Question Is the field of Biotechnology really posing a threat to the moral and ethical values of the people? Does this field assure us to improve the quality of life and deciphering entirely the blueprints of life!?

Accepted:
June 27, 2006

Comments

Developing technologies have always caused new ethical challenges to arise, often by making once impossible states of affairs possible. Insofar as our ethical thinking has failed to take account of these new possibilities, our ethical systems will be tested. But I see no reason to think that foundational ethical facts, like the wrongness of causing gratuitous pain to a sentient creature, are under any threat from new inventions.

You probably have in mind developments like in vitro fertilization and cloning. These developments challenge us to think harder about what it is about what qualities are really at the heart of moral personhood -- is it the mere biological fact of human specieshood, or is rather certain capacities, like being able to feel pain, or being able to reason? They also raise questions about what human beings ought to have the right to try to control, since they offer us the prospect of controlling things we couldn't at earlier times in our histories.

Notice that techonological developments can also make it easier for us to follow our consciences. We now have the technological wherewithal to feed everyone in the world. What's lacking now is the will.

Question Is the field of Biotechnology really posing a threat to the moral and ethical values of the people? Does this field assure us to improve the quality of life and deciphering entirely the blueprints of life!? Accepted:June 27, 2006

Question Is the field of Biotechnology really posing a threat to the moral and ethical values of the people? Does this field assure us to improve the quality of life and deciphering entirely the blueprints of life!?

Accepted:
June 27, 2006