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9 What’s Wrong with Genetic Engineering? Ethics, Socioscientific Issues, and Education 133

Notice how our discussion has led us back to consequential ethics; we have
reentered the realm of the “problematic aspects” and unintended effects of biotechnol-
ogy. This breach into the consequentialist paradigm supports my larger argument
(which I will get to soon) about the educational value of emphasizing both ethical
theories. For now, I will continue to raise deontological questions not because I
have the answers, but because they are fundamental to ask to cultivate the sociosci-
entific reasoning that Mueller and Zeidler describe in their chapter. It is the ques-
tions, I believe, that are of educational interest.

Respect for (Human) Persons

In general, nonconsequentialists build their ethic around the principle of the equal
respect for persons and violating this principle is another potential rationale for the
universal wrongness of bioengineering. The principle postulates that human beings
have inherent moral worth because we are rational, responsible, and autonomous
beings. As such, persons are to treat each other as moral agents, worthy of respect,
as ends in themselves and never as means to an end (Kant 1785/1981). Let us now
apply this principle to genetic manipulation.
Similar to the principle of the inviolability of nature, this one too entails disputable
overtones and requires some questioning of its basic assertions. What constitutes
personhood? Are there degrees of personhood, or is there a line of demarcation that
we can draw between “person” and “nonperson”? What does it mean to be a “rational”
and “autonomous” being? Are human beings the only “persons?” Prior to the last
30 years, the answers to these questions were fairly straightforward. However, as
we better understand the mental, emotional, and social lives of other nonhuman
species (especially of other great apes) traditional conceptions of personhood are
increasingly being challenged. In fact, some applied ethicists and scientists ascribe
personhood, or at least a certain degree of personhood, beyond humanity (Cavalieri
and Singer 1994). But for the sake of space and argument, I will assume that the
only persons are human beings.
If geneticists are able to conjure up new species by varying the genomes of a
plant, a mouse, or a pig, what is to stop them from doing the same with human
beings? For many, this seems unethical, perhaps outright terrifying. The manufacturing
of human beings in labs defies our sentiments about human dignity and challenges
our unique moral place in the world. So how, then, do we conceptually assess this
question of human genetic control? To begin, if humans were to become subjects of
bioengineering – say, scientists began to clone humans – then this would amount to
the violation of the equal respect for persons’ principle. Some theological scholars,
for example, argue that technologies such as embryonic research and cloning “dep-
ersonalize” the human individual by inventing or manufacturing merely “products,”
not free and dignified human persons (Shannon 2000). Deontologically speaking, it
is irrelevant whether biogenetics is used for a good purpose or an evil purpose