Why do so some people feel uneasy about using the heart or other organ of a dead person for medical research, when the person it once belonged to has no further need of it – and is, anyway, beyond suffering? And why are some of us disturbed at the thought of researchers altering the DNA of animals, if they don’t feel any pain and can live active, autonomous lives?

Many philosophers dismiss such concerns as irrational. Dr Michael Hauskeller, at the University of Exeter, thinks differently. “We need a philosophical foundation to account for these very common concerns and intuitions, which don’t appear to be grounded in generally accepted moral principles,” he says. “We need to look at what these intuitions are founded on – and whether they can be justified.”

As a starting point, he argues that the distinction between ‘irrational’ fears and ‘rational’ moral concerns is not a sound one. “Much as we would like to think they are – moral convictions don’t tend to be soundly rooted in reason. Take abortion as an example. You can be pro or against it, and come up with well-reasoned arguments for both sides. But at the end of the day, whichever argument sways you depends on your personal stance or intuition.”

Similarly, we often get a feeling of disgust – a sense that something is wrong – before we can explain what it is in a situation or action that is disturbing us. Dr Hauskeller calls this feeling ‘moral disgust’ and says its function is to prompt people to evaluate the situations, actions and practices that produce it, and to find out what exactly is wrong.

“Moral disgust makes people aware of a ‘wrongness’ that surpasses anything that can be accounted for by existing moral theory,” he says. “If people are feeling this about using the organs of the dead, or genetically modifying animals, then we have to ask ourselves whether there is something beyond the suffering, autonomy or self interests of living beings that we need to respect?”

Integrity

The term ‘integrity’ has been the focus of recent attempts to capture this elusive ‘something’ – and to provide a philosophically satisfactory justification for the concerns many people instinctively feel about certain medical research practices.

“Integrity has a similar function to the concept of dignity, in that it can be impaired or violated, even if all other interests are met,” explains Dr Hauskeller. While the term dignity tends to be used only for humans, integrity is a more useful concept in bioethics because it can be applied to animals, plants and micro-organisms as well. Unfortunately, there is no agreement on what it actually means.

Dr Hauskeller is attempting to clarify its meaning by addressing questions, such as whether integrity could be defined as an essence or basic nature of a species that should not be violated.

He will also be exploring the history of the term to support and justify its current usage. “For thousands of years, integrity was a character trait,” he says. “Then in the 1940s it began to be applied to ecosystems: people said the integrity of ecosystems should be protected. But it is unclear how, when and why it got transferred to the level of an individual organism. There is a big gap between talking about integrity as a character trait, the integrity of ecosystems, and the integrity of one living being.”

If the term integrity can help to explain people’s intuitive responses to certain medical research practices, Dr Hauskeller hopes to use it to formulate a theoretical framework to explain and underpin these ‘irrational’ concerns. Providing a sound philosophical grounding for the unease many people feel will offer practical guidance to policy makers deciding how science should operate. It may also help us to understand just a little bit more about some of the baffling, sometimes almost inaudible, yet quietly persistent murmurs of the human heart.

See also

• Will a study of a 50-year old death help us safeguard medical ethics?