Introduction to Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene Editing

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Erik Parens ◽  
Josephine Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Science Policy ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing

In 2015, in the journal Science, a highly regarded group of scientists, science policy experts, and ethicists called for a public conversation about the ethical questions raised by a new technology that could be used to alter the genomes of human beings.1 Among these ethical questions were ones regarding safety. Most simply, could the new technology be deployed without posing an unreasonable risk of causing physical harms? The authors of the commentary in ...

CRISPR Technology Cracking into Creation

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-148
Author(s):  
Alacia J Tarpley
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Debate ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Medical Directors ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Many ◽  
Creation Of Life

Medical directors of life and disability companies need to be aware of CRISPR technology and how it has beneficial and potential detrimental impacts to our industry. Clustered Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is only 7 years old, but we are already seeing human clinical trials underway with this powerful but elegantly simple gene editing technology. It has the potential to revolutionize medicine and will bring human beings into an ethical debate like none other including the creation of life itself. This article will give the background of the development of this new technology, the ways that it is currently being used and the many areas of technology and medicine that will be transformed by its use. This article will also touch on the ethical debate that will need to be addressed as this technology becomes more readily available and used in research labs around the globe.

Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene Editing

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Editing ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
New Gene ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Potential Use

The potential use of CRISPR-Cas9 and other new gene editing technologies to alter the DNA of human beings raises a host of questions. Some questions are about safety: Can these technologies be deployed without posing an unreasonable risk of physical harm to current and future generations? Can all physical risks be adequately assessed and responsibly managed? Gene editing technologies also raise other, equally if not more difficult, questions that touch on deeply held, personal, cultural, and societal values: Might such technologies redefine what it means to be healthy, normal, or cherished? Might they undermine relationships between parents and children or exacerbate the gap between the haves and have-nots? The broadest form of this second kind of question about the impact of gene editing on values is the focus of this book: What might gene editing—and related technologies—mean for human flourishing? An interdisciplinary group of scholars asks age-old questions about the nature and well-being of humans in the context of revolutionary new biotechnology that has the potential to change the genetic makeup of both existing people and future generations. These authors aim to help readers engage in a conversation about the ethics of gene editing. It is through this conversation that citizens can influence laws and the distribution of funding for science and medicine; that professional leaders can shape understanding and use of gene editing and related technologies by scientists, patients, and practitioners; and that individuals can make decisions about their own lives and the lives of their families.

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

scholarly journals Using Imagination to Overcome Fear: How Mental Simulation Nudges Consumers’ Purchase Intentions for Upcycled Food

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1130
Author(s):  
Xiaoke Yang ◽  
Yuanhao Huang ◽  
Xiaoying Cai ◽  
Yijing Song ◽  
Hui Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Product Evaluation ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Purchase Intentions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
Simulation Group ◽  
Future Self

Upcycled food, a new kind of food, provides an effective solution to reduce the food waste from the source on the premise of food security for human beings. However, the commercial success of upcycled food and its contribution to environmental sustainability are determined by consumers’ purchase intentions. In order to overcome consumers’ unfamiliarity with upcycled food and fear of new technology, based on the cue utility theory, we adopted scenario simulation through online questionnaires in three experiments to explore how mental simulation can improve consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intentions for upcycled food. Through ANOVA, the t-test, and the Bootstrap methods, the results showed that, compared with the control group, consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intentions for upcycled food in the mental simulation group significantly increased. Among them, consumers’ inspiration played a mediation role. The consumers’ future self-continuity could moderate the effect of mental simulation on consumers’ purchase intentions for upcycled food. The higher the consumers’ future self-continuity, the stronger the effect of mental simulation. Based on the above results, in the marketing promotion of upcycled food, promotional methods, such as slogans and posters, could be used to stimulate consumers, especially the mental simulation thinking mode of consumer groups with high future self-continuity, thus improving consumers’ purchase intentions for upcycled food.

scholarly journals A Framework for Authentic Ethical Decision Making in the Face of Grand Challenges: A Lonerganian Gradation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Larres ◽  
Martin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Invariant Structure ◽  
Grand Challenges

