Page 153 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

130 B.D. Rowe

arrived at a conclusive judgment concerning the morality of genetic manipulation.
My primary concern is the enrichment of classroom discourse and how asking certain
questions can change us, even though we may not find any clear answers. In effect,
this response should be regarded as a thought experiment that illuminates the educa-
tional fruitfulness of synthesizing different ethical theories.

Nonconsequentialism and Bioengineering

Is the act of genetic modification intrinsically wrong, regardless of any unwanted
environmental or social effects? I believe this question is crucial to ask for at least
two reasons. First, it is educative in that it enriches “functional scientific literacy,”
as defined by Mueller and Zeidler, by invoking “a spectrum of reasoning” to better
analyze moral and scientific concepts when “considering our obligations to the life
proper and the physical world we inhabit” (pp. 3, 9). And second, inquiry into the
inherent morality of genetic manipulation seems lost among eco-educational narratives
that mostly deal with the consequences that result from human interaction with the
natural world. For these two reasons, let us now turn to the ethics surrounding the
immediate practice of biogenetic technology and frame our analysis within a different,
yet equally germane, theoretical paradigm.
Opposite of consequentialism stands nonconsequentialism, or deontology,
which is a way of thinking about ethics that is chiefly concerned with the intrinsic
moral worth of actions. Ultimately, many contemporary nonconsequentialists
(Habermas 1990), following Immanuel Kant, aim to judge actions as inherently
right or wrong based on the criterion of universality – an action is permissible if
everyone could do it without conceptual or practical contradiction. The focus of
philosophic inquiry should remain on the action itself, not upon its consequences.
While it is the careful mulling over of outcomes that impels utilitarian thinking, it
is identifying some sort of moral rules or principles to guide conduct that drives
nonconsequentialist thinking. As we will soon see, when we turn a deontological
eye toward GMOs, and thus switch our focus from the many threats posed by
bioengineering to the very act itself, things become hazier as we are forced to
wrestle with ethical problems from a notably different vantage point.

Dichotomous Thinking, Genetic Engineering,
and the Inviolability of Nature

In his book The Frankenstein Syndrome, Bernard Rollin (1995), philosopher, animal
and biomedical scientist, and bioethicist, identifies a number of possible reasons
why people are quick to judge genetic engineering as prima facie wrong. He finds
that one of the more popular reasons is the nature/culture dichotomy – an “age-old
metaphysical dualism” that continues to fuel an erroneous perception amidst the