From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Nov 29 2002 - 08:07:56 MST
On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 02:59:37PM -0800, Hal Finney wrote:
>
> However for the most part the article is not very informative and
> often quite baffling. It talks about the Human Genome Project and the
> many ethical issues raised by that effort. Here is the solution: "The
> founders of the Human Genome Project acknowledged that they did not have
> answers to these significant societal questions. So they set aside 5%
> of the project's annual budget for a program to define and deal with the
> ethical, legal and social implications raised by this brave new world
> of genetics -- creating one of the largest such efforts ever."
>
> Did that really solve anything??? Other than provide some good public
> relations for the HGP? I haven't heard of any of the ethical issues
> raised by genetic sequencing having been solved by this panel of
> ethicists.
Ethicists seldom solve problems; like most philosophy ethics progresses
by deepening and broadening the understanding of issues. This is
something we from the natural sciences tend to get rather annoyed with,
but it goes with the field.
I personally think we can learn a lot from our mistakes in not taking
ethics seriously. During the 1975 Asilomar conference on genetic
modification the participating scientists deliberately omitted ethical
considerations because they thought that they would not be able to agree
(and might not have the competence), and since they felt it was
absolutely necessary to produce an unified scientific front in the
issue. So they concentrated on issues of risk and regulation, and left
ethics to the rest of society. This strategy was essentially continued
throughout the 70's and 80's by researchers and companies in the field
The result? The success of the anti-genetics backlash.
Opponents of gene technology found that they could win the upper hand in
any confrontation by dragging ethics into it. Scientists could not speak
authoritatively both as scientists and as ethicists at the same time, so
they had to either avoid ethics or step down from their role as
scientists and speak their convictions as individual people - in any
case the attacker had the advantage. It was to some extent a bluff,
since much of the anti-genetics people did not have any good ethical
arguments or the ability to follow up on them, but it didn't matter. And
over the years the constant repetition created the impression that there
is something unethical about genetic modifications. That is why
Monsanto's big advertising attempt to convince Europeans about GMOs
failed: it showed practical benefits, but never explained why it was
*right* to use it. So people thought (beside the usual scepticism
against messages from Big Business that obviously speaks in its own
interest) that even if it was true, it was not the right thing to do.
Only recently have pro-genetics people started to see this, and now it
is a heavy uphill struggle to undo decades of bad arguments.
Now, the right thing to do with nanotech is to start from the start and
argue why it is both efficient and good. Why do we want it? Why is it
the moral thing to do? If we can provide good answers in an early stage
we can avoid getting into the Asilomar mistake.
My own answers to these questions is that we want to promote human life
and human values, and nanotechnology is an excellent tool to achieve
this. It is not in itself ethical or unethical but can be used in
different ways. Since it by its nature can allow us to act more
efficiently with less pollution and waste while enabling sustainable
recycling and doing far more with far less, it holds great environmental
promise. It also allows new possibilities for expression of human
creativity and vision, as well as protection from disease and certain
disasters.
On a deep level it is about an increased control over the natural world.
This is where there are deep value differences between us (who are
essentially sharing some variant of the enlightenment ideas) and many
other groups (who share romantic ideas about the natural order). Some
people consider this a bad thing in itself, a disruption of the
integrity of things. Here we have to argue for our vision of a dynamic
natural order, where our interventions into the world are not
disruptions but rather parts in the ongoing creative process.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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