Food and Agricultural Biotechnology: Incorporating Ethical Considerations
Prepared for the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee, Oct. 18, 2000
Paul B. Thompson
Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1360 USA
pault@purdue.edu
This paper provides a framework for understanding the range of ethical concerns and for appreciating the value judgments that underlie conflicting opinions on the ethical responsibilities associated with food and agricultural biotechnology. The range of ethical concerns that have been or might be raised in connection with food and agricultural biotechnology displays considerable complexity. It is impossible to do full justice to this range in a paper of this length. The goal is rather to provide readers with a way of appreciating the multiple bases of ethical concern, and to sketch the types of argument that would be deployed in interpreting and developing each area of concern more fully.
Three broad types of concern can be distinguished. First, it is possible that the use of gene technology is itself the basis of concern, that there is something about the manipulation of living matter at the genetic level that is of ethical concern. Second, it is possible that gene technology is of ethical concern because it poses risks to animal, environmental and human interests, including not only individual health and safety, but also economic and social considerations. One would expect that concerns in the first category would not arise in connection with conventional chemical, mechanical and breeding technologies used in food and agriculture, while concerns arising in the second category would be generally applicable. Finally, there are ethical concerns that relate less to the products or processes of food and agricultural biotechnology than to the social institutions that develop, promote and regulate these technologies. It has been suggested that these institutions are suffering from a deficit of public trust. The final section of the paper discusses the ethical dimensions of this problem.
Because other papers in the Industry Canada initiative will address environmental and food safety risk, as well as intellectual property, this paper does not include any technical, legal or regulatory discussion of these issues. These issues are discussed solely in light of the ethical concerns that are raised in connection with them. The analysis and opinion expressed in this paper is solely the responsibility of the author. The paper includes a summary of analysis published in the author’s 1997 book, Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective, and substantial discussion and interpretation of events and concerns that have come to light since that work was completed.