Begotten or Made? - A Review

As news circulates that a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge recently use chattel property laws to make a decision about the fate of frozen embryos, we have another opportunity to consider the morality of various forms of artificial reproductive technology.

Though Oliver O’Donovan’s book, Begotten or Made?, was initially published in 1984, many Christians are unaware of any writing on these topics. As an ethicist, I have been asked more than once about the morality of in vitro fertilization (IVF), with the tacit assumption by the questioner that of course it was morally licit, please explain why. O’Donovan argues convincingly that it is most cases not moral. If anything, O’Donovan is too open to the possibility of a morally legitimate IVF, but his argument is rigorous and eloquent.

Begotten or Made? was originally a set of lectures. At the time they were commissioned, IVF was still a novel technology. O’Donovan deals less with the technique of artificial reproduction than he does with the theology behind it. His reasoning is sound, even as the technology has changed somewhat. By penetrating through the concreteness of the technique of IVF into the ideas that enable it, O’Donovan wrote a treatise that has stood the test of time.

O’Donovan begins by considering the purpose of medicine, which ought to be healing. He notes, “Christians should at this juncture confess their faith in the natural order as the good creation of God.” (15) This is important because it differentiates the process of healing from the process of making something. Much of the technology around artificial reproduction was designed to circumvent nature rather than to restore it.

In the second lecture, O’Donovan deals with what we now call transgenderism. He notes that this is another technology that is primarily oriented toward thwarting nature rather than healing. As such, it cannot be a form of medicine in any meaningful sense. This discussion was meant to show where divorcing reproduction from intercourse between a male and female. O’Donovan’s early thinking has turned to be prophetic. O’Donovan’s treatment of this issue remains one of the clearest, most succinct discussions of a raging topic. The book is worth reading simply for this chapter.

The third lecture explains why involving a donor in the procreative process is inherently immoral. O’Donovan deals with the moral deficiencies of replacing one of the parents within the family with (potentially) a stranger. Notably, he also deals carefully with potential objections raised by the Old Testament levirate marriage, which he argues is distinct. One aspect of this chapter that needs further development (due to its increasing popularity, rather than O’Donovan’s lack) is the renting of wombs through surrogacy.

Lecture four wrestles with the personhood of the embryo. Contemporary medical ethics requires the subject’s consent for experimentation, but an embryo obviously cannot give consent. And yet, so much of the reproductive technology—from freezing embryos to genetic modification—is experimental and has at least some risk of damage or death. At worst the personhood of an embryo is ambiguous, which should cause us to be much more cautious in putting it at risk.

The final lecture wraps up the arguments, making the case as lucid as possible using a fairy tale. One of the most significant aspects of moral reasoning about artificial reproductive technologies that rises from this concluding chapter is that even many of those that participate in such techniques likely do not consider the moral implications of it. The clinical nature of IVF, for example, eliminates the mutual relationship and cooperation normally required for natural conception. It is, on the whole, something different than natural procreation.

The book is slender. This new edition, with a foreword by Matthew Lee Anderson, and a new afterword by the author, is only a little over one hundred pages. It is carefully argued and likely a bit dense for those not familiar with this sort of moral reasoning. The book, however, is well worth the time it takes to read it. Davenant Institute has done a remarkable service in producing a second edition of an increasingly important book.

Begotten or Made?

By O'Donovan, Oliver

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The Ethics of Authenticity - A Review

Charles Taylor is one of the critics of modernity whose work cannot be avoided. Taylor’s framework for understanding contemporary Western culture has been invoked, discussed, or critiqued widely in past few decades.

Many who have never picked up one of Taylor’s books nonetheless would recognize terms like buffered self or immanent frame if they were spoken within hearing. Those are ideas that accompany Taylor’s thoughts.

Unfortunately, though Taylor is important (even if not accepted by all) for understanding contemporary discussions, some of his works are both large and challenging to read. Many people, therefore, rely on second hand interpretations which are sometimes helpful, but also tend to carry freight beyond what Taylor intended. It’s always good to go to the source.

Taylor’s book, The Ethics of Authenticity, is a reasonable point of entry for his work. It originated as lectures that were received by a more popular than academic audience, so the language and explanation are much clearer. Additionally, the book itself is much shorter, while still providing a sufficiently thorough explanation of his main points.

In The Ethics of Authenticity, Taylor discusses three malaises of modernity: (1) Individualism; (2) The primacy of instrumental reasoning; and (3) The soft despotism of systems that are trying to maintain modernity’s grip.

Individualism is, Taylor recognizes, both a major accomplishment of modernity and one of its most troubling attributes. It is a good thing that the personhood and agency of an individual has been recognized and greater freedom has come to make real human progress. At the same time, the loss of the sense of belonging, of purpose, and of one’s proper place within the cosmos was swept away by what has become, in more extreme iterations, an existentialism full of dread.

Individualism led to the break down of the sense of order in the cosmos, which led to disenchantment. That disenchantment, in turn, contributes to the primacy of instrumental reasoning. Less often is the inherent worth of an object, a task, or a person considered. Instead, the chief measure of value is whether something is efficient, what the bottom line is, and what it can be used for. This is a totalizing perspective, which forces even those who recognize that people are more than inefficient machines still must terminate the employment of their least efficient workers, whether their family circumstances support it or not.

There is irony in the freedom that has been achieved through modernity. We are cut adrift from many of the most onerous obligations, but we are now caught by our isolation in a much more unforgiving machine, which is difficult to resist. Thus, “the institutions and structures of industrial-technological society severely restrict our choices, that they force societies as well as individuals to give a weight to instrumental reason that in serious moral deliberation we would never do, and which may even be highly destructive.”

These malaises all involve a high place for “authenticity” as a central virtue of modern moral thinking. Rather than faith, hope, and love, which all bear a sense of duty and constraint, the central concern of modern ethics is to be authentic—to be true to oneself. Taylor first of all shows how this is more than total narcissism and vacuous reasoning, which many (especially conservatives) ascribe to modern thinking as they dismiss it. At the same time, authenticity is also tyrannical. One’s identity is not complete until it is recognized (affirmed?) by another. This, then, makes the whole system incoherent.

However, Taylor argues, that the current system is too strongly woven into the fabric of society, so that stepping out of modernity is not possible. He writes, “The struggle ought no to be over authenticity; for or against it, but about it, defining its proper meaning. We ought to be trying to life the culture back up, closer to its motivating ideal.” That is, those of us seeking to reclaim some semblance of sanity in culture might be better off pointing people toward what it means to be truly and properly human.

I’m too new to Taylor’s work to draw a final conclusion. There is also too much more for me to read to claim to say, “This is the way.” However, as I read through The Ethics of Authenticity I underlined and annotated a large number of passages. I found myself nodding along, thinking that he had perhaps gotten something that I had not figured out just yet, and that it would be worth doing more homework to figure out if what he says can be put into practice.  At the very least, I think I have a better sense of what everyone else has been talking about. If you want that, too, then this may be a book for you.

The Ethics of Authenticity

By Taylor, Charles

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