The Ethics of Biotechnology

Before the last half of the 20th century, few people paid attention to the ethics of technological advancement. Technology was thought to be good, and the only real consideration was its effectiveness. And by and large, technology has proved to be of great benefit.

David Chien

Modern society has more efficient tools, greater access to widespread communications, and a broader range of ways to take advantage of personal potentials. We’ve even eradicated, or nearly so, many diseases. Just a century ago, Houston was periodically ravaged by smallpox epidemics, polio was prevalent, cancer was a sure killer, and you could forget it if you needed any but the most rudimentary surgery.

However, technology has had its unforeseen results—pollution, for example—not to mention outright technological failures such as Chernobyl. These have caused people to voice questions about the moral implications of new technologies. Lately, the debate has taken a more profound tack with the advent of genetic enhancement of agricultural products, cloning, stem cell research, and the distinct possibility of artificially enhancing humans through genetics, computerized implants, or both.

Certainly Rice University is at the forefront of research that promises to profoundly alter human life. And just as researchers here are interested in the capabilities and promises of technology, they also are concerned about its less-reassuring aspects. Naturally, some of the questions about those center on the ways in which religious convictions affect moral judgments about biological advances and the ways those judgments influence public policy.

To seek answers to these questions, Rice has formed the Program on Biotechnology, Religion, and Ethics, which is sponsored by the Departments of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies and directed by Andrew Lustig, an assistant professor in Baylor’s Departments of Medicine and Community Medicine; a research fellow at the Institute of Religion in the Texas Medical Center; and an assistant professor in Rice’s Center for Ethics, Medicine, and Public Issues.

The program provides a forum to examine and discuss the historical and contemporary significance of religious and ethical thought for emerging issues in biotechnology. One strong current of research in the program focuses on religious and ethical appeals to nature or the natural as a norm in public debates over biotechnology. “People often describe biotechnological advances as natural or unnatural interventions,” Lustig says. “Nevertheless, it is unclear how those labels in and of themselves influence moral judgment about particular issues.”

The researchers are interested in ethical concerns involved in five areas of biotechnology: assisted reproduction, human enhancement, hybridization, biodiversity, and agricultural/human husbandry. To address these issues, the Program on Biotechnology, Religion, and Ethics has teamed with the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine to produce a study titled “Altering Nature: How Religious Traditions Assess the New Biotechnologies.”

The new study recently received its first funding award—a $1 million grant from the Ford Foundation. “The national debate about biotechnology research and policy is profoundly influenced by Western religious and cultural understandings of nature,” says Constance H. Buchanan, senior program officer for religion, society, and culture at the Ford Foundation. “Until now, these have not been the subject of rigorous, comparative study. This undertaking promises to produce important new insights into the moral implications of biotechnology.”

The grant will be used to convene groups of scholars at annual conferences, publish three books summarizing the research, provide briefing documents for the media, and develop a website.

—Christopher Dow