Ever since this blog started, I have regularly described how bioethical discussions often are driven by our own psychology. On the surface, the debates appear to be purely rational investigations of the truthfulness of certain claims. The claims may be about the risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the private nature of genetic information, the moral status of the human embryo, or the exploitation of egg donors for stem cell research. The topics are, as you probably hear, sensitive. Behind the rational surface of the debates, one can sense deeply human emotions and reactions: fear, anger, anxiety.
Have you ever been afraid? Then you know how easily fear turns into anger towards what you think causes your fear. What happens to the anger? Anger, in turn, tends to express itself in the form of clever arguments against what you think is causing your fear. You want to prove how wrong what frightens you is. It must be condemned, it must cease, it must be prohibited. This is how debates often begin.
The debates hide the emotions that drive them. Fear hides behind anger, which hides behind clever arguments. This hiding in several steps creates the shiny rational surface. It sounds like we were discussing the truth of purely intellectual doctrines about reality. Doctrines that must be defended or criticized rationally.
As academics, we have a responsibility to contribute to debates, to contribute with our expertise and our ability to reason correctly. This is good. Debates need objectivity and clear logic. The only risk is that sometimes, when the debates are rooted in fear, we contribute to hiding the human emotions even more deeply below the rational surface. I think I can see this happening in at least some bioethical debates.
What we need to do in these cases, I think, is to recognize the emotions that drive the debates. We need to see them and handle them gently. Here, too, objectivity and clear logic are required. However, we do not direct our objectivity at pure doctrines. Rather, we direct it more thoughtfully at the emotions and their expressions. Much like we can talk compassionately with a worried child, without trying to disprove the child as if the child’s worries were deduced from false doctrines about reality.
If our objectivity does not acknowledge emotions, if it does not take them seriously, then the emotions will continue to drive endlessly polarizing debates. But if our objectivity is kindly directed to the emotions, to the psychological engine behind the polarization, then we can pause the sensitive mechanism and examine it in detail. At least we can make it react a little slower.
We habitually distinguish between reason and feeling. As soon as a conflict emerges, we hope that reason will pick out the right position for us. We do not consider the possibility that we can direct reason directly to the emotions and their expressions. It is as if we thought that feelings are so irrational that we must suppress them, should hide them. As parents, however, this is precisely how we reason wisely: We talk to the child’s feelings. Sometimes we need to handle our own feelings the same way. We need to acknowledge them and take good care of them.
In such a compassionate spirit, we can turn our objectivity and our wisdom towards ourselves. Not just in bioethics, but everywhere where human vulnerability turns into relentless argumentation.
By gently dissolving the doctrines that lock the positions and reinforce the hidden emotions, we can begin the process of undoing the mental deadlocks. Then we may talk more clearly and objectively about genetics and stem cell research.
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