Category: ethics

David Barash urges scientists to make human-chimp hybrids

March 9, 2018 • 9:20 am

Well, this is about as bad an idea I can imagine coming from a biologist, and its justification is equally poor.  The idea is to make human/chimp hybrids (“humanzees”), in the hope that their existence will convince people that Homo sapiens is not a separate, created entity, but is part of an evolutionary continuum not just with chimps, but with all species.

Our ancestors diverged from the ancestor of the two living species of chimps about 6.5 million years ago. These chimps are thus our closest living ancestors.

It’s often said that we’re nearly genetically identical to chimps, with a divergence of only about 1.25% in DNA sequence. But each protein made in the body is encoded by many DNA bases (a protein containing 100 amino acids has 300 DNA bases in its coding sequence), and so on average, as I recall, there’s at least one sequence difference or more between each human and chimp protein. And that doesn’t count DNA in regulatory regions that control gene expression.  All in all, saying that we’re 99% similar to chimps doesn’t mean that we’re almost the same in terms of either our proteins or the developmental program that constructs bodies from them. But this similarity has led biologists to wonder if we could make hybrids between humans and chimps.  Further, we have 23 pair of chromosomes, and the other great apes, including chimps, have 24. This would almost surely make any hybrids, even if they could develop, sterile, for the unequal chromosome numbers would impede meiosis, the formation of gametes that requires chromosomes of both parents to pair.

As I mentioned in Why Evolution is True, (footnote 51, p. 245), Ilya Ivanov, a Russian zoologist actually tried this, inseminating 3 female chimps with human sperm at a field station in French Guinea. No pregnancy or offspring resulted. (It’s likely that he used artificial insemination, though we’re not sure!) Then, later in Russia, Ivanov proposed to do the reverse experiment, inseminating human females (presumably artificially!) with chimp sperm. Fortunately, the Russians stopped the experiment, and Ivanov, for other reasons, eventually was sent off to the gulag. (There’s a long video about the work here, but I haven’t watched it.)

There are many reasons why we shouldn’t produce such hybrids. First of all, they probably wouldn’t develop anyway given the genetic divergence between the species and the fact that the one experiment trying this already failed (of course, the insemination could have been botched). But we simply can’t predict  how a hybrid would develop: whether it would form an intermediate animal or some bizarre creature deeply screwed up by developmental anomalies. The different chromosome numbers would certain make the animal sterile. Given our gross ignorance of what such a creature would be like, even if it could develop, it’s best not to try.

And of course there are the ethical problems. While I think chimps should be afforded many of the rights enjoyed by humans, including the right not to be experimented on, or to not be caged up in zoos, a hybrid human-chimp would cause additional ethical dilemmas—and big ones. If it were semi-human, with a “hybrid mentality”, what rights would it have? How would it be treated? Would scientists keep it captive to do biochemical and behavioral experiments? While it’s okay to make hybrid sunflowers, this is a different kettle of primates altogether.

Yet David Barash, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Washington and a writer of popular books, suggests, in a new article in Nautilus (“It’s time to make human-chimp hybrids“), that we should go full speed ahead in making humanzees.  His reasons, though, are not even based on scientific curiosity: they’re simply to prove a point—that humans are outlier creatures, not really part of evolution but exceptional, and perhaps created by God.  Somehow humanzees will show that to be wrong. Here’s his rationale (my emphasis):

Of course, all that we know of evolution (and by now, it’s a lot) demands otherwise, since evolution’s most fundamental take-home message is continuity. And it is in fact because of continuity—especially those shared genes—that humanzees or chimphumans could likely be produced. Moreover, I propose that the fundamental take-home message of such creation would be to drive a stake into the heart of that destructive disinformation campaign of discontinuity, of human hegemony over all other living things. There is an immense pile of evidence already demonstrating continuity, including but not limited to physiology, genetics, anatomy, embryology, and paleontology, but it is almost impossible to imagine how the most die-hard advocate of humans having a discontinuously unique biological status could continue to maintain this position if confronted with a real, functioning, human-chimp combination.1

. . . it seems equally likely that faced with individuals who are clearly intermediate between human and ape, it will become painfully obvious that a rigid distinction between the two is no longer tenable. But what about those presumably unfortunate individuals thereby produced? Neither fish nor fowl, wouldn’t they find themselves intolerably unspecified and inchoate, doomed to a living hell of biological and social indeterminacy? This is possible, but it is at least arguable that the ultimate benefit of teaching human beings their true nature would be worth the sacrifice paid by a few unfortunates.

