ABSTRACT
The protective boundaries of life and the associated sense of social worth are structured and rearranged through exclusionary logic and the power of empathy. Moral evolution rarely progresses along a straight path. Instead, it winds along a jagged and often contentious route. Existing moral principles, judicial decisions, and legislated statutes are frequently not well fashioned to address new scientific findings and technologies. What has been called cultural lag ensues. To address this cultural lag, metaphors are built, analogies are drawn, empathy-generating images are fashioned, and stories are told. In the process, the legitimacy of existing understandings and practices is reassessed. Given the fundamental nature of the moral dilemmas in question, tension remains. From this tension, social movements are spawned. A general proposition emerges: dilemmas, especially ones involving competing and deeply important moral principles, produce cyclical social change. When the need to identify the protective boundaries of life is coupled with the need to establish the boundaries of tolerable suffering, unavoidable dilemmas emerge. Such dilemmas are, by definition, not resolvable. In an important sense, both sides are right. If so, tension will always remain. Perhaps this is the final lesson learned.
