Abstract
One of the central characteristics of modern science is that understanding can be measured by prediction, manipulation, and manufacture. That is why synthetic biology can be regarded as the climax of this project. It would seem that we truly understand living organisms only when we can re-create them. Synthetic biology therefore radicalizes tendencies in modern science. What does this mean for ethics? By applying five criteria, originally proposed by Hans Jonas, we can show that synthetic biology is of high ethical relevance. To illustrate this relevance, traditional ethical issues, such as risk and outcome-uncertainty, are applied. The ‘playing God’ argument is scrutinized by dividing it into three sub-arguments: the ‘hubris’ argument (science overestimates its power), the ‘taboo’ argument (some things should not be done at all), and the ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’ argument (we might not be able to control what we create). None of these concerns are entirely new; they are known, for example, in genetic engineering. But they seem to reach new significance in the realm of synthetic biology. As a consequence, precautionary principles are most certainly demanded by synthetic biology and a new ethical debate is called for. This debate is urgent but also particularly challenging. It raises fundamental issues (such as the meaning of basic terms like ‘nature’) and faces professional, conceptual, and institutional inhibitions which must be overcome for substantial answers to be reached. The chapter concludes by suggesting three ethical laws which might be taken as basic for any future ethics of synthetic biology. 1.: A biotic artefact may not injure a human being. 2.: A biotic artefact must be strictly functional, except where this would conflict with 1. And 3.: A biotic artefact must be protected and respected as a form of life, so long as such protection does not conflict with either 1 or 2.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man
if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature
and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
E.B. White (2007)
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- 1.
The Vietnam War, for example, triggered an intense debate on the use of power, just war, and just society. Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1971) can be read as a response to this event.
- 2.
A general awareness of environmental impact began earlier, with, for example, Rachel’ Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) and the studies of the Club of Rome.
- 3.
This is captured by Hegel’s melancholic remark in the Preface of his Philosophy of Right (1820): “the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk”.
- 4.
At the same time, the general acceptance of modern technology declined and mistrust and disapproval (for example, of nuclear power) became quite common in the West (e.g. Habermas, Marcuse, Schelsky, but also Pardo and Hagen in this volume): “Without this crisis [of orientation] surrounding the optimistic belief in progress, TA would presumably never have developed” (Grunwald 2009, p. 1105). The pressure became too high and politics realized that it had to find answers—which required a more detailed knowledge and understanding of the societal and environmental impacts of concrete technical products and processes (TA), and of the probability and severity of possible damage (RA).
- 5.
- 6.
It is not a sufficient condition because we can sometimes make things which we do not understand.
- 7.
Cf. Press release from the J. Craig Ventre Institute (20th May 2010): “they designed and inserted into the genome what they called watermarks. These are specifically designed segments of DNA that use the “alphabet” of genes and proteins that enable the researcher to spell out words and phrases. […] Encoded in the watermarks is a new DNA code for writing words, sentences and numbers. In addition to the new code there is a web address to send emails to if you can successfully decode the new code, the names of 46 authors and other key contributors and three quotations: ‘TO LIVE, TO ERR, TO FALL, TO TRIUMPH, TO RECREATE LIFE OUT OF LIFE.’—JAMES JOYCE; ‘SEE THINGS NOT AS THEY ARE, BUT AS THEY MIGHT BE.’—a quote from the book, ‘American Prometheus’; ‘WHAT I CANNOT BUILD (sic!), I CANNOT UNDERSTAND.’—RICHARD FEYNMAN.” See: http://www.jcvi.org/cms/press/press-releases/full-text/article/first-self-replicating-synthetic-bacterial-cell-constructed-by-j-craig-venter-institute-researcher/#sthash.DPPZiRxd.dpuf.
- 8.
This is not true for all sciences. Astronomy, for example, has long been considered to be a science without being able to perform any experiments. Here, the predictive power of theories replaces the need to bring about effects.
- 9.
Meditationes sacrae 1597, 11th section, “De Haeresibus”, quoted from Bacon 1711, p. 402.
- 10.
Experiments with bacteria such as E. coli can take less time. It is therefore mainly with bacteria that evolutionary experiments are performed.
- 11.
One might object that domestication and breeding are already a “craft-based technology” that “was used in transforming living organisms to become biotic artefacts” (Lee 2009, p. 101). But genetic engineering is much more efficient and systematic, and allows for conscious intervention into life-forms.
- 12.
This is a one-sided ambivalence; he does not explore the possibility that bad intent might ultimately have good consequences.
- 13.
Testifying in his defense in his 1954 security hearings (p. 81 of the official transcript)
Quoted from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer (20.7.2013).
- 14.
For general metaphysical questions raised by technology see also Dupuy (2009, p. 214).
- 15.