“A few unfortunates?” First of all, Barash says we already know about the continuity of all life, including our common ancestry with chimpanzees. Exhibiting a creature that’s half of each, and might be severely screwed up and deformed, isn’t going to convince people otherwise. What possible effect could exhibiting a humanzee do to those who think that humans are special, whether we be created by God or simply think we’re entitled  to control the beasts and fowls of Earth (not to mention the forests)? Thinking a hybrid would change everyone’s mind is wishful thinking.

Barash recounts the story of Ivanov, whose experiments aren’t well known (that’s why I described them in WEIT).  That’s interesting, of course, but then Barash goes on to push for continuing Ivanov’s work by producing humanzees. He’s not sure if it should be done by direct hybridization (artificially, of course; we can’t have humans bonking chimps), or by forming a chimera: using embryos of humans and chimps (or inserting genes from one species into the other species via CRISPR). He favors the production of chimeras, but we’re nowhere near doing that. In my view, we shouldn’t do it—not without a rationale better than Barash’s.

At the end, Barash goes into a bit of a rant how we need to produce these animals because they’ll—wait for it—refute religious claims about human excepti0nalism.  But really, do we need to spend so much dosh and go to so much trouble to prove what we already know: that we are evolved creatures, splitting from our closest living relatives about 6 million years ago? Making a sad and possibly sick or deformed humanzee, merely to satisfy Barash’s need to show that Genesis is false, seems a waste of both time and money.  So this advice, in Barash’s last few paragraphs, strikes me as foolish:

Looking favorably on the prospect of a humanzee or chimphuman will likely be not only controversial, but to many people, downright immoral. But I propose that generating humanzees or chimphumans would be not only ethical, but profoundly so, even if there were no prospects of enhancing human welfare. How could even the most determinedly homo-centric, animal-denigrating religious fundamentalist maintain that God created us in his image and that we and we alone harbor a spark of the divine, distinct from all other life forms, once confronted with living beings that are indisputably intermediate between human and non-human?

In any event, the nonsensical insistence that human beings are uniquely created in God’s image and endowed with a soul, whereas other living things are mere brutes has not only permitted but encouraged an attitude toward the natural world in general and other animals in particular that has been at best indifferent and more often, downright antagonistic, jingoistic, and in many cases, intolerably cruel. It is only because of this self-serving myth that some people have been able to justify keeping other animals in such hideous conditions as factory farms in which they are literally unable to turn around, not to mention prevented from experiencing anything approaching a fulfilling life. It is only because of this self-serving myth that some people accord the embryos of Homo sapiens a special place as persons-in-waiting, magically endowed with a notable humanity that entitles them to special legal and moral consideration unavailable to our nonhuman kin. It is only because of this self-serving myth that many people have been able to deny the screamingly evident evolutionary connectedness between themselves and other life forms.

When claims are made about the “right to life,” invariably the referent is human life, a rigid distinction only possible because of the presumption that human life is somehow uniquely distinct from other forms of life, even though everything we know of biology demonstrates that this is simply untrue. What better, clearer, and more unambiguous way to demonstrate this than by creating viable organisms that are neither human nor animal but certifiably intermediate?

How about just pointing to the skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis?

n.b. For what it’s worth Nautilus was originally a Templeton-funded website, but now, with the loss of some grants (presumably Templeton doesn’t want humanzees either), it’s having trouble paying off its writers.

The serious stuff: autonomous weapons

November 16, 2017 • 9:48 am

by Matthew Cobb

Not really the usual WEIT fare, and certainly not what I normally post here, but I feel it is pretty important. This is a 7 minute video, ‘Slaughterbots’, about autonomous weapons and what the future could hold. Watch it and be chilled.