AbstractThis paper contributes to the contemporary business ethics narrative by proposing an approach to corporate ethical decision making (EDM) which serves as an alternative to the imposition of codes and standards to address the ethical consequences of grand challenges, like COVID-19, which are impacting today’s society. Our alternative approach to EDM embraces the concept of reflexive thinking and ethical consciousness among the individual agents who collectively are the corporation and who make ethical decisions, often in isolation, removed from the collocated corporate setting. We draw on the teachings of the Canadian philosopher and theologian, Fr. Bernard Lonergan, to conceptualize an approach to EDM which focuses on the ethics of the corporate agent by nurturing the universal and invariant structure that is operational in all human beings. Embracing Lonergan’s dynamic cognitive structure of human knowing, and the structure of the human good, we advance a paradigm of EDM in business which emboldens authentic ethical thought, decision making, and action commensurate with virtuous living and germane to human flourishing. Lonergan’s philosophy guides us away from the imposition of over-arching corporate codes of ethics and inspires us, as individual agents, to attend to the data of our own consciousness in our ethical decision making. Such cognitional endowment leads us out of the ethics of the ‘timeless present’ (Islam and Greenwood in Journal of Business Ethics 170: 1–4, 2021) towards ethical authenticity in business, leaving us better placed to reflect upon and address the ethical issues emanating from grand challenges like COVID-19.

scholarly journals 人工智能批判的話語悖論

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-137
Author(s):  
Fen LIN
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Medical Accident ◽  
The Relationship

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract in English only.In the dominant discourse of the "human–machine relationship," people and machines are the subjects, with a mutually shaping influence. However, this framework neglects the crux of the current critical analysis of AI. It reduces the problems with new technology to the relationship between people and machines, ignoring the re-shaping of the relationship between "people and people" in the era of new technology. This simplification may mislead policy and legal regulations for new technologies. Why would a robot killing cause more panic than a murder committed by a human? Why is a robot's misdiagnosis more troubling than a doctor's? Why do patients assume that machines make more accurate diagnoses than doctors? When a medical accident occurs, who is responsible for the mistakes of an intelligent medical system? In the framework of traditional professionalism, the relationship between doctors and patients, whether trusted or not, is based on the premise that doctors have specialized knowledge that patients do not possess. Therefore, the authority of a doctor is the authority of knowledge. In the age of intelligence, do machines provide information or knowledge? Can this strengthen or weaken the authority of doctors? It is likely that in the age of intelligence, the professionalism, authority and trustworthiness of doctors require a new knowledge base. Therefore, the de-skilling of doctors is not an issue of individual doctors, but demands an update of the knowledge of the entire industry. Recognizing this, policy makers must not focus solely on the use of machines, but take a wider perspective, considering how to promote the development of doctors and coordinate the relationship between doctors with different levels of knowledge development. We often ask, "In the era of intelligence, what defines a human?" This philosophical thinking should be directed toward not only the difference between machines and people as individuals, but also how the relationship between human beings, i.e., the social nature of humans, evolves in different technological environments. In short, this commentary stresses that a "good" machine or an "evil" machine—beyond the sci-fi romance of such discourse—reflects the evolution of the relationships between people. In today's smart age, the critical issue is not the relationship between people and machines. It is how people adjust their relationships with other people as machines become necessary tools in life. In the era of intelligence, therefore, our legislation, policy and ethical discussion should resume their focus on evolutionary relationships between people.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 41 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

The Ethical Challenges of Gene Editing

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (12) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Jozef Zalot ◽  
Tadeusz Pacholczyk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Genetic Diseases ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Human Embryos ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Oregon Health ◽  
Life Threatening

In August 2017, researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University announced that they had successfully used a gene editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9 to repair disease-causing genes in human embryos. Some members of the scientific and medical communities have hailed the development as a way to ensure that life- threatening diseases are not passed on to future generations. But is gene editing always a good thing? The Catholic Church encourages scientific research that is ethical and serves the human good. In the future, CRISPR may be used to treat people with serious genetic diseases, such as hemophilia and sickle-cell anemia. However, for research on human beings to be ethical, it must be strictly therapeutic and must respect the dignity and sacredness of human life. Gene-editing techniques raise profound ethical challenges in both respects.

