Matti Hāyry

• PhD
• Professor at Aalto University

This Element explores the rationality and morality of the kind of human reproductive cloning that does not involve genetic enhancements or other biological alterations in the individuals produced. The analysis is needed because, sooner or later, the technique will be safe enough to be tested; yet its pros and cons have not been sufficiently investi...

This special section brings together international scholars celebrating the 40 th anniversary of John Harris’ book, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (1985), and John Harris and his contributions to the field of bioethics more generally.

This interview with Peter Singer AI serves a dual purpose. It is an exploration of certain—utilitarian and related—views on sentience and its ethical implications. It is also an exercise in the emerging interaction between natural and artificial intelligence, presented not as just ethics of AI but perhaps more importantly, as ethics with AI. The on...

Abiding by two intuitive ethical rules—“Do not contribute to the production of suffering” and “Do not make self-conscious species extinct without their consent”—at the same time presents a difficulty. Since all sentient beings suffer, we should, to obey the first rule, prevent all future reproduction. But if we do, our species will go, against the...

Derek Parfit famously opined that causing a person to exist with a life barely worth living can be wrong, although it is not wrong for that person. This conundrum is known as the nonidentity problem. Parfit also held that persons can, in a morally relevant sense, be caused to exist in the distant future by actions that make the agent a necessary co...

Bioethics as a philosophical discipline deals with matters of life and death. How it deals with them, however, depends on the kind of life particular bioethicists focus on and the kind of value they assign to it. Natural-law ethicists and conservative Kantians emphasize biological human life regardless of its developmental stage. Integrative bioeth...

In 1975, The New England Journal of Medicine published James Rachels' article 'Active and Passive Euthanasia'. The argumentative method that Rachels introduced, the Bare Difference Argument (also known as the Contrast Strategy), became one of the most widely used tools in ethical reasoning. The argument, however, fails to show active euthanasia bei...

Ethical sustainability would require that social and ecological matters are taken as seriously as economic considerations in political and legislative decision making. Currently they are not, although international policy makers are well aware of the requirement. We examine philosophically the possibility of making a shift transition from the curre...

Climate change poses a challenge to bioethics due to overpopulation and a declining quality of life, among other factors. In this article, we discuss four scenarios of possible human development in the near future. Two of them are horrible scenarios. One of them assumes that living conditions will significantly deteriorate and people will live in g...

There is no longer any doubt that the coming decades will bring serious threats to humanity from anthropogenic climate change. As we have suggested elsewhere, horrible scenarios are far more realistic than non-horrible ones, and science and technology are incapable, especially in our non-ideal world, of equitably distributing wealth, access to reso...

This Element provides an exploration of antinatalism, the view that assigns a negative value to reproduction. First, the history of Western philosophy as a two-and-a-half millennia reaction to antinatalist sentiments. Human life has no obvious meaning and philosophers have been forced to build elaborate theories to invent imaginary purposes. Second...

Antinatalism assigns reproduction a negative value. There should be fewer or no births. Those who say that there should be fewer births have been called conditional antinatalists. A better name for their view would be selective pronatalism. Those who say that there should be no births face two challenges. They must define the scope of their no-birt...

We should not have children because (i) we have no child-regarding reasons to do so, (ii) we have child-regarding reasons not to do so, and (iii) although we have other-regarding reasons to do so, these reasons are not decisive. Objections to (i) include that life is always good and that possible individuals would choose life if given the opportuni...

Antinatalism is an emerging philosophy and practice that challenges pronatalism, the prevailing philosophy and practice in reproductive matters. We explore justifications of antinatalism—the arguments from the quality of life, the risk of an intolerable life, the lack of consent, and the asymmetry of good and bad—and argue that none of them support...

Sustainability, properly understood, is an existential moral ideal. The United Nations, however, defines it in terms of 17 indivisible sustainable development goals. This definition changes the core idea of the concept. It turns sustainability from a moral ideal into a set of economy-based political aspirations. The European Union's bioeconomy stra...

Nudging, according to its inventors and defenders, is supposed to provide a non-coercive way of changing human behavior for the better—a freedom-respecting form of “libertarian paternalism.” Its original point was to complement coercive modes of influence without any need of justification in liberal frameworks. This article shows, using the example...

Yksilöiden oikeus määrätä itse omista asioistaan on yksi moraalisen ja oikeudellisen ajattelumme kulmakivistä. Mutta mistä tämä kulmakivi on peräisin? Mitä itsemäärääminen eli autonomia oikeastaan tarkoittaa? Kuka tai mikä voi olla itseään määräävä subjekti? Millaisilla oikeudellisilla keinoilla itsemääräämistä voidaan tukea? Tässä teoksessa itsemä...

