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Manufacturing Life, What Life? Ethical Debates Around Biobanks and Social Robots

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Abstract

In this paper, we explore how the definition of life takes on an essential character in the ethical debates around health technologies, with life thus being manufactured in the tensions and conflicts around the use of such artefacts and devices. We introduce concepts from science and technology studies (STS) to approach bioethics, overcoming the dualistic conception that separates the natural and the technological and questioning the dominant rationality that divides life into dualities. Drawing on two research projects in which we have been involved in recent years, one regarding biobanks and the other regarding social care robots, we explore how the ethical discussions about biobanks and robots imply particular notions of life. We argue that the contemporary epistemic category of life is a manufactured life in which various rationalities coexist: one rationality based on a separation between the technological and the human, focused on pragmatism and functionalities that tend towards a dualized notion of life divided into qualified and non-qualified life, and another rationality based on a non-essentialist ontology, focused on the mediating role of health technologies, that entails a distributed life appearing as a precarious effect of a network. Each of these rationalities allows the emergence of different issues and ethical concerns, thus enriching the bioethical debate.

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Notes

  1. The report Taking European Knowledge Society Seriously (2007) explores the “politics of ethics” in the European Union. This report indicates how, until the mid-2000s, ethics and legislation in science and technology were coupled to such an extent that the differentiation between ethical reasoning and lawmaking was blurred.

  2. What constitutes a product of nature is a question that has been asked throughout the history of intellectual property [85]. Historical accounts provide relevant insights regarding the understanding of isolated biological materials and the product of nature doctrine. The Supreme Court decision in Ex Parte Latimer and Parke-Davis v. Mulford gathers together valuable content exploring discussions on gene patentability and biotechnology in general.

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Funding

This study was supported by “la Caixa” Foundation under agreement LCF/PR/RC17/10110004 and a doctoral fellowship from the same source under agreement LCF/BQ/DE17/11600017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Barcelona Science and Technology Studies Group (STS-b), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain

    Núria Vallès-Peris, Violeta Argudo-Portal & Miquel Domènech

Authors
  1. Núria Vallès-Peris
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  2. Violeta Argudo-Portal
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  3. Miquel Domènech
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis about biobanks were performed by Violeta Argudo-Portal; material preparation, data collection and analysis about social care robots were performed by Núria Vallès-Peris. The first drafts of the “Introduction” and “Widening the Bioethical Debate” sections of the manuscript were written by Núria Vallès-Peris, and all authors commented and edited previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Núria Vallès-Peris.

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The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

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Vallès-Peris, N., Argudo-Portal, V. & Domènech, M. Manufacturing Life, What Life? Ethical Debates Around Biobanks and Social Robots. Nanoethics 16, 21–34 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-021-00390-y

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