Regenerative medicine is rich with promethean promises. The use of human
embryonic stem cells in research is justified by its advocates in terms
of promises to cure a wide range of diseases and disabilities, from
Alzheimer's and Parkinsonism to the results of heart attacks and spinal
cord injuries. More broadly, there is the promethean allure of being
able to redesign human biological nature in terms of the goals and
concerns of humans. Needless to say, these allures and promises have
provoked a wide range of not just moral but metaphysical reflections
that reveal and reflect deep fault-lines in our cultures. The essays in
this volume, directly and indirectly, present the points of controversy
as they tease out the character of the moral issues that confront any
attempt to develop the human regenerative technologies that might move
us from a human to a post-human nature. Although one can appreciate the
disputes as independently philosophical, they are surely also a function
of the conflict between a Christian and a post-Christian culture, in
that Christianity has from its beginning recognized a fundamental
prohibition against the taking of early human life. Even the
philosophical disputes that frame secular bioethics are often motivated
and shaped by these background cultural conflicts. These essays display
this circumstance in rich ways.