Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
touch on cloning, reproductive choices, or economic justice, but as exam-
ples and not as the purpose of the argument. Throughout, the focus
remains on the question of what it is to be human and how just think-
ing about bioengineering alters our self-understanding. Clearly, if the
success of the conference is any indication, there exists today an intel-
lectual hunger to address in a public way the array of ontological and
human issues clustered around bioengineering. The potential impact of
these powerful technologies on humans whom we will never and can
never know is so profound and far-reaching that the old disciplinary con-
straints can now only be seen as archaic and counterproductive. It is our
hope that this collection will help to establish a model for addressing
bioethical issues that finally razes these traditional barriers, and in doing
so, moves the academy into the space of public discourse where the
decisions about these vital matters will ultimately be made.
Tim Casey introduces this collection by laying out what he sees as the
historical and philosophical context within which we can make sense of
genetic engineering as the ultimate chapter in the ongoing Western
project of subduing nature for human ends. “Nature, Technology, and
the Emergence of Cybernetic Humanity” argues that despite the novelty
of genetic enhancement, this new technology remains part of a tradition
whose arc is discernible in certain key events over the last millennium.
In particular, he focuses our attention on the metaphysical dualism
arising out of modern science and its roots in a medieval technological
revolution informed by both increasing mechanization and an under-
lying Christian anthropocentrism that initiated a new feel for matter.
Here the seeds were sown for both the Galilean mathematicization of
nature and the technological rationale for Galileo's new physics. Casey
reminds us that the Cartesian reaction to this science resulted in a
dualism intended to preserve human freedom in the face of a mechanis-
tic determinism inherent in a clockwork universe. But more than this, he
argues that out of the Cartesian compromise with Galilean science arose
a productionist metaphysics whose scientific and technological hallmark
was and remains the suppression of spontaneity, choice, and ultimately,
any hint of indeterminacy in the natural world. The radical sense of dis-
placement ushered in by this suppression can be gauged by more recent
attempts to move beyond what are perceived as antiquated conceptions
of human nature.
