Article Text
Abstract
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has captured the public imagination ever since it was first published over 200 years ago. While the narrative reflected 19th-century anxieties about the emerging scientific revolution, it also suggested some clear moral lessons that remain relevant today. In a sense, Frankenstein was a work of bioethics written a century and a half before the discipline came to exist. This paper revisits the lessons of Frankenstein regarding the creation and manipulation of life in the light of recent developments in stem cell and neurobiological research. It argues that these lessons are becoming more relevant than ever.
- neuroethics
- moral status
- embryos and fetuses
- chimaeras
- animal experimentation
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors JK and JM jointly conceived the project and wrote the paper. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding JK, through his involvement with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, received funding through from the Victorian State Government through the operational infrastructure support program.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement There are no data in this work
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Animus: human-embodied animals
- Moral uncertainty and the farming of human-pig chimeras
- How should we treat human–pig chimeras, non-chimeric pigs and other beings of uncertain moral status?
- Ethical issues when modelling brain disorders innon-human primates
- Cerebral organoids: ethical issues and consciousness assessment
- What (or sometimes who) are organoids? And whose are they?
- Genetic enhancement, post-persons and moral status: a reply to Buchanan
- Cerebral organoids and consciousness: how far are we willing to go?
- Science, politics, ethics and the pandemic
- Should we enhance animals?