Skip to main content

Blog Article

The Ethics and Morality of Modern Biotechnology

Scientists are pondering ways to balance the immense potential of biotechnology, while also being responsible morally and ethically.

Published April 1, 2002

By Fred Moreno, Dana Van Atta, Jill Stolarik, and Jennifer Tang
Academy Contributors

Image courtesy of Panupat via stock.adobe.com.

Embryonic stem cell research. Cloning. Prenatal genetic screening. Genetically modified foods. What used to be thought of as impossible is not only probable — it’s now being done.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to develop regulations to ensure that today’s tools of the life sciences –– and those surely to be developed in the future –– are used for the betterment of mankind, not for our demise. These issues were the focus of a talk by Francis Fukuyama, PhD, called The Political Control of Human Biotechnology: National and International Governance Issues, held on March 4 at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy).

“We’re on the cusp of a major period of advance in biology,” said Fukuyama, Bernard Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, who is well known for his 1993 book The End of History and the Last Man. “We really need to start thinking seriously about a very different kind of governance structure for human biotechnology so that we’ll benefit from the great good that it promises, but also avoid some of the ethical and moral aspects of that revolution.”

Fukuyama identified four areas of pronounced advances –– discussed below –– that raise broad issues and concerns.

The Cognitive Revolution

Francis Fukuyama, PhD

How much of human behavior can be explained by genes? By the middle of the 20th century, both the social and life sciences had agreed that culture influences human behavior more than does nature. But a revolution in the life sciences later ensued, generating the field of behavioral genetics. Studies were conducted comparing the behaviors of monozygotic twins who were raised in different environments to determine how much of an individual’s personality, intelligence and other traits could be attributed to genetic makeup.

These investigations triggered a great deal of controversy. “People don