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Ethical Perspectives on Synthetic Biology

  • Thematic Issue Article: Synthesis (σύνθεσις)
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Abstract

Synthetic biologists are extremely concerned with responsible research and innovation. This paper critically assesses their culture of responsibility. Their notion of responsibility has been so far focused on the identification of risks, and in their prudential attitude synthetic biologists consider that the major risks can be prevented with technological solutions. Therefore they are globally opposed to public interference or political regulations and tend to self-regulate by bringing a few social scientists or ethicists on board. This article emphasizes that ethics lies beyond prudence and requires a cultural evaluation of the modes of existence of the various microorganisms designed by synthetic biologists, independently of their potential applications.

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Notes

  1. In his lectures at Stanford University, the French philosopher Jean-Pierre Dupuy occasionally compares the confusion between ethics and prudence to the mistake of a physics student who would not make the distinction between weight and mass.

  2. However, it is worth mentioning that some synthetic biologists consider the Biobricks program more as a tool to bring students in contact with the field, through the iGEM competition, rather than as a serious program of engineering.

  3. Descartes: “I don’t recognize any difference between artefacts and natural bodies except that artefacts mostly work through mechanisms that are big enough to be easily perceivable by the senses (they have to be, if humans are to be able to manufacture them!)” (Principles of Philosophy, 1644, Sect. 4, § 203).

  4. This underlying valuation has been the target of an artist’s criticism through an extreme-art project. The exhibit Synth-Ethic in Vienna displayed “le cheval en moi” by Marion Laval-Jeautet who has been injected with horse immunoglobulin for several months and gradually developed tolerance to the point of accepting a transfusion of horse blood. She claims that animal is the future of humans.

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  1. Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

    Bernadette Bensaude Vincent

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  1. Bernadette Bensaude Vincent
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Bensaude Vincent, B. Ethical Perspectives on Synthetic Biology. Biol Theory 8, 368–375 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-013-0137-8

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