Search

Artificial intelligence and brain-computer interfaces must respect and preserve people's privacy, identity, agency and equality, say Rafael Yuste, Sara Goering and colleagues., Author(s): Rafael Yuste [sup.1] , Sara Goering [sup.2] , Blaise Agüera y Arcas [sup.3] , Guoqiang Bi [sup.4] , Jose M. Carmena [sup.5] , Adrian Carter [sup.6] , Joseph J. [...]

Biotechnology is examined as a natural outgrowth of the modern liberal project, with particular focus on the ethics of its use for therapy as distinct from enhancement.

After historically situating NBIC Convergence in the context of earlier bioethical debate on genetics, ten questions are raised in areas related to the ethics of Convergence, indicating where future research is needed. Keywords: human enhancement, human/machine interface, NBIC Convergence, upstream ethics

Over the past four decades, the increased financial, intellectual, personal, and legal interaction of academe, industry, and government has dramatically changed the structure of the life science enterprise, but the […]

We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic enhancement technologies.

Agricultural and animal scientists need to embrace a new vision beyond the single-minded existing pursuit of biological efficiency. The public in the West is no longer concerned solely with cheap food. Other paramount issues define quality of life, including: health and safety of foods; nutritional value; traditional, regional, locally produced, and organic foods; animal welfare; sustainable farming, environment, and rural resources. The paper provides examples of how the credibility of animal scientists has been lost due to some recent unethical behavior. Research, teaching and application of agricultural and animal science, especially of biotechnology, need to be reshaped into a new 'Quality of Life Agricultural Era' to replace the 'Era of Intensification.' This new era will need fresh assumptions, beliefs and leadership to match the emerging social agenda of the 21st century. Animal scientists have a special role in implementing this new plausibility structure. Key Words: Biotechnology, Ethics, Intensification, Livestock

I. INTRODUCTION Nanobiotechnology promises a wide variety of medical applications. Some of the proposed applications include more efficient and specific drug delivery, systems microsurgic devices that find and destroy viruses [...]

Editor's note: This review of The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, by Jeremy Rifkin, Tarcher/Putnam Publisher; first appeared this Spring in the Economic and Political Weekly [...]

Many religious critics argue that biotechnology (such as cloning and genetic engineering) intrudes on God's domain, or plays God, or revolts against God. While some of these criticisms are standard, complaints about human hubris, I argue that some of the recent criticism represents a 'Promethean' concern, in which believers unreflectively seem to fear that science and technology are actually replicating or stealing God's special deity-defining powers. These criticisms backfire theologically, because they diminish God, portraying God as an anthropomorphic superbeing whose relevance and special nature are increasingly rivaled by human power. Keywords: Babel; biotechnology; cloning; genetic engineering; God; God of the Gaps; hubris; Prometheus; religion and science; religion and technology; religious criticism; theology.

For those working with social science presumptions, ethical principles can seem to come out of nowhere. This paper wonders whether they operate like the positive externalities Callon wishes to derive from economists. In exploring the question, it is forced to consider different models of internal and external positioning. It does this through taking up two manifestations of the technological economy concerned with information management, following examples drawn from Gallon's own work (competitive patenting and ethical deliberations on biotechnology). Keywords: anthropology; ethics; patents; biotechnology; externality; information.

Byline: Helen A. Fielding (1) Keywords: biotechnology; Heidegger; intersexuality; Merleau-Ponty; nature; physis Abstract: In order to open new possibilities for bioethics, I argue that we need to rethink our concept of nature. The established cognitive framework determines in advance how new technologies will become visible. Indeed, in this dualistic approach of metaphysics, nature is posited as limitless, as material endowed with force which causes us to lose the sense of nature as arising out of itself, of having limits, an end. In contrast, drawing upon the example of the gender assignment and construction of intersexed infants, I want to suggest for bioethics an understanding of nature that arises not from our scientific explorations, but rather from attending to our situated perceptual encounters with the world which underlie such experimentation these encounters are too easily overlooked, and yet they are crucial for opening up new ways of thinking. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Philosophy/Centre for Women's Studies and Feminist Research, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont., Canada, N6A 3K7 Article History: Registration Date: 08/10/2004 Article note: This revised version was published online in October 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.

Biotechnology and life sciences in vitro experiments raise moral and ethical problems. Scientists' belief that in vivo uncertainty can be adequately managed by traditional risk assessment is too narrow a view.

The new philosophy that deals with the relationship of nature and humans should be the basis for a new global bioethics. Abandonment of the human-centrism and frontier mentality of 18th-century humanism is essential as a minimum. Some new bioethical issues involve genetics and a communitarian way of thinking would be essential for such issues and those of the environmental crisis. Philosophical bases and controversial aspects of a possible global bioethics movement are discussed with observations on the history of Western bioethics and on characteristics of the Asian ethos.

The state of global bioethics can be thought of as a dream or nightmare according to Alastair V. Campbell, president, International Association of Bioethics, speaking at the first joint meeting, in Tokyo, of the organization with the Asian Bioethics Association. To have a reasonable, free, and open and position, global bioethics must avoid those systems which claim to be overarching and to clean up essential diversity in ethical intuitions. Cultures dismissed as primitive have in them intuitions that are of value.

The granting of patents on parts of the human genome to biotechnology firms poses ethical problems since it has transferred the power to develop biotech products and redefine human beings genetically to the market. Biotechnological knowledge should not be controlled by the market mainly because of its salient traits, including impersonality, expediency, efficiency and the need for quantifiable results. These traits lead market to regard individuals in relation to commodities and become commodities themselves in the case of biotechnology.

The cloning of a sheep led to a request from President Bill Clinton to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission for a review of the ethical and legal issues involved in cloning. Clinton also asked researchers to refrain from cloning humans until the commission had studied the issue, though there are scientific and political obstacles to cloning humans in such a short period. There is a need for a policy on cloning that is based on clinical and scientific sense rather than political posturing.

The informed consent doctrine should be expanded to include potential use of a patient's bodily parts, giving the patient control over that use. Such control was denied in Moore v Regents of the University of California, wherein tissue from John Moore was developed into a therapeutic cell line and patented without Moore's knowledge or financial benefit. As biotechnology develops, such instances will probably become more common, and informed consent is justified at least on dignitary grounds regardless of property rights.

The Group of Advisers to the European Commission on the Ethical Implications of Biotechnology presents its opinion on the ethical aspects of patenting inventions involving elements of human origin and concerning the respect of individual rights. A directive has been proposed to address moral concerns and issues of fundamental rights. The organization believes that the directive should guarantee the legality of refusing to grant a patent which infringes the rights of the person. Consent of the concerned individual is required to fulfill the ethical requirements of patenting.