Abstract
In the first chapter, I have situated the concept of biotechnology in terms of time, language and origin. This situation has revealed that it is intertwined with a certain view of the agent using the techniques forming the field of biotechnology. Apparently, this agent is a human being, who in conjunction with others acts upon questions and problems having been related to the experience of nature in its present state in order to satisfy various interests of research, commerce, and societal development.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Sloan (1999), 56.
Bergsma and Thomasma (2000), 24f.
Melehy(1997), 8.
de Finance (1991), 35.
Ibid. See also A. Gehlen: Der Mensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt. Aula: Wiesbaden, 1986, 57 as presented in Gutmann (2002), 215.
Aristotle: Metaphysics A 980b 25-28. MacIntyre (1999), 5f, points out that Aristotle did not intend to see reason as a mark of separation between humans and other animals, but rather as the specific character of our species: “Thronesis, the capacity for practical rationality is a capacity that he [scil Aristotle]-and after him Aquinas-ascribed to some nonhuman animals in virtue of their foresight, as well as to human beings.”
de Finance (1991), 49f
Deleuze and Guattari (1994), 211. To the extent that these thinkers are considered ‘postmodern’, their appearance at this point might seem odd. In my opinion, however, the postmodern criticism of an overly rational conception of e.g. human identity seeks to avoid dualisms.
Aquinas (1995), q 1 a 4: “For everyone’s will is inclined to his own good; hence, to be deprived of one’s own good is contrary to the will.”
S Th la 2æ, q 9 a6, in: Aquinas (1970): “God moves man’s will as universal mover to the universal object of will, which is the Good. (…) All the same sometimes God moves us to will a determinate good, as when he quickens us with his grace.” Thus, the inherent tendency towards goodness is further supported by acts of divine grace.
de Finance (1991), 50.
Ibid.
Bains and Evans (2001), 256.
Heath(2001), 53f.
Here it is important to stress that both societal forms rely on technology and that both, as Jacques Ellul remarks, are based on mass production. Cf. Ellul (1990) 2, footnote 3.
For an analysis of the man/machine interface in Verne’s novels, cf. Evans (1988). Cf. also the deep-rooted public fascination with future societies as presented in Science Fiction films, such as e.g the successful’ star Wars’ sequels, displaying techniques well beyond present possibilities. There are instances, where Science Fiction is more about the present situation than the future, e.g. the Star Trek tv-series of the 1960s, which with contemporary eyes are very typical products of their time.
“Heidegger (…) reifies modern technology as something separate from society, as an inherently contextless force aiming at pure power. If this is the “essence” of technology, reform would be merely extrinsic. But at this point Heidegger’s position converges with the very Prometheanism he rejects. Both depend on the narrow definition of technology that, at least since Bacon and Descartes, has emphasized its destiny to control the world to the exclusion of its equally contextual embeddedness.” Feenberg (1995b), 16.
Feenberg (1995b), 13.
Feenberg ( 1995b), 11.
Grunwald (2002), 180.
Cf. ibid., 189. He only speaks of technology as an instrument of reflection, but he does link with the question of regulating actions.
Harwood and Wipat: (2001), 87f.
Cf. e.g. Heiland (2000), 13.
Ibid.,14.
Gilbert (2002), 137.
Rehmann-Sutter (2002), 37.
Ibid., 38.
Ibid.,43.
Ibid., 46.
Ibid., 48.
Oyama (2002), 169.
Ehrlich (2000), 124.
Buchanan, Brock, Daniels, Wikler (2000), 91.
Ibid.
Wils (2000), 106.
Levin and Solomon (1990), 525.
Interestingly, the classical age as such is only defined negatively over against early modernity. It also covers the Middle ages and early Renaissance. Cf. ibid., 518.
Early modernity is set to begin in the 17th century (ibid.), while the term late modernity seems to apply to the 20th century. Cf. ibid., 519.
Here (1990) cautiously described as “very recent advances”.
Ibid., 525.
Ibid., 519.
“Even in psychiatry, Freud drew upon nineteenth-century physics in his model of libido as drive (Trieb) countered by the forces of repression, a ‘mechanism’ which could ‘fail’, or around which ‘leaks’ could occur. His was an essentially mechanical model of the psyche, a machine, albeit a dynamic one.” Ibid., 523.