This article presents a revised version of negative utilitarianism. Previous versions have relied on a hedonistic theory of value and stated that suffering should be minimized. The traditional rebuttal is that the doctrine in this form morally requires us to end all sentient life. To avoid this, a need-based theory of value is introduced. The frust...

This paper provides an overview of the development and the sociopolitical background of legislation pertaining to abortion in Finland from the nineteenth century to the current day. The first Abortion Act came to force in 1950. Before that, abortions were handled under criminal law. The 1950 law was restrictive and allowed abortions in very limited...

The article examines five controversial views, expressed in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal , Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer’s Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants , Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva’s “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”, Julian Savulescu’s “Procreative beneficence: why we should select the...

I present a qualified new defense of antinatalism. It is intended to empower potential parents who worry about their possible children's life quality in a world threatened by environmental degradation, climate change, and the like. The main elements of the defense are an understanding of antinatalism's historical nature and contemporary varieties,...

The European Union’s 2018 updated bioeconomy strategy A Sustainable Bioeconomy for Europe: Strengthening the connection between economy, society and the environment aims to fulfill the requirements of sustainability and justice while transitioning economy from fossil-based to bio-based. We ask whether and to what extent the economically ambitious s...

The reversal of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the states to regulate terminations of pregnancy more autonomously than during 1973–2022. Those who think that women should be legally entitled to abortions at their own request are suggesting that annulling the reversal could be an option. This would mean continued reliance on the inter...

This Element traces the origins and development of bioethics, the principles and values involved in the discipline, and the roles of justice among these principles and values. The main tasks given to the concept of justice have since the late 1970s been nondiscrimination in research, prioritization in medical practice, and redistribution in healthc...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created or revealed scarcities in many domains: medical, civic, economic, and ideological. Responses to these are analyzed in the framework of a map of justice and an imperative of openness. The main argument is that whatever the view of justice chosen by public health authorities, they should be able and willing to disclo...

When humanity has either suppressed coronavirus disease 2019 or learned to come to terms with its continued existence, governments and corporations probably return to their pre-pandemic stances. Solutions to the world's problems are sought from technology and business innovations, not from considerations of equality and well-being for all. This is...

Increasingly high-profile research is being undertaken into the socio-environmental challenges associated with the over-production and consumption of food from animals. Transforming food systems to mitigate climate change and hidden hunger, ensure food security and good health all point to reducing animal-based foods as a key lever. Moving beyond a...

Is there such a thing as corona solidarity? Does voluntary mutual aid solve the problems caused by COVID-19? I argue that the answer to the first question is “yes” and to the second “no.” Not that the answer to the second question could not, in an ideal world, be “yes,” too. It is just that in this world of global capitalism and everybody looking o...

Utilitarianism could still be a viable moral and political theory, although an emphasis on justice as distributing burdens and benefits has hidden this from current conversations. The traditional counterexamples prove that we have good grounds for rejecting classical, aggregative forms of consequentialism. A nonaggregative, liberal form of utilitar...

In her thorough and thoughtful contribution to the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics titled “Medical Ethics: Common or Uncommon Morality” Rosamond Rhodes argues that contrary to American mainstream bioethics, medical ethics is not, and should not be, based on common morality, but rather, that the medical profession requires its own distincti...

The role of bioethicists amidst crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is not well defined. As professionals in the field, they should respond, but how? The observation of the early days of pandemic confinement in Finland showed that moral philosophers with limited experience in bioethics tended to apply their favorite theories to public decisions with...

Governmental reactions to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as ethics communication. Governments can contain the disease and thereby mitigate the detrimental public health impact; allow the virus to spread to reach herd immunity; test, track, isolate, and treat; and suppress the disease regionally. An observation of Sweden and Finland s...

Finland's first COVID-19 infection was recorded in late January 2020. The person infected was a tourist from China in Lapland. Authorities recommended regular handwashing, coughing in one's sleeve, not touching your face, physical distancing, and home lockdown for those at risk. The pandemic spread at different paces in different regions, and the f...

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the de...

Editorial: Examining the Links - Volume 29 Issue 2 - TUIJA TAKALA, MATTI HÄYRY

This paper explores how Finnish research ethics deals with matters of justice on the levels of practical regulation, political morality, and theoretical studies. The bioethical sets of principles introduced by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress in the United States and Jacob Dahl Rendtorff and Peter Kemp in Europe provide the conceptual background,...

