Everybody recognizes that most of the problems in medi-
cal ethics arise, these days, from innovations in medical
technology. We would not have had to lay down laws or ethical guidelines
about assisted reproduction had it not been for the new technology of in
vitro fertilization, which produced the first IVF baby in 1978. We would
not be currently anxious about the ethics of possible human cloning had it
not been for the production in Edinburgh of Dolly, the lamb whose birth
resulted from the removal of a mammary gland cell from an adult sheep.
So the question is whether there is some research into developing technol-
ogy that is too dangerous, that will lead to consequences too dramatic for
humanity, for the research itself to be permitted. Should there be control
over what technological innovation should be permitted?

Put like this, the question looks absurd. It is not the discovery of new
technological possibilities that is alarming, but the use to which these pos-
sibilities may be put. Control should not be over research, but over the uses
of research. After all, even Plato, centuries ago, recognized that any skill,
or techne, could be put to either good or bad use; the skilled doctor could
also be a skilled poisoner.

However, the distinction between research and the uses of research is
by no means easy to draw. First, it may be argued that if a procedure is
shown to be possible (such as, for example, the transplant of organs from
one human to another, or, transgenically, from one animal to another), then

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