The video was made by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (once that might have sounded funny). On their webpage, they point out that an intergovernmental meeting is taking place right now:

“Representatives from more than 70 states are expected to attend the first meeting of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapons systems on 13-17 November 2017, as well as participants from UN agencies such as UNIDIR, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)”

They made the video to draw attention to the problem and pressure the GGE meeting which “is not working towards a specific outcome or negotiating a new CCW protocol to ban or regulate lethal autonomous weapons”. Nevertheless, 19 nations have supported a ban on the development of such devices, and the European Parliament voted to ban “development, production and use of fully autonomous weapons which enable strikes to be carried out without human intervention.” Their website explains:

“More than 3000 artificial intelligence experts signed an open letter in 2015 affirming that they have “no interest in building AI weapons and do not want others to tarnish their field by doing so.” Another 17,000 individuals also endorsed this call. The signa tories include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co – founder Steve Wozniak, Skype co – founder Jaan Tallin, Professor Stephen Hawking, and Professor Noam Chomsky . They include more than14 current and past presidents of artificial intelligence and robotics organizations and professional associations such as AAAI, IEEE – RAS, IJCAI, ECC AI. They include Google DeepMindchief executive Demis Hassabis and 21 of his lab’s engineers, developers and research scientists.”

If the scientists potentially involved in making this stuff are worried, we should all be. How can we stop the future described in the video from coming to be?

Opponents of euthanizing newborns write in with strong opinions

July 19, 2017 • 9:00 am

Six days ago I wrote a post, based on a New York Times piece, arguing that the parents of newborns who were doomed to die, who had a “hopeless prognosis” involving unbearable suffering, or who would have to live their lives wedded to intensive care and respirators, should have the legal right—with appropriate ethical strictures and doctors’ approval—to end the lives of their newborns in a merciful way, perhaps with an injection. I gave my reasons for thinking this in my piece “Should one be allowed to euthanize severely deformed or doomed newborns?” My answer was a qualified “yes,” and in that I agree with philosopher Peter Singer.

Singer has been demonized for his opinion by both religious believers and also by handicapped people who argue that they wouldn’t have wanted to be euthanized as infants if they had the choice. Singer’s talks have picketed and disrupted, and people have even called for his firing from Princeton for merely suggesting the idea of newborn euthanasia. Yet I think that discussing this idea is very worthwhile.

Now I’m being criticized as well, and I expected it. Both the creationist Discovery Institute (in its organ Evolution News) and the conservative National Review have gone after my piece. In the former venue, Michael Egnor, who’s obsessed with me, blames my views on “materialism and Darwinism” (they’re not; they’re based on moral philosophy), compares me to the Nazi doctors who did odious medical experiments (he even shows a photo of them on trial), and says that NO euthanasia, nor even any abortions, can be morally justified. He does, however, allow “withdrawal of care” in terminal newborns because that differs from euthanasia:

There are situations in which continuation of heroic medical treatment (surgery, respirators, antibiotics, etc.) merely prolongs the process of dying, and in which it is ethical to withdraw such heroic care. I have done it many times (I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon). But the purpose of the withdrawal is not to cause death, but to cease interfering with the natural course of a disease, when no good can come of heroic treatment. That is a very different thing, morally and legally, from deliberately killing a child by injecting him with a lethal dose of potassium or a barbiturate.

I disagree with the morality bit, but won’t get into that now.

The National Review also linked me with Nazism, claiming that “Darwinism leads to infanticide acceptance” and saying that my scientific materialism leads people to reject evolution because I couple Darwinism “with anti-humanism and a moral philosophy that was judged a crime against humanity at Nuremberg.” Sorry, but I don’t advocate experimenting on babies or gassing and shooting innocent civilians.

I stand by what I said in my piece. Were I to rewrite my post, though, I’d add that it’s more than just religious people who object to Singer’s and my views on both assisted suicide of rational, terminally ill people as well as to euthanasia of desperately ill newborns. Yes, religious people are big objectors to these practices (and lobbied against assisted suicide when it was made legal in several states), but so are some disabled people who don’t base their objections on religious views. And I should have mentioned those arguments. But their objections haven’t altered my views on the value of discussing the issue of the euthanasia of newborns. And I still think that it’s justified in some cases.

Anyway, readers have written in strongly criticizing my views, and I’ll post some of their comments here rather than continue the discussion in a week-old thread.  I have approved their comments on the original site (or will as soon as I publish this), but have directed them here to continue the discussion. Feel free to continue it in the comments on this post rather than the other one.

