Biotechnology and the Integrity of Life

There are things that can be done and are done to life on earth (whether it be human, animal or plant life) which, even if they do not involve or produce any suffering, are still considered morally wrong by a large proportion of the public. Such things include changing the nature of living beings by means of genetic engineering in order to enhance their health, or, more likely with animals and plants, their utility, or impairing their ability to live autonomously, or unduly instrumentalizing them.Yet many scientists are puzzled about the unwillingness of the public to feel much enthusiasm about a technology that, in their view, promises great benefits to humans and does not seem to cause more harm to animals than other practices which most of us do not question at all.In this book, Michael Hauskeller takes public fears seriously and offers the idea of 'biological integrity' as a clarifying principle which can then be analyzed to show that seemingly irrational public concerns about genetic engineering are not so irrational after all and that a philosophically sound justification of those concerns can indeed be given.

ISBN 0754660443   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9780754660446 (What's this?)   Pages 230 Publisher Ashgate Publishing Group   Volumes 001 Imprint Ashgate Publishing Limited   Published in Aldershot Format Hardback   Series title Ashgate Studies in Applied Ethics Publication date 28 Nov 2007   Height (mm) 234 Library of Congress TP248.23   Width (mm) 156 DEWEY 174.957   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate

		Acknowledgements
1		Introduction		1
2		Tampering with Nature		7
3		Integrity and Dignity		19
4		Types and Forms of Integrity		29
5		Platonic Justice and Aristotelian Virtue		41
6		Telos		49
7		Integrity as Bonitas		61
8		Faith and Morality		77
9		Integrity and the Reification of Life		91
10		Genetic Essentialism		103
11		Moral and Aesthetic Concerns		117
12		Moral Disgust		129
		Bibliography		151
		Index		163

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