Bioethics Contra Biopower

2019 ◽  
pp. 247-266
Author(s):  
Bruce Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
Genomic Editing

This chapter engages two issues as they bear on genomic editing and the effects of biotechnology on human well-being: (1) how technology influences a reductionistic and manipulative understanding of biopower and biopolitics, fundamentally at odds with the worldview of bioethical humanism; and (2) how the reconceptualization of human flourishing in capability theories of justice bears on the ethics of biotechnology. The argument of this chapter appeals to a relational or “ecological” humanism that will assist bioethics in developing a critique of the technologies and knowledges of molecular reductionism. In the perspective of relational humanism, human beings are empowered as subjects of value and agents of self-realization, and mutual relations of interdependence and solidarity are affirmed. Along these lines, a reframed debate concerning the governance of biopower and the promotion of just human flourishing in an age of biotechnology can take place.

The Nursery of Life

2030 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger van Santen ◽  
Djan Khoe ◽  
Bram Vermeer
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Cost Of Health Care ◽  
Precise Diagnosis ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Prompt Diagnosis

Human beings are much more complex than any technology we could devise today. How many machines are good for 80 or 90 years of service? Our immune system—set up at birth—is able to repel diseases that don’t even exist yet. Most viruses that proliferate 50 years after we were born can be defeated just as easily as maladies that have been dogging humans for generations. Effective health care means that—in most regions of the planet—we are living longer and longer. All the same, human beings are not perfect: We get sick and we wear out over time. In the wealthier regions, we spend a great deal of money trying to get as close as possible to a 100-year span. Our greatest task is to bring a long and healthy life within the reach of as many people as possible. New technology is required to hold down the cost of health care, to nip outbreaks of disease in the bud, and to ease discomfort in our old age. Scientists believe that substantial benefits can be gained by identifying abnormalities earlier. A cancerous growth measuring just a few millimeters is still relatively harmless, and an infection caught in its early stages won’t leave any scars. Although techniques for accurately diagnosing incipient abnormalities can often be very expensive, prompt diagnosis generally means that treatment will be easier, cheaper, and more likely to succeed. Thus, we can end up saving money despite the need for expensive equipment. To adequately fight the outbreak of diseases in the future, our technology must be able to respond more rapidly. This could pose a particular challenge because there is also a trend at present toward superspecialization, which is fragmenting medical knowledge and slowing down responses. Take the science of ophthalmology in which the various specializations focus on extremely specific parts of the eye. This is fine once a precise diagnosis has been made, but it could be a significant problem if the patient consults the wrong doctor at the outset. The way we currently approach diagnosis needs to change.

Water for Life

2030 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger van Santen ◽  
Djan Khoe ◽  
Bram Vermeer
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Sewer System ◽  
Cattle Feed ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Basic Sanitation ◽  
Rain Fall ◽  
State Of Affairs

Over a billion people don’t have access to a safe water supply. And a third of the world’s population lacks basic sanitation with the result that more than 2 billion human beings are afflicted with infections that result in diarrhea and other diseases. Tens of millions of them die every year. Improving this state of affairs poses a massive challenge. Take sanitation: What if we could provide basic facilities for all those people over the next 20 years? You’d have to hook them up to the sewer system at the rate of half a million a day. We know how to install individual toilets and sewage pipes, but a project on that kind of scale is way beyond our capabilities. It would not only require new technology but a huge amount of money and political will, too. The challenges for providing all humanity with access to clean water are similarly gigantic. It’s not a matter of scarcity. There is enough drinking water for everyone on Earth even as its population continues to grow. According to the United Nations, a human being needs 20 liters of drinking water a day to live healthily. Every year, 100,000 cubic kilometers of rain fall on the earth, which translates into 40,000 liters per person per day. That would be plenty even if you only manage to tap a tiny fraction. Sufficient drinking water is available for all even in the driest regions of the earth. The problem is one of quality: People don’t die of thirst; they die from drinking water that’s not safe. The use of water for agriculture is another story. Roughly 70 percent of the human use of fresh water is for farming. People rarely realize just how much water agriculture requires. It takes 1,000 liters to grow the wheat for a single kilogram of fl our, for instance. Other products soak up even larger amounts of water. A kilogram of coffee needs 20,000 liters, and a liter of milk takes 3,000—mostly for the cattle feed and the grass consumed by the cow.

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