Editorial: Dogmas, Stigmas, and Questionable Arguments for Better Health - Volume 28 Issue 2 - JOHANNA AHOLA-LAUNONEN, TUIJA TAKALA, MATTI HÄYRY

Moralism in bioethics and elsewhere means going beyond accepted moral principles, either by exaggerating good ethical concerns, by applying them to areas where they do not belong, or simply by assuming anything else than concrete physical or mental harm as normative guides. This paper explores the conceptual background of moralism especially in the...

Background: Scientists have cloned animals since the late 19th century, but the crucial step for ethics was the cloning of the first mammal by somatic cell nuclear transfer in 1997. This suggested that scientists could also clone, and possibly enhance, human beings. Sources of data: This survey examines ethical literature on cloning since the 19...

Justice can be approached from many angles in ethical and political debates, including those involving healthcare, biomedical research, and well-being. The main doctrines of justice are liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism, luck egalitarianism, socialism, utilitarianism, capability approach, communitarianism, and care ethics. These can be further...

Fear of life, fear of death, and fear of causing death form a combination that prevents reasoned changes in laws concerning end-of-life situations. This is shown systematically in this article using the methods of conceptual analysis. Prevalent fears are explicated and interpreted to see how their meanings differ depending on the chosen normative s...

Guest Editorial: Yet Another Emerging Technology: Old and New Questions Posed by Synthetic Biology - Volume 26 Issue 2 - TUIJA TAKALA, MATTI HÄYRY

This article explores the ethical issues that have been identified in emerging technologies, from early genetic engineering to synthetic biology. The scientific advances in the field form a continuum, and some ethical considerations can be raised time and again when new developments occur. An underlying concern is the cumulative effect of scientifi...

Increasing the Sum Total of General Intelligence, As Measured by Individual IQ Scores - Volume 25 Issue 3 - MATTI HÄYRY

This article explicates two approaches to the basis of moral worth and status: Eva Kittay’s relational view and Jeff McMahan’s psychological personhood view. It is argued that these theories alone do not provide adequate support for the conclusions Kittay and McMahan want to draw concerning individuals whose entitlement to fundamental protections c...

This entry provides a standard characterization of coercion and its main alternatives and illustrates its contemporary applications in global bioethics. Coercion is defined as a mode of influence that operates by threats and force; aims at controlling the recipient’s being, movement, or will; and leaves, at least initially, its recipient disadvanta...

This article provides an overview of approaches to bioethics-practical and theoretical, philosophical and nonphilosophical. It is argued that those who yearn for pragmatism and real-life relevance would do well to concentrate on politics, legislation, social policy, and lobbying. Those, on the other hand, who seek knowledge about our moral thought...

This paper shows how most modern theories of justice could require or at least condone international aid aimed at alleviating the ill effects of disability. Seen from the general viewpoint of liberal egalitarianism, this is moderately encouraging, since according to the creed people in bad positions should be aided, and disability tends to put peop...

Philosophers should express their ideas clearly. They should do this in any field of specialization, but especially when they address issues of practical consequence, as they do in bioethics. This article dissects a recent and much-debated contribution to philosophical bioethics by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, examines how exactly it fa...

Should we make people healthier, smarter, and longer-lived if genetic and medical advances enable us to do so? Matti Häyry asks this question in the context of genetic testing and selection, cloning and stem cell research, gene therapies and enhancements. The ethical questions explored include parental responsibility, the use of people as means, th...

Academic freedom can be defined as immunity against adverse reactions from the general public, designed to keep scholars unintimidated and productive even after they have published controversial ideas. Francesca M inerva claims that this notion of strict instrumental academic freedom is supported by R onald D workin, and that anonymity would effect...

This article provides an overview of the six other contributions in the Neuroethics and Animals special section. In addition, it discusses the methodological and theoretical problems of interdisciplinary fields. The article suggests that interdisciplinary approaches without established methodological and theoretical bases are difficult to assess sc...

This article describes and introduces a new innovative tool for bioethics education: a rock opera on the ethics of genetics written by two academics and a drummer legend. The origin of the idea, the characters and their development, and the themes and approaches as well as initial responses to the music and the show are described, and the various e...

In this article, I present what I believe to be the core of Jürgen Habermas’s views on the morality, ethics, and regulation of emerging genetic and reproductive technologies in his book The Future of Human Nature .

My recently published book Rationality and the Genetic Challenge: Making People Better? analyzes different philosophical responses to developments in genetics.1 In the last two issues of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 14 scholars have presented critical comments on my work, and this article is my response to them.