“ritajoseph” wrote three comments:

In reply to zoolady.

No child is “essentially a vegetable”. Every child can and should be loved tenderly and cared for as long as she or he is alive. Where parents can’t afford basic care,families and communities must help them. It’s called human solidarity.

Financial difficulty is never an adequate excuse for killing a child.

**********

Permitting medicalized killing of the sick and the vulnerable who are viewed as financially burdensome sets a socially engineered trap, in which individual interests freely and legally gain access to a public resource (a health care system that provides unconditional specialized care for the suicidal or the seriously disabled or the terminally ill) and proceed to change it from unconditional palliative care to optional care together with the option of medically assisted suicide.

A tragedy of the commons will unfold as the terminally ill or their carers are pressured subtly to accept the cheaper swifter option. This will lead eventually to depletion of the shared resource—the end of a truly universal, unconditional system of care for the terminally ill. A gradual reduction of specialists, hospices, palliative care resources and research dedicated to the needs of the terminally ill is therefore a typical ‘externality’ – i.e., the unintended and negative consequence of private decisions that ends up affecting everyone.

*********

In reply to zoolady.

Why is assisted suicide not OK? Suicide and assisted suicide contravene the universal human rights principle of inalienability. Human beings cannot be deprived of the substance of their rights, not in any circumstances, not even at their own request.
There is a genuine need to enact positive laws respecting key human rights principles:
o The inherent right to life of the terminally ill and the suicidal is inalienable;
o The terminally ill and the suicidal have the right to recognition of their inherent dignity;
o The terminally ill and the suicidal have the right to security of person;
o The autonomy of “end of life choices” is limited by the duty to secure the rights of all;
o Human solidarity with the terminally ill and the suicidal must not be jeopardized.

Recommendations
(1) Advocacy materials promoting suicide must be more strictly controlled so that positive programs for assisting persons at risk of suicide can achieve their full potential.
(2) Education programmes emphasize the human person as the true source of human dignity and teach the inalienability of the inherent right to life.
(3) Funding for genuine palliative care, research and programmes should be increased so that best practice end of life care becomes available not as a “choice” but as a duty for all of us to provide and as a right for everyone who is in need to receive.

*********

And reader Bill Franklin said this:

You write:
“If you are allowed to abort a fetus that has a severe genetic defect… … then why aren’t you able to euthanize that same fetus just after it’s born? I see no substantive difference that would make the former act moral and the latter immoral.”

Well, you are also *allowed* to abort a fetus for any reason. So do you also “see no substantive difference” between that and euthanizing an otherwise healthy baby who was born a week earlier?

If a woman could abort a fetus at 35-weeks because, for example, she no longer liked the father and did not want the child to remind her of him – why not the same choice if the father ends up arrested for unknown crimes a week post birth?

If not, does that mean you also subscribe to this apparently irrational/religious idea about acquiring a soul in the magic birth canal? As you say, “After all, newborn babies aren’t aware of death” and “Since the newborn can’t decide, it’s up to the parents”…

*******

I have my own responses to these comments (e.g., Bill Franklin completely misunderstands my argument), but I have other things to write about today and so will let readers continue the arguments below. As soon as this goes up, both ritajoseph and Bill Franklin will be directed here.

All I can say is that it’s ridiculous to call someone a Nazi for suggesting an idea like this. By all means give your counterarguments, but avoid the character assassination,

 

A new book on CRISPR, gene editing, and their ethical implications

May 7, 2017 • 10:15 am

Word on the street is that the book shown below, by Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg, is very good (it’s out on June 13; click on screenshot to go to Amazon link). You may have heard of Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna, one of the pioneers in using the new CRISPR technique to genetically edit cells—”genome editing”; co-author Samuel Sternberg studied with Doudna as a postdoc and now works for a biotechnology company.

