Ota Koji, Tanibe Tetsushi, Watanabe Takumi, Iijima Kazuki, Oguchi Mineki
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan.
School of Culture, Media and Society, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2024 Dec 19;31(1):2. doi: 10.1007/s11948-024-00525-w.
The moral status of human brain organoids (HBOs) has been debated in view of the future possibility that they may acquire phenomenal consciousness. This study empirically investigates the moral sensitivity in people's intuitive judgments about actions toward conscious HBOs. The results showed that the presence/absence of pain experience in HBOs affected the judgment about the moral permissibility of actions such as creating and destroying the HBOs; however, the presence/absence of visual experience in HBOs also affected the judgment. These findings suggest that people's intuitive judgments about the moral status of HBOs are sensitive to the valence-independent value of phenomenal consciousness. We discuss how these observations can have normative implications; particularly, we argue that they put pressure on the theoretical view that the moral status of conscious HBOs is grounded solely in the valence-dependent value of consciousness. We also discuss how our findings can be informative even when such a theoretical view is finally justified or when the future possibility of conscious HBOs is implausible.
鉴于人类大脑类器官（HBOs）未来可能获得现象意识的可能性，其道德地位一直存在争议。本研究通过实证调查了人们对有意识的HBOs采取行动的直观判断中的道德敏感性。结果表明，HBOs中是否存在疼痛体验会影响对诸如创建和销毁HBOs等行为的道德可允许性的判断；然而，HBOs中是否存在视觉体验也会影响判断。这些发现表明，人们对HBOs道德地位的直观判断对现象意识的效价独立价值敏感。我们讨论了这些观察结果如何具有规范性意义；特别是，我们认为它们对有意识的HBOs的道德地位仅基于意识的效价依赖价值这一理论观点构成了压力。我们还讨论了即使这种理论观点最终得到证实，或者有意识的HBOs的未来可能性看似不合理时，我们的发现如何仍能提供信息。
