Mapping the human genome is an immense project with numerous objectives. Indeed, it is likely that some of its most important ramifications and applications remain as yet unglimpsed. All we can presently attempt is to focus on some of the more obvious possibilities and prepare for the problems already looming on our horizon. One such possibility is that of Prenatal Genetic Intervention (PGI), which might be said to be a therapeutic intervention on behalf of the embryonic child. In this paper, I argue that "genetic therapy" is likely to be a misnomer, and that if PGI becomes possible, we should generally resist its inclusion under the special moral duty of providing health care. "Therapy" necessarily means helping a person, while PGI -- though effecting improvements from an impersonal perspective -- will frequently not consist in directly helping any person. This is due not to the embryo not being a person, but rather to the basic philosophical problem of personal identity persisting through significant alterations -- especially the alteration of genotype. The decisive moral question then hinges on the definition of "significant" alteration. I shall examine the feasibility of drawing analogies from criteria for personal identity proposed in discussions of how persons maintain their identity across time and through physical and psychological change. Certain metaphysical aspects of human identity and individuality will be also touched upon, partly in terms derived from classical Judaism. In conclusion I argue that, regarding embryos in particular, persistence of genotype must generally be deemed a necessary condition for maintaining personal identity. Therefore, many proposals for PGI should be excluded from the notion of therapeutic intervention and thus denied the special moral status of requests for therapy.

Political interaction among citizens who hold opposing moral views commonly requires reaching beyond toleration, toward actual co-operation with policies one opposes. On the more personal level, however, regarding (e.g.) interactions between healthcare providers and patients, several authors emphasize the importance of preserving integrity. But those who oppose any 'complicity in evil' often wrongly conflate instances in which the other's position is (and should be) totally rejected with instances of legitimate, although deep, disagreement. Starting with a striking example from the context of a particular tradition, I argue generally that in the latter sort of disagreements, talk of 'complicity' should be largely replaced with a more co-operative moral stance, grounded in a pluralistic framework. Co-operation Despite Disagreement (CDD) should be sought either for institutional reasons--akin to the political--or for relational reasons. CDD involves sharing another's perspective and sometimes calls for adopting another's moral judgements in preference to one's own. I seek to identify some of the conditions and circumstances that would justify such a shift, particularly in scenarios involving assistance, such as physician-assisted suicide (PAS) or the role of an anaesthesiologist in abortion. This discussion is meant to provide examples of the kind of second-order reasons appropriate for determining the terms for CDD-- in distinction from first-order considerations (e.g., the much-contested 'active/passive' distinction) which are likely to be the subject of the initial disagreement and hence cannot serve to resolve it.

WAR EVER MORALLY JUSTIFIED? Any theory of a just war must, of course, define the conditions mandating war in terms of state behavior. But this is not enough, for it is morally obtuse to offer an answer to the question "When may we fight the enemy state?" without also focusing explicitly on the question "How can we kill all these (enemy) persons?" A clear indication of suppressing this latter question is adherence to a doctrine of "total war." Where the specter of an "enemy collective" has completely displaced attention to individual persons, then indeed justification appears to be required only for the state act of going to war without further (moral) regard for the means and the cost in human lives. The alternative to "total war" is a war ethic, which distinguishes between permitted and prohibited bloodshed. The fundamental distinction of the war ethic (or "war convention")' is between enemy soldiers and civilians. Its primary tenet is that, unlike the killing of soldiers in combat, killing enemy civilians is no better than ordinary murder. Thus the problem of justifying bloodshed in battle-which is the focus of this discussion-is significantly two-sided, for, on the terms defined, an account of the license for killing soldiers is worth having only if it does not, by the same token, allow the slaying of civilians. Some initial formulations of the war ethic in contemporary discourse dubiously employed the term "innocent" in defining the class of protected AUTHOR'S NOTE: An early draft of this essay was presented at the "Philosophy, Ethics and Public Affairs" seminar at the Princeton University Centerfor Human Values in early 1992. 1 wish to thank the various participantsfor their helpful comments and criticism. I am particularly thankful for comments by Harry Frankfurt, Amy Guttman, George Kateb, and Michael Walzer, as well as for editorial commentsfrom Political Theory.

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