And I hope you’ve heard of CRISPR (“clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”), which is a method of genome editing that grew out of pure science: the discovery that bacteria have immune systems in which they incorporate into their own DNA short bits of DNA from invading viruses, and then use those bits, along with an enzyme called Cas9, to cut up and destroy the genomes of those viruses when they invade again. This is analogous to our own immune system, which has a memory that can inactivate harmful proteins the body has experienced before. (This is the basis of vaccination.) That pure science grew, through the work and ingenuity of many scientists, into a method that now enables us to cut DNA at any given sequence in nearly any species (including our own), and then insert new DNA of our own making, or DNA taken from other cells. We could cure sickle-cell anemia by editing into sufferers the “normal” hemoglobin gene, and do likewise with many other genetic diseases. We could get rid of the AIDS virus that hides in the human genome. We could genetically engineer crops to make them resistant to insects and herbicides. We can study gene function by selectively inactivating genes or visualizing their expression using proteins that fluoresce. We already have some ability to do these things, but the CRISPR-Cas9 system makes this dead easy.

But there’s also the possibility of editing not just the genes in bodies, but the genes in sperm and eggs, giving rise to the possibility of genetically changing our own and other species, permanently—or directing our own evolution. (It’s not just humans, either; we could alter disease-carrying insects to render them harmless.) The possibility of germline editing carries with it severe ethical problems: how much can we and should we change our own genetic legacy? Both the methodology and ethics are discussed in Doudna and Sternberg’s book, as this Amazon summary shows:

A trailblazing biologist grapples with her role in the biggest scientific discovery of our era: a cheap, easy way of rewriting genetic code, with nearly limitless promise and peril.

Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR—a revolutionary new technology that she helped create—to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers, and will help address the world’s hunger crisis. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences—to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create “better” humans.

Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, Doudna shares the thrilling story of her discovery, and passionately argues that enormous responsibility comes with the ability to rewrite the code of life. With CRISPR, she shows, we have effectively taken control of evolution. What will we do with this unfathomable power?

(There’s some nastiness in the field about who gets priority for this discovery, as it’s sure to garner a Nobel Prize (getting CRISPR to this point is the work of dozens of people, but certain scientists—not Doudna or Sternberg—are trying to establish hegemony. There’s also a big patent battle over the use of the system, but I won’t get into that. Go here if you want to read the dirty details.)
Now you could read about the CRISPR-Cas9 system on Wikipedia, or you could read a good but technical paper by Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier (another pioneer in this area) published in Science (free at the link).  But if you have any interest in science, or in bioethics, I’d strongly urge you to learn about the new methods of gene editing, how they work, what they can do, and their ethical implications. You might order the book above, and I’d also direct you to two explanations by our own Matthew Cobb.

The first is a BBC show he did about gene editing, (“Editing life”), whose description and link I’ve given before.

And now Matthew’s just published a short primer on the issue called “The brave new world of CRISPR”, which appeared in the new Biological Sciences Review. That piece will bring every reader up to speed. Sadly, it’s not online free, but if you email me I’ll send you a pdf.

The CRISPR system is the most important innovation in biotechnology since the advent of DNA sequencing methods; its development is a fascinating story and its ethical implications are profound. You need to learn about it if you have any interest in science. I’ve given you at least five resources to do so.

Here are Doudna and Sternberg:

 

Peter Singer’s new books on ethics

September 21, 2016 • 12:00 pm

Peter Singer’s new book on ethics, a series of short essays about real-world ethical issues, came out September 13 (Princeton University Press), and already it’s Amazon’s #1 release in “Philosophy of Ethics and Morality”. I’ll be reading it for sure, as Singer is one philosopher who has something to say about how real people live their lives. He’s a clear writer, and tries personally to adhere to his ethical conclusions. Here’s the Amazon blurb; click on the book’s screenshot to go to the Amazon order page:

Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.

In this book of brief essays, he applies his controversial ways of thinking to issues like climate change, extreme poverty, animals, abortion, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, the ethics of high-priced art, and ways of increasing happiness. Singer asks whether chimpanzees are people, smoking should be outlawed, or consensual sex between adult siblings should be decriminalized, and he reiterates his case against the idea that all human life is sacred, applying his arguments to some recent cases in the news. In addition, he explores, in an easily accessible form, some of the deepest philosophical questions, such as whether anything really matters and what is the value of the pale blue dot that is our planet. The collection also includes some more personal reflections, like Singer’s thoughts on one of his favorite activities, surfing, and an unusual suggestion for starting a family conversation over a holiday feast.

Provocative and original, these essays will challenge–and possibly change–your beliefs about a wide range of real-world ethical questions.

I haven’t seen many reviews of this book, though of course it deserves wide review; you can find a positive review at The Economist.

screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-6-44-39-am

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And you might consider this book as well, which came out last year (again, click on screenshot for ordering and details). It has a Wikipedia entry which sums up the reviews (mixed):

screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-11-10-55-am

Make it better

March 28, 2016 • 2:25 pm

by Grania

A number of people over the years have pointed out that almost anyone can improve upon the Ten Commandments with minimal effort; the original set of ten (or ten-ish) moral laws by which humans were purportedly to live their lives.

What appears in Exodus is so old that its ethics are more concerned with livestock, possessions and outward symbols of worshipping the right god. It’s not particularly concerned with the well-being of children say, or women or pretty much anyone who wasn’t an adult male Jew camping at the bottom of Mount Sinai.

Hitchens wrote a few of his own, I like the one about cell phones.

Harris also points out the lack of spiritual and ethical intelligence.

Here’s another attempt.

ntchtsp
Click image twice to view enlarged

 

The point is that through no effort of our own and no failing of theirs, we live in a century where we are moral giants compared to our ancestors. We benefit from their failings and their flaws as much as from what wisdom they collated; and now we can do better without even thinking too hard about it.

Hat-tip: Steve

Apple vs. U.S. government: a big dilemma

February 20, 2016 • 12:30 pm

Most of you know about this already: the FBI, investigating the December murderers of 14 people in San Bernardino by two Muslim extremists, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, have asked Apple to unlock Farook’s iPhone 5c, which may contain clues about the murders or other terrorists. A federal judge ordered Apple to create the software necessary to unlock that phone. Apple, however, is resisting on the grounds that this might compromise the privacy of its customers. It also argues that this would give the government sweeping powers to make technology companies part of the prosecution in fighting crime.

Current law says that firms or institutions must in general comply with such “unlocking” orders unless they pose an onerous burden on the company. And, it could be argued, asking Apple to create new software to unlock a phone (it would have to try gazillions of passcodes) could be seen as onerous. But Apple’s arguments are really intended to reassure its customers that it cares deeply about their privacy—and that’s important to iPhone users.

The New York Times has a brief explanation of the situation.  What the FBI wants Apple to do is create code to bypass a feature that, after ten failed attempts to enter a phone’s passcode, would erase all of the phone’s data. Only Apple can do this since its operating systems have special code “tags” known only to the company.

The judge agreed that Apple could retain and later destroy the new unlocking software, and that the phone would be “hacked” by Apple in its own secure facility, although of course the information would go to the FBI.

This is a real dilemma. What is to be done? Apple has until February 26 to respond. And this is a question of ethics, somewhat analogous to the dilemma of whether to torture someone who has information that could lead to saving thousands of lives by revealing the location of a time bomb. I am of course sensible of the difference between torturing someone and creating software, and between people dying from a ticking bomb versus having their data compromised; but both dilemmas instantiate a weighing of relative harms.

This, I think, shows the problem of arguing for an “objective” morality. On one hand we have the possible (but not certain) revealing of data about terrorist networks, with the “well being” constituting the possible saving of lives. On the other we have the creation of a precedent that could allow the government to act intrusively, on the merest excuse, to get people’s private data. The “well being” here is the safety of people against losing their private information, and of creating a precedent that could be misused. Now how on earth can you possibly weigh these different forms of “well being”, even if we could know perfectly all of the consequences of both actions? (And, of course, we can’t.)

My own feeling is that Apple should comply with the government’s request, as this is tantamount to fulfilling a search warrant—with the exception that Apple has to create new software for the FBI. But there are ways to mitigate the harms of doing that. Apple could, as it will, destroy the software so that nobody else can have it. It can extract the data without the government being present when it does so. And, in the future, Apple could, I’m told, even create an iPhone whose passcode could never be hacked by any software, something that seems perfectly legal.

This case is likely to go up to the Supreme Court, for Apple doesn’t want to be seen as compromising its interest in customer security.

I’m asking readers to weigh in below on this issue, as my own opinion, while leaning toward the government (after all, nobody is being tortured here), is susceptible to change. Are you on the side of Apple, or of the FBI?