Or perhaps even of other planets: “One thing that was agreed upon, however, is the tremendous excitement and potential for synthetic biology to positively transform humanity in the coming years”, as the Stanford-Brown iGEM team says, a group working at BioBricks parts which allow cells to survive harsh extraterrestrial conditions (Biobricks are defined DNA sequences with a known function). Brown-Stanford iGEM 2011 (http://2011.igem.org/Team:Brown Stanford/SynEthics/Summary).
- 16.
When Craig Venter’s group first made a synthetic bacterial genome, announced as the “First Self-Replicating Synthetic Bacterial Cell” (Press Release 20-May-2010), this achievement (and the way in which it was presented) stirred a debate on ‘life’. Speculations on the metaphysical (and theological) implications of creating life followed (see, for example, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethics, 2010).
- 17.
Perhaps not even for genetic engineering (see Block 2012).
- 18.
There are other products occasionally discussed in literature (Church and Regis 2012): transgenic “Glofish” with a fluorescent colour from a jelly fish, and goats which have a spider-gene so that spider silk can be extracted from their milk. These, however, are not proper examples of synthetic biology; they are not new, but only genetically modified life-forms.
- 19.
Consisting of the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group), Center for Food Safety Center for Food Safety Econexus, Friends of the Earth USA, International Center for Technology Assessment, and The Sustainability Council of New Zealand. Cf. http://www.econexus.info/sites/econexus/files/CSOsynbiosubmission_CBD_SBSTTA_synbio.pdf.
- 20.
As Peter Dabrock rightly observes (2009, 47): ““Playing God”—this reproach has accompanied modern biotechnology from its very beginnings. Almost every step forward in research has provoked vehement protest against the disregarding of creation: anaesthesia against pain, the birth control pill, transplantation medicine and diagnosing brain death, stem cell research and genetic engineering and many more innovations were faced with this reproach” For this history, Dabrock refers to Ramsey (1970), Chadwick (1989) and Coady (2009).
- 21.
Mary Shelley portrays Victor Frankenstein as running away from his own creation, unable to interact with it. Thus the tragic life of a lonely and rejected new creature begins.
- 22.
Church and Regis (2012), 137–140.
- 23.
A difference remains: the hubris-interpretation links the dangerous outcomes to a certain attitude of the agent while the Sorcerer's Apprentice-version is focusing primarily on the uncontrollable outcomes, independently from the dubious character of their creator.
- 24.
This influence has also been considered in the context of applied ethics, for example in healthcare. As Judith A. Erlen observes (1994, 66): “The promise of technology has the potential to act as a seductive force luring nurses and other health care providers to use it and luring patients to request it.”.
- 25.
Cohen, Patricia (Jan 31, 2008). “Economists Dissect the ‘Yuck’ Factor”. The New York Times. See also Fukayama and McGibben.
- 26.
Utilitarianism (an ethical theory of balancing pains and happiness or human preferences) has traditionally not offered any such boundary and was much criticised for the consequent problems. As a result, modern versions of Utilitarianism tend to include human freedom (and basic human rights) as such a boundary, thereby making the theory internally less consistent but its moral judgements more plausible.
- 27.
Cf. for example G. Church (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/george-church-explains-how-dna-will-be-construction-material-of-the-future-a-877634-2.html; 12.7.2013).
- 28.
Philippa Foot’s argument in Natural Goodness (2001) does not help. She claims that each species has its own standard as to how it should be treated, namely, in such a way that members of the species may realize their potential. This argument cannot say anything about the morality of the creation of new species.
- 29.
Which he defines rather intuitively as “a situation in which the decision maker lacks much of the information that is taken for granted in the textbook cases” (1996, p. 369).
- 30.
Biodiversity loss is a pivotal driver of ecosystem change (cf. Hooper et al. 2012).
- 31.
Cf. http://www.cbd.int/cop9/doc/ (1.1.2014).
- 32.
From Hasting’s Center press information (September 11, 2008); cf. September 12 Issue of Science.
- 33.
See Sect. 6.4. in this book.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Some argue for an even more limited role of ethics, namely that it should confine itself to mediating between different positions and interests.
- 36.
For this see also the 2010 report of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethics.
- 37.
One has the impression that some are hostile to any ethics, seeing ethics as a threat to science, as a set of obstructive restrictions from an ill-informed public or religious grouping. If such scientists can see any purpose in public debate, then it is as a means of creating a climate of confidence and to secure public funding for further research. Admittedly, this picture is a bit of a caricature. But the reality is sometimes not very sophisticated.
- 38.
Replacement happens on two levels: a better-adapted strain of one species replaces other strains of that same species, and successful species can replace other species. In the case of biotic artefacts, the first is less dangerous than the second, but even the first is potentially harmful: it means that the new life form may become better and better adapted to its environment and therefore more and amore able to interact with it.
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Illies, C. (2016). New Debates in Old Ethical Skins. In: Engelhard, M. (eds) Synthetic Biology Analysed. Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment, vol 44. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25145-5_5
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