Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
part of the learning that we do in life, then the elimination of failure has
serious consequences for our understanding of what it means to be
human. We can applaud (and have almost always applauded) the com-
posite who accomplishes his or her individual goals through effort and
good fortune. But we seem not to feel the same way about someone who
has done only what he or she could easily do. A hylomorphic psychol-
ogy suggests that there is a significant difference between a life in which
the composite, the whole composed of matter and form, struggles to
accomplish its goal and a life in which the struggle is prevented by “per-
fecting” the material conditions of that life. In short, there is a differ-
ence between the person and the material cause. In a hylomorphic
metaphysics, the raw material of the body is always subject to some
form—the open question is the source and influence of the form. Will its
source be social expectations and ideals, or the natural entelecheia of
human life and the spontaneity (the energeia) that has been characteris-
tic of human nature?
Genetic engineering affects the body as matter, not the body as form.
In other words, genetic engineering is the manipulation of the body, and
such manipulation works alongside and below the activities of the soul.
As such, genetic engineering is the manipulation of the condition (the
entelecheia) of the human person—that is, a manipulation of its limits.
Matter changes up to a point without changing the substance. The point
where changes in the matter change the substance is a significant issue,
one that presents a discussion of the nature of the death of the individ-
ual or the evolution of the species.
It is important to remember that genetic engineering always influences
the next (and possibly successive) generations. The choices that one
might make regarding the genetic makeup of a future child reflect several
assumptions. Perhaps the most important is the assumption about
progress. To refine a future person's genetic makeup is to improve them
in some way. This sense of improvement rests on a metaphysical pre-
supposition that life moves in a (more or less) straight line; that tomor-
row will be different than today, and it is open to being better or worse.
We are thought to bear responsibility for the future, and for good-
hearted people to shoulder that responsibility is to strive to make tomor-
row better. Given such an intellectual context, the obligation to at least
alleviate disease (that is, germ line therapy) seems compelling.
