Abstract

This dissertation investigates how the Human Genome Project is likely to affect future generations, and asks what implications these effects hold for evaluating HGP and other research efforts like it, particularly from a theological perspective. It claims that HGP will affect future generations in two basic ways. First, some future people may bear an inordinate share of certain social costs stemming from an allocation pattern expected of HGP's biomedical applications. Second, the existence, numbers, and identities of some future people will be contingent on decisions made possible by HGP's research. ;The second effect, which proves more determinative for evaluating HGP, is complicated by the "problem of contingent future persons." Under conditions made possible by HGP's research, this problem holds that future persons born as a result of this research can be neither harmed nor benefited by being brought into existence. The problem thus undermines reasons both to pursue such research and to constrain it. ;Two philosophical responses to the problem are considered. David Heyd claims that the problem forces us to choose between two fundamental approaches to value, what are called impersonal and person-affecting approaches. Derek Parfit argues for the former, and thereby can directly include contingent future persons in considerations that involve them. Heyd argues for the latter, and thus can consider contingent future persons only indirectly, or by the likely effects their existence or non-existence will hold for other persons. ;After assessing these two responses, the dissertation investigates the theological implications of the problem, comparing the positions of Richard McCormick and William George to James Gustafson's position. Using Gustafson, the author develops an "impersonal theocentric" approach to value. It is person-affecting with respect to value, but also qualified by the requirement that agents adopt an agent-neutral perspective when making decisions. This approach permits us to include contingent future persons directly in our moral considerations. The dissertation ends by considering the implications of this approach to value for evaluating the allocation pattern expected of HGP's biomedical applications and for theological ethics generally