6. Epigenetics

In this chapter, we show various ways in which researchers and students can engage in ethical discussions of developments in epigenetics. After a brief introduction of the scientific background of epigenetics, we formulate several ethically relevant aspects to epigenetic findings that we can take into account when we are considering the moral impact of such findings: the influence of the environment, heritability, unpredictability and reversibility. We mention ethical issues which are recurrently being discussed in bioethical literature on epigenetics and presented readers with a few cases that invited them to ask ethical questions and practice moral reflections and the application of concepts and theories. Finally, we discuss two particular issues in more detail: 1) how the case study of epigenetics demonstrates that scientific research projects and are never value-neutral and 2) how research findings can be employed in multiple ethical discourses in the specific debate on the responsibility of (prospective) parents for the health of their offspring.