E.g. the closed loop of the circulation of blood, the heart as a pump, the need to maintain blood flow in face of varying demands, blood volume etc. Cf. ibid., 522.
“The therapeutic use of’magnetism’ (Mesmer) and galvanic electricity implied an electromagnetic model of inner body processes.”Ibid., 523.
“The telephone exchange became a model for seeing the central nervous system as a switchboard.”Ibid.
“The large digital computer can ‘crunch’ information more prodigiously than the brain, but it cannot do what the brain does. Even the analog computer is not up to the job.” Ibid.
Ibid., 520.
Epstein(1995),10.
Torres (2002), 48f..
Levin and Solomon (1990), 530.
Levin and Solomon (1990), 525f: “…some current research seems to indicate the need for a genuinely new paradigm, formulated in terms of systems and processes that would be understood non-mechanistically. as Ilya Prigogine has argued, drawing on recent developments in physics, there are complex, open-ended systems the elements of which are so organized, so interrelated, that the conditions of the system are not predictable on the basis of the elements themselves.”
Ibid., 530. They here refer especially to psychoneuroimmunology, which, very basically put, seeks to discover the apparently co-dependent connections between the central nervous system and the immune system.
Søren Kierkegaard critisises Spinoza for the same oversight, because the latter explains perfection by being: “the more perfect a thing is, the more it is.” According to Kierkegaard, “[fjactual being is wholly indifferent to any and all variations in essence, and everything that exists participates without petty jealousy in being (…) Ideally, to be sure, the case is different (…) Highest ideality has this necessity and therefore it is. But this its being is identical with its essence; such being does not involve it dialectically in the determinations of factual being, since it is.” Such a being cannot be proven, in other words. In terms of God, i.e. the old days in Kierkegaard’s thinly veiled irony, this was expressed by stating that “if God is possible, he iseo ipso necessary (Leibniz).” This is also the point made by Anselm. Really, the difficulty lies somewhere else, though, for the enterprise is “to lay hold of God’s factual being and to introduce God’s ideal essence dialectically into the sphere of factual being.” Kierkegaard (1967), 51f, footnote 2.
Cf. Dulbecco (1987), 449, ties life to the activity we call ‘energy’: “There cannot be life without energy because there cannot be life order without it. Life treads a thin line between order and chaos, related to its use of energy. Energy can be used to build strong chemical bonds between atoms. But life is based mainly on the plasticity of weak bonds that can be continuously broken and re-formed. Life exists in a world of weak bonds. In a world of strong bonds life is impossible because the bonds are essentially inbreakable. That is the realm of rocks and crystals, not of life.” This quotation also demonstrates that the line between scientific and religious language can be very thin indeed.
Agar (1997), 160.
See e.g. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1072b15. Aristotle’s doctrine of the Prime Mover was later adopted by Thomas Aquinas.
At the beginning of the second meditation, he describes this state of doubt in existential terms: “So serious are the doubts into which I have been thrown as a result of yesterday’s meditation that I can neither put them out of my mind nor see any way of resolving them. It feels as if I have fallen unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which tumbles me around so that I can neither stand on the bottom nor swim up to the top.” Descartes (2000), 16.
Ibid., 17.
Ibid.,68.
Ibid., 19.
Ibid., 59.
Ibid., 22.
Ibid., 59.
Cottingham (2000), xxxi.
Ehrlich (2000), 120.
Ehrlich (2000), 120.
J.M Allman: Evolving Brains. Scientific American Library: New York 1999, 44, quoted in: Ehrlich (2000), 110.
Ehrlich (2000), 110.
Changeux and Ricoeur (2000), 52.
Humphrey(1992).
Ehrlich (2000), 111. According to Ehrlich, Humphrey’s hypothesis is “that sensations occur at the boundary between an organism and its environment and, in human beings, generally are registered in the mode of sight, touch, sound, smell, or taste.”
Dekkers(2001), 121.
By now classic modern intuitionist are e.g. Moore (1991) and Ross (1939). The importance of the intuitive knowledge of the good is also predominant in Confucianism. Specifically, Mencius (Meng Tsue), one of the disciples of Confucius, argued that humans are born with a faculty of moral intuitions. Cf. Meng Tsue (1970). For a recent anthology reassissing its merits and problems, cf. Stratton-Lake (2002).
Janich (2002), 108.
