Philosophy Commons^™

New Pitchforks And Furtive Nature, Daniel P. Maher

Philosophy Department Faculty Works

“New Ideas and Innovations” are constituted in relation to the status quo: what had been new becomes old when something yet newer appears. This truism draws attention to the necessity of thinking about the new in relation to what came before. In reproductive ethics, this means, in part, that mitochondrial donation, for example, must be understood in reference to “old” IVF. It also means that we must understand this and every other technique for manipulating, facilitating, or preventing conception in relation to the natural way or ways in which human beings come to be. The temporal and conceptual priority of …