Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to review ethical points of criticism regarding conceptual implications of synthetic biology’s aim of constructing artificial life. (1) The methodological strategy of synthetic biology that is strongly shaped by an engineer’s approach fits in a paradigm of creating life in a productional manner. (2) This approach is taken by critics to mean the representation and reinforcement of an epistemically misguided reductionistic conception of life. Furthermore, by seeing life as a result of a technological process of production, a manipulative and instrumental approach might be predefined. Inevitably, the products of synthetic biology—which are alive by definition—would thereby be subject to a handling that doesn’t acknowledge any intrinsic value of life. Further, critics fear negative ethical impact on how life in general is understood and valued which, in turn, might have dubious effects on the self-conception of man. (3) As a critical review of these points of criticism shows, the outlined conceptual implications are neither as inevitable as feared nor do they necessarily lead to ethically dubious consequences. In particular, they do not automatically make synthetic biology an alarming biotechnology that demands increased caution. However, they do explain a certain unease that results from blurring the hitherto unalterable terminological and ontological boundaries.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Presumably in the near future great efforts will be made promoting industrial application of synthetic biology.
- 2.
Cf. the chapter by Andreas Christiansen in this volume.
References
Baker D, Church G, Collins J et al (2006) Engineering life: building a FAB for biology. Sci Am 294(6):44–51
Bedau M (2011) The intrinsic scientific value of reprogramming life. Hastings Cent Rep 41(4):29–31
Benner S, Yang Z, Chen F (2011) Synthetic biology, tinkering biology, and artificial biology. What are we learning? CR Chim 14:372–387
Boldt J (2013) Life as a technological product: philosophical and ethical aspects of synthetic biology. Biol Theory 8:391–401
Boldt J, Müller O (2008) Newtons of the leaves of grass. Nat Biotechnol 26(4):387–389
Forster A, Church G (2007) Synthetic biology projects in vitro. Genome Res 17(1):1–6
Gibson D, Glass J, Lartigue C et al (2010) Creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome. Science 329:39–50
Heinemann M, Panke S (2006) Synthetic biology—putting engineering into biology. Bioinformatics 22(22):2790–2799
Lorenzo V, Danchin A (2008) Synthetic biology: discovering new worlds and new words. The new and not so new aspects of this emerging research field. EMBO Rep 9(9):822–827
Schmidt M (2009a) Introduction. In: Schmidt M, Kelle A, Ganguli A, Vriend H (eds) Synthetic biology. The technoscience and its societal consequences. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 1–4
Schmidt M (2009b) Do I understand what I can create? Biosafety issues in synthetic biology. In: Schmidt M, Kelle A, Ganguli A, Vriend H (eds) synthetic biology. The technoscience and its societal consequences. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 81–100
Schwille P (2011) Bottom-up synthetic biology: engineering in a tinkerer’s world. Science 333:1252–1254
What’s in a name? (2009) Nat Biotech 27(12):1071–1073
Acknowledgment
I am grateful to Christian Illies for numerous helpful remarks and inspiring comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Eichinger, T. (2016). Debasement of Life? A Critical Review of Some Conceptual and Ethical Objections to Synthetic Biology. In: Hagen, K., Engelhard, M., Toepfer, G. (eds) Ambivalences of Creating Life. Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21088-9_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21088-9_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21087-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21088-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)