Ehrlich (2000), 114, identifies is as “a modern version of the idea that different physical parts of the brain control different mental ‘faculties.’ That view dates at least to Franz Gall (1758-1828), a famous gennan neuroanatomist and founder of phrenology, the practice of evaluating mental abilities and character by examining the shape of the skull.”
Fodor (1983).
Chomsky (1980).
Ehrlich (2000), 115.
Breidbach (2002), 81.
Ibid., 89.
Using Hegel’s attempt “at a system to describe the world by employing a mechanisms of system internal reference[,]” Breidbach sees ‘meaning’ as “defined just by the structure in which a term is used in thought (…) The essential meaning of a term is nothing but this relational characteristic. The science of logic demonstrates that the meaning of meanings is the outcome of the relation of terms.” Breidbach (2002), 91.
Recognition is the identification of corresponding signals. The difficulty is that “correspondency (…) is not found by reference to an external observer but by purely system internal criteria. Any activation of the system is evaluated according to the rules by which the system reactions are defined.” Ibid.
Breidbach summarises his view on James Mill and his thoughts on the associative mind in the following way: “the first effects of an impression in the brain are not a proper re-representation of the physical world. The effects are described as the outcome of an superposition of inputs onto an internal activity mode of the system. (…) The result is a complex coactivation of signal pathways established by former impressions.” Ibid., 92. Simply, this means that whatever I see is in my brain incorporated into a changing system comparing impression with previous experience. The spread of information in the system of the mind is, in other words, unpredictability, which allows for human fantasy and deja-vus.
Descartes (2000), 56.
See e.g. the quotation on autonomy taken from Rehmann-Sutter (2002), 46.
ten Have (2001b), 67.
Ibid.
“What was thematized in Christianity as the conversion of the sinner into the saint who tells his story may be thematized in a modern narrative in a variety of ways that need have very little to do with the Christian experience. (…) To state the matter hyperbolically, we might say that every narrative of the self is the story of a conversion or, to put the matter the other way around, a conversion is only a conversion when it is expressed in a narrative form that establishes a separation between the self as character and the self as author.” Freccero (1986), 17.
Latour(1993).
Böhme (2002), 11.
Ibid.
Ibid., 12.
Beauchamp and Childress (2001), 58.
Beauchamp and Childress (2001), 58.
The legalisation of euthanasia in the Netherlands and, most recently, in Belgium illustrate the vehemence of this development, in which society increasingly is seen as the provider of services demanded by the individual. The Dutch situation is comprehensively surveyed in: Thomasma,-Kimbrough-Kushner, Kimsma, Ciesielski-Carlucci (1998). Concerning the recent development in Belgium, cf. e.g. Schotsmans (2000) and Schotsmans and Broeckaert (1999).
Patrao-Neves(2002),60.
With regards to the almost notorious example of euthanasia in the Netherlands, this cònflict is expressed through the terms ‘autonomy’, i.e. the patients right to self-determination, and ‘unbearable and hopeless suffering’, i.e. criteria defined by society without which an act of euthanasia may not be carried out. Cf. de Haan (2002b), 169: “(…) while the patient’s autonomous request for euthanasia is a contributing factor indeed, his condition is an enabling/disabling factor. Despite the patient’s autonomous request, euthanasia is only permissible if the patient’s suffering is unbearable and hopeless.” See also by the same author (2002a), 60: “(…) one of the basic ideas of the Dutch regulation of euthanasia thus remains respect for human life, a respect that is due irrespective of whether the patient himself believes that his life is still valuable. On the other hand, the new law also tries to accommodate in some way the patient’s right to self-determination.”
Almond: (2001), 34.
Agich(1993), 99.
Cf. den Hartogh (2000), 109.
Ibid., 111.
Ibid., 110.
Ibid.
Almond(2001), 33.
Wendler (2000), 316f.: “Even competent individuals misconstrue their preferences and values and fail to fully understand the decision in question. As a result, they sometimes end up making choices that conflict with their preferences and values. (…) What individuals know (…) depends, in large part, upon how much they ‘investigate’. (…) What decision we expect individuals would make if competent depends upon what they would know about the decision in question and their relevant preferences and values. And what they would know if competent depends upon how much they would investigate which, in turn, depends upon the risks and potential benefits involved.”
Dupré (1993).
Dupré (1993), 121.
Meulenbergs and Schotsmans (2001), 283. They here refer especially to Beauchamp and Childress (2001).
