Ethical Issues in Gene Therapy 
understandable why no approach yet exists. A good working rule in 
ethical consideration of technology is to “refrain from moral judg- 
ment on unverifiable possibilities — as notational cases rooted neither 
in the reality of experience nor a specific context” (Council for 
Science and Society, 1984, p. 7). If such possibilities truly mature, 
the task will be to search widely for basic ethical principles by which 
to evaluate the moral problems that will arise. From these principles 
a viable moral approach must and can be constructed. The discussion 
above indicates that two principles, beneficence and justice, will 
count heavily in the definitions and tests of best interests that will 
be required to distinguish between tolerable and intolerable genetic 
experiments beyond somatic cell therapy. 
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