Picture this. You are having your regular medical checkup, when, all of a sudden, the physician turns to you and says: "Oh, did I remember to mention that you can now live forever?" You look at the doctor enquiringly and she goes on: "Well, it's not actual immortality, you know, but they've invented this treatment-I don't have the full details-that...

Neuroethics addresses moral, legal, and social questions created or highlighted by theoretical and practical developments in neuroscience. Practices in need of scrutiny currently include at least brain imaging with new techniques, chemical attempts to shift exceptional brain function toward normality, chemical attempts to enhance ordinary brain fun...

Ethics can be understood as a code of behaviour or as the study of codes of behaviour. While the mission of the International Association of Bioethics is a scholarly examination of moral issues in health care and the biological sciences, many people in the field believe that it is also their task to create new and better codes of practice. Both way...

Two questions precede any considerations of reproductive genetics and gender. They are “Should people have children to begin with?” and “Who is responsible for children and why?” If it is irrational or immoral to produce offspring, as I have suggested elsewhere [1–3], reproductive genetics turns out to be a waste of time and gendered family roles o...

ABSTRACT Public health authorities sometimes have to make decisions about the use of preventive medical measures—e.g. vaccination programmes—which could, if realised, save millions of lives, but could also kill a certain (small) number of those subjected to the measures. According to a rough-and-ready utilitarian calculation, such measures should b...

This article examines Aubrey de Grey's case for allocating substantial funding to interventive biogerontological research immediately. The conclusion is that the case is inconclusive and that scientific analyses of costs and probabilities would be needed to defend it properly.

This paper explores the historical idea of improving humanity. Developments in genetics and political thought have during the last century contributed to eugenic policies which have sometimes had adverse effects on people's lives. But European philosophy has seen attempts to make better human beings long before the current scientific advances. The...

Human genetic databanks are, on a local and limited scale, a reality in all countries where healthcare systems are reasonably advanced. Tissue samples, which can be genetically analysed, have for some time been stored in hospitals and laboratories for various medical and scientific reasons. It was not, however, until plans for wider genetic databan...

People have concerns, and in democratic societies we expect these concerns to be somehow addressed by the public authorities. In this chapter, we propose to answer two questions. First, in the light of the sociological studies conducted by the ELSAGEN team, what are the main concerns that people in Estonia, Iceland, Sweden and the United Kingdom ha...

This paper examines the logic and morality of the German Stem Cell Act of 2002. After a brief description of the law's scope and intent, its ethical dimensions are analysed in terms of symbolic threats, indirect consequences, and the encouragement of immorality. The conclusions are twofold. For those who want to accept the law, the arguments for it...

The investigation of ELSAGEN (Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Human Genetic Databases: A European Comparison), which was funded by the European Commission from 2002 to 2004, was occasioned by plans to construct population-wide databases in the four participating countries: deCODE's database in Iceland, the Estonian Genome Project, UK Biobank a...

The ends and means of public health activities are suggested to be at odds with the values held by human individuals and communities. Although promoting longer lives in better health for all seems like an endeavour that is obviously acceptable, it can be challenged by equally self-evident appeals to autonomy, happiness, integrity and liberty, among...

The concepts of autonomy as the self governance of individuals and dignity as the inner worth of human beings play an important role in contemporary bioethics. Since both notions are crucial to Immanuel Kant's moral theory, it would be tempting to think that Kantian ethics could ease the friction between the two concepts. It is argued in this paper...

People have concerns, and ethicists often respond to them with philosophical arguments. But can conceptual constructions properly address fears and anxieties? It is argued in this paper that while it is possible to voice, clarify, create and-to a certain extent-tackle concerns by arguments, more concrete practices, choices, and actions are normally...

If it is irrational to allow the worst outcome of our actions, and if it is immoral to cause suffering, then it is irrational and immoral to have children.

The authors analyse and assess the Universal Draft Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights published by UNESCO. They argue that the Draft has two main weaknesses. It unnecessarily confines the scope of bioethics to life sciences and their practical applications. And it fails to spell out the intended role of human dignity in international ethical...

Health care services are constantly assessed by their ability to accommodate values popular in contemporary societies. Autonomy, justice, and human dignity have for some time been among such values in the affluent West. Relative newcomers in the field are the notions of and which seem to attract, in particular, Continental European ethicists. a

The questions I will address in this paper three questions. These are: Why should bioscientists be ethical decision-makers? What are bioscientists as ethical decision-makers? How can bioscientists act as ethical decision-makers? Answers to these questions should clarify the role of geneticists, molecular biologists and other bioscientists in both p...