Meulenbergs and Schotsmans (2001), 284.
Böhme (2002), 4.
Gutmann (2002), 199.
Dupré (1993), 121.
Augustine: Enchiridion 25, 99, in: Augustine (1955), 398.
Cf. the by now classical thesis of LeGoff (1964). For his understanding of history as developing under the influence of ideas and social movements, cf. LeGoff (1988).
1a 2æ q 3 a 4, in: Aquin (1966).
1a 2æ q 93 a 1, in: Aquin (1964).
1a 2æ q 91 a 1, in: ibid.
1a 2æ q 90 a 1, in: ibid.
1a 2æ q 90 a 1, in: ibid.
1a 2æ q 91 a 2, in: ibid.
1a 2æ q 68 a 2, in: Aquin (1974).
1a 2æ q 68 a 2, in: ibid.
1a 2æ q 94 a 5, in: St. Thomas Aquin (1964).
1a 2æ q 94 a 2, in: ibid.
1a 2æ q 94 a 5,in: ibid.
1a 2æ q 90 a 3,in: ibid.
A prominent example is John Paul II (1993), 88: “Themorality of acts is defined by the relationship of man’s freedom with the authentic good. This good is established, as the eternal law, by Divine Wisdom which orders every being towards its end: this eternal law is known both by man’s natural reason (hence it is “natural law”) and-in an integral and perfect way-by God’s supernatural Revelation (hence it is called “divine law”).”
Cfr. Hadrossek (1965), 824.
Mahoney (1989),227f.
This presentation relies on: J. Hellin (1950), 2609f.
Gay (1996), 159f.
Dupré (1993), 123.
Ibid., 124.
Ibid.
Descartes (2000), 59.
Ehrlich (2000), 125.
Hogenhuis and Koelega (2001), 210.
It is not unusual to define a (public) health policy like this: “A health policy (or public health policy) may be defined as a policy which, through the use of various policy instruments, attempts to promote the health of the population. These policy instruments may take the forms of regulations, incentives or disincentives, communication or information.” Theofilatou (2000), 19.
With regards to the rationale behind English garden architecture in the 19th century, cf. for the great lines of the development e.g. Enge; Schroër; Mataj; Classen (1990). For the English garden in particular, cf. Brown (1989). In the same respect, domesticising animals could signify a similar attitude towards non-human nature.
From a theological point of view, it seems to me that the connection between the course of nature and the will of God has to be expressed cautiously, at least as long as the actual meaning of death and suffering has not been grasped fully. Therefore, I am not sure that an Augustinian certainty of the following kind can be applied today: “Nothing (…) happens unless the Omnipotent wills it to happen. He either allows it to happen or he actually causes it to happen.” Augustine: Enchiridion 24, 95, in: Augustine (1955), 395.
Cf. e.g. Weber ( 2002).
Lenoir (2000), 1425.
Feenberg (1995b), 8
Esping-Andersen (1991), 222.
One of the most telling examples of this is the railway station in Cologne, which on purpose was built just next to the cathedral, the completion of which itself intended as an expression of German unification and technical enterprise. Viewing stations this way is a commonplace, to the extent that this image is no longer set in inverted commas and used widely, e.g in the presentation of a new ministerial building in Copenhagen, taken over from the Danish East Asiatic Company (EAC or ØK). Nielsen and the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries (2001), 18: “So the new cathedrals of the railway era were towering above the surrounding houses in Europe and the rest of the world where the Europeans were gaining ground.” The image has also been used for e.g. industrial plants. See e.g. Ebert and Bednortz (1996).
Jean Monet and Claude Manet form an interesting pair in this regard. For a very competent introduction to the impressionists in general, cf. Bretell (2000). Concerning art in industrialised societies, cf Bretell (1999). With regard to the urban aspects of this development, cf. Craske(1997).
Ratledge and Kristiansen (2001), 1.
Gilbert (2002), 136. He refers to the work of Dorothy Nelkin and Susan M. Lindee: The DNA mystique. The gene as a cultural icon. W.H. Freeman: New York 1995. However, the exact reference is missing in the book, with its reference lists marked by several omissions.
