Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Aristotle and Genetic Engineering: The
Uncertainty of Excellence
Harold W. Baillie
I am a mystery to myself.
—Saint Augustine
Ethics discussions have a whiff of the tragic to them; to be reflective
about action is, it seems, always to be a bit too late. Like the chorus in
a Greek tragedy, ethicians comment, often wisely, on the action that has
just taken place. Their evaluations are a careful analysis of the events in
hopes of clarifying the future. But, just as the chorus sends the audience
off with the admonition to not do what this fellow did or it will turn
out badly for you as well, so too ethicians admonish their readers to
avoid what seems inevitable.
The discussion of genetics and our understanding of human nature has
this tone to it. There is a sense of wonder when facing the capabilities
of our emerging knowledge of the genome, but we are caught between
an overwhelming anticipation of what that knowledge will enable us
to do and a nagging dread that hidden in that future is the moment of
our self-destruction. Self-destruction, brought about by the hero's own
hopeful ambitions and tragic flaws, remains the key to classic tragedy,
and tragedy's continued hold over us is due to nothing less than our con-
tinued ignorance about who we are and what we are doing.
We live at a time when, for example, cloning sheep and cows is a
reality, and the cloning of humans will occur any day.
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In their efforts to
further both career and knowledge, scientists are pushing inexorably
toward that accomplishment, and the world hangs breathlessly on every
news release. At the same time, voices are raised against such cloning,
from the U.S. president Bill Clinton to Ian Wilmut, the lead scientist
for the team that first successfully cloned a sheep and ushered in the
