Genetic Engineering Essay -- Science Genes Papers

Genetic Engineering There are many risks involved in genetic engineering. The release of genetically altered organisms in the environment can increase human suffering, decrease animal welfare, and lead to ecological disasters. The containment of biotechnological material in laboratories and industrial plants contributes to the risk of accidental release, especially if the handling and storage are inadequate. The purely political dangers include intensified economic inequality, the possibility of large-scale eugenic programs, and totalitarian control over human lives. How should the acceptability of these risks be determined? We argue that the assessment should be left to those who can be harmed by the decisions in question. Economic risks are acceptable, if they are condoned by the corporations and governments who take them. The risks imposed on laboratory personnel by the containment of dangerous materials ought to be evaluated by the laboratory personnel themselves. All other risks are more or less un iversal, and should therefore be assessed as democratically as possible. If risk-taking is based on the choices of those who can be harmed by the consequences, then, even if the undesired outcome is realized, the risk is acceptable, because it is embedded in their own system of ethical and epistemic values. The concept of risk is one of the most important elements in consequentialist analyses of genetic engineering and biotechnology. The term, or its linguistic equivalents, can be found in teleological and deontological arguments as well, but the role of the concrete risk of harm is less central within these models. (1) The paragon of teleological risk-taking is Pascal's famous wager-argument regarding our belief in the e... ... to biotechnology', in: R. Chadwick, M. Levitt, H. HÃ ¤yry, M. HÃ ¤yry and M. Whitelegg (eds), Cultural and Social Objections to Biotechnology: Analysis of the Arguments, with Special Reference to the Views of Young People (Preston: Centre for Professional Ethics, 1996). (5) On such views, see J. Bennett, 'Whatever the consequences', in: James Rachels (ed.), Moral Problems: A Collection of Philosophical Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). (6) H. HÃ ¤yry, 'How to assess the consequences of genetic engineering?', in: A. Dyson and J. Harris (eds), Ethics and Biotechnology (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 144-146. (7) H. HÃ ¤yry 1994, 146-148. (8) J. Thomson, 'Imposing risks', in her: Rights, Restitution, and Risk, ed. by W. Parent (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 181. (9) Thomson 1986, pp. 177 ff.