In this regard, even a brief look on international train connections reveals interesting features: From 1953, the “Montan-Express” 231/232 served Frankfurt-Coblence-Luxembourg, bearing witness to the emerging cooperation of coal and steel production. For the same reason, a French motorcar ran as express train 1101/1124 since autumn 1952, serving Frankfurt-the Sarre-Metz/Bar-le-Duc: “Eine weitere Verbindung erblickte am 5. Oktober 1952 das Licht der Welt, die die Keimzelle eines späteren FT-Zuges [Fern tri ebwagen, i.e. long distance railcar, LR] bzw. TEE [Trans Europ Ex press, LR] werden sollte, und die in der Zukunft häufigen Wechseln sowohl des Weges wie der Verkehrszeiten unterworfen worden war, die eigentlich trotz der engen Verflechtungen zwischen den beiden Nachbarländern nie richtig leben, aber als hochqualifizierte Zugverbindung auch nicht sterben konnte. Gemeint ist die mit Schnelltriebwagen der SNCF eingerichtete Verbindung 1101/1124.” Scharfand Ernst (1983), 184. This connection was turned into a more prestigious TEE in 1970 and still exists as a EuroCity connection, but the route has never been a great commercial success. It is also telling that of all high speed railway lines in France, the Eastern line to Metz and Strasbourg, although in the planning for some time, has not been constructed yet. A more general overview of the French post-industrial remains is given in Dama (1980).
Cf. e.g Hösle (1991); VandeVeer (1994); Ferry (1995). Elliot (2002) puts it crisply with regards to the surveillance of communication: “Technology has seen to it that our lives are more convenient and more secure, but the price we pay is privacy. In the end it comes down to whether we trust those in authority who are now able to see our telephone and e-mail records.”
Heath (2001), 180.
Commission of the European Communities (2001), 97.
Spencer, Mills, Rorty, and Werhane (2000), 25.
Bovens (1998), 10.
Ibid.,11.
In the USA, the increase has been more than fivefold from 1917 to 1969, “many times more quickly than the population.” In the Netherlands, the increase is tenfold after forty years, with 194,000 corporations in 1994. Ibid., 13.
Referring to various studies, Bovens concludes that a strong bureaucratisation has taken place, which also can be inferred from the very high number of wage earners and salaried employees, now mounting to 80 or 90 per cent in most OECD countries. Ibid., 14.
Between half and three quarters of trials now involve complex organisations. Ibid, 14.
This is, perhaps, the weakest point made by Bovens, since he merely refers to the front pages of the New York Times and the Dutch Algemeen (NRC) Handelsblad, with the considerable decline in their reports on individuals. Ibid., 15.
Bovens (1998), 19.
Spencer, Mills, Rorty, and Werhane (2000), 25.
“These goals are often specified in mission statements, delineated in charters, or defined by the founding arrangements that constitute the organization as a corporate entity.” Ibid., 26.
“…the actions of an organization are often the result of collective, not individual, decision making. The policies of an organization arise from deliberation between possible courses of action to meet organizational goals. Courses (…) selected (…) involve both their external (…) and (…) internal constituencies.” Ibid.
“They are judged to be morally acceptable or unacceptable by other organizations with which they interact, by the individuals who come in contact with them (…), and also by the larger society (…)” Ibid.
“Organizations are held accountable on all the poles of normative evaluation: as agents, on the nature of their actions, and by the effects of their actions.” Ibid.
Bovens (1998), 57.
Spencer, Mills, Rorty, and Werhane (2000), 21 with reference to H. Simon: Administrative Behavior. 2nd ed. Free Press: New York 1965, 9.
Cf. Meulenbergs (2000), 32.
Spencer, Mills, Rorty, and Werhane (2000), 27.
Boyle, DuBose, Ellingson, Guinn, and McCurdy (2001), 190.
Pinckaers (1995), 355, uses the example of a piano in order to illustrate real freedom: “Of course anyone is free to bang out notes haphazardly on the piano, as the fancy strikes him. But this is a rudimentary, savage sort of freedom. It cloaks an incapacity to play even the simplest pieces accurately and well. On the other hand, the person who really possesses the art of playing the piano has acquired a new freedom. (…) His musical freedom could be described as the gradually acquired ability to execute works of his choice with perfection. It is based on natural dispositions and a talent developed and stabilized by means of regular, progressive exercises, or properly speaking, a habitus.”
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrechtts
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reuter, L. (2003). Biotechnology and Human Agency. In: Modern Biotechnology in Postmodern Times?. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1015-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1015-3_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-3768-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1015-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive