is an Associate Lecturer
in bioethics at Oscott seminary in Birmingham and is a researcher at the
Aquinas Institute of Blackfriars Hall at Oxford.
“In a place like Britain, where most people do not identify
as Christian, the tools of philosophy-that is to say, natural reason-are
especially valuable in helping people make sense of the Church’s teaching on
moral issues. Before you begin to talk about the theology of the body, you
might first need to talk about the teleology of the body. In order to mention
faith, you first have to convince people that reason is not in conflict with
it,” he said.
What follows are excerpts of Wee’s conversation with Crux.
Crux: Were you surprised about the appointment to
the Pontifical Academy for Life?
Wee: I’ve known for a while that my name had
been put forward to the Academy for consideration, so I wasn’t taken completely
by surprise, though I was still very excited to learn of my appointment. I’m
certainly very grateful to the Academy for this opportunity to contribute to
its work as a Young Research Member. But to me the bigger surprise, really, is
that Pope Francis created this new category of young members under the age of
35 when he restructured the Academy in 2016. I’m not aware that any other
Pontifical Academy or department of the Roman Curia has an equivalent. It
indicates a high degree of trust in young people to be able to contribute to
the Church’s intellectual life.
For me, this is a very refreshing change of attitude from
what is still commonplace in the Church. There are many who desire to get young
people more involved in the Church, but retreat from any suggestion that they
perceive to be too “intellectual” or “serious.” But young people, too, are
attracted to the intellectual riches of the Church and wish to draw on them in
order to engage with the great issues of our day. The pope is leading by
example here in relation to taking young people seriously and listening to
their voices, and that is to be welcomed.
What is your background in bioethics?
I’ve been working at the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, a
Catholic research institute based in Oxford, since 2016, and my job has taken
me to numerous schools and universities across the UK and Ireland where I’ve
spoken on contemporary bioethical issues. I also teach bioethics at Oscott
seminary in Birmingham, which is one of the largest seminaries in Britain, and
I’ve been working on a number of research projects and publications on topics ranging
from euthanasia to posthumanism, from virtue ethics to Wittgenstein.
My alma mater is Durham University in the North East of
England, and I’ve come to Catholic bioethics through philosophy, rather than
theology. I would say that the two are distinct intellectual vocations. In a
place like Britain, where most people do not identify as Christian, the tools
of philosophy-that is to say, natural reason-are especially valuable in helping
people make sense of the Church’s teaching on moral issues. Before you begin to
talk about the theology of the body, you might first need to talk about the
teleology of the body. In order to mention faith, you first have to convince
people that reason is not in conflict with it.
In this regard, I have often found the thought of St. Thomas
Aquinas particularly valuable, for he recognizes that natural reason can bring
us to the “preambles of faith.” I have to credit my interest in Aquinas to the
great blessing I’ve had of always being surrounded by Dominicans. I grew up in Singapore,
and it was there that I first encountered the Dominican friars and the Lay
Dominicans, whose meetings gave me a taste for Thomism. When I went to
university, the Catholic Chaplaincy was also run by the Dominicans. I’m proud
now to be a member of the Aquinas Institute at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, which
aims to promote the study of Aquinas.
Can you tell us a bit more about what the Anscombe
Bioethics Centre does?
The Anscombe Bioethics Centre exists to serve the Catholic
Church in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and our work falls into three
categories, broadly speaking: 1) Academic research; 2) Engaging with public and
governmental bodies, e.g. through consultations or parliamentary evidence; 3)
Public education. Our work, naturally, has a strong British and Irish focus: We
take an interest in issues like conscientious objection in healthcare, which
has received sustained attack from some quarters in British academia, and has
been of particular interest in Ireland following the abortion referendum. All
the same our work is not limited to these shores. One of our most recent books
is a study of the Belgian experience of euthanasia, entitled Euthanasia
and Assisted Suicide: Lessons from Belgium (Cambridge University
Press, 2017).
We also receive many queries from individual healthcare
professionals or other members of the public, especially Catholics and priests
advising patients and families. Here you realize how much the intellectual and
the pastoral coincide in bioethics. You also get a sense of how the Church’s
teaching can be deeply liberating, precisely because it is reason in harmony
with faith. I’ve received many queries relating to end-of-life decision-making,
typically from family members of patients close to death. When people realize
that there is no obligation to do everything in one’s power to preserve life,
if for example the proposed treatment is excessively burdensome, and that this
is not the same as euthanasia, this can be a great moment of grace.
There is, perhaps, a common fear that refusing or
withdrawing treatment means one will no longer be cared for medically. As
another Catholic bioethicist I know puts it, “DNR” does not stand for “Do Not
Respond.” This is where good palliative care comes in, so that refusing
treatment does not lead to abandonment, but another form of accompaniment.
Right now, bioethics seems to be at the center of moral
theology - looking at gender identity, end of life, and embryonic research.
What do you see as the most pressing bioethics issue in this first half of the
21st century?
I’ll start by saying that Catholic bioethics has been
particularly good, you might say, at identifying moral absolutes. But what we
are less good at is dealing with issues where there isn’t a firm red line and
where determining the right course of action demands a rigorous exercise of the
virtue of prudence. Now, to say that is already to invite some measure of
confusion. “Prudence” in our ordinary language tends to suggest caution, but
the virtue of prudence, or practical wisdom (phronēsis in Aristotle’s Greek),
is really about discerning and acting in accordance with the particulars of a
given situation. Sometimes that means caution, at other times a more welcoming
approach.
It’s important that Catholic bioethics, and the moral life
more generally, is not just about condemning everything. Take artificial wombs,
for instance - they promise so much good in the way of saving premature babies,
and one wants to embrace that potential for good as fully as one can. At the
same time, they may also engender an even deeper separation between procreation
and the body than what we are already faced with today. Artificial wombs might
then become a “social” option (i.e. not out of medical need), perhaps to be
used straight from conception via IVF. In such a case, the unborn will become
an even more vulnerable population for discarding or experimentation.
Therefore, we need practical wisdom to confront the
bioethical issues of this century. This involves weighing up potential social
effects and also discerning the internal logic of such technologies. There is a
modern myth that technology is “morally neutral,” that it simply provides yet
another alternative to natural means, but this is rarely the case. Technology
is always predisposed towards certain values over others by the way it operates
or the things it measures. In many cases an individual user’s intentions can
make technology a force for good, but this is not sufficient for a complete
moral analysis.
It is dangerous to make predictions, but for what it’s worth
I think gene-editing will remain one of the most pressing bioethical issues in
the coming decades, because of the difficulty of formulating ethical guidance
and regulation. Since the advent of gene-editing via CRISPR-Cas9 in the past
decade, this issue has become even more urgent. At present there is very little
Magisterial teaching on the ethics of gene-editing, and indeed there is nothing
to suggest that even human enhancement via gene-editing is per se immoral.
That being said, in the document Dignitas Personae, the
Church does point to potential pitfalls in gene-editing: The promotion of a
eugenic mentality, or “a certain dissatisfaction or even rejection of the value
of the human being as a finite creature and person.” This is what I mean by the
“internal logic” of technology. But of course, in practice it can be difficult
to know when specific proposals for gene-editing fall prey to these pitfalls,
so again the virtue of prudence is indispensable.
What role do you see the Pontifical Academy for Life
having in the wider debate on bioethics?
Under Pope Francis, the Pontifical Academy for Life has
taken a particular interest in emerging technologies, such as developments in
artificial intelligence and their significance for healthcare. Many of these
technologies, again, are areas which do not necessarily admit of moral
absolutes, and where the virtue of prudence is of utmost importance.
At the same time, it is important to recognize that as
Catholics, prudence cannot be reduced simply to a matter of weighing up
consequences - we are not utilitarians or proportionalists! We have a firm
foundation, and that is the inviolable dignity of the human person, who is body
and soul, and who furthermore is given the possibility of union with God
through Jesus Christ. In that way, the Church, and the Academy in particular,
has a unique perspective to contribute to wider debates in bioethics. We do not
simply study social effects of such technologies, but also seek to understand
what it means to be a human person made in God’s image.
It is also a good sign that academics and practitioners are
increasingly interested in the application of virtue ethics to contemporary
issues in healthcare. As one instance of this, I recently received funding from
a non-Catholic institute to complete a project on the role of virtue in mental
health. Given that virtue ethics is at the core of the Catholic moral
tradition, this bodes well for the work of the Academy.
Take enhancement and gene-editing, for example: If we
approached them from a virtue-ethical perspective, we might see that there is a
question of moderation and of a fair distribution of resources. Perhaps these
technologies are not intrinsically evil, but in a world of scarce resources,
should these technologies receive more attention and funding, does that not in
some ways represent a kind of “healthcare” predicated on desire and purchasing
power rather than medical need, which would result in further inequalities?
All the same, we must continue to reiterate traditional
Catholic teaching on issues like abortion, euthanasia and contraception, which
remains ever constant. If we, as Catholics, do not understand why the dignity
of human life and marriage is such that certain actions are always morally
excluded, how could we even begin to develop an authentically Catholic perspective
on more complicated subjects like artificial intelligence? The Pontifical
Academy for Life is in a good position to continue bearing witness to the
Church’s moral teaching on settled matters to the wider world, even as it
probes new areas of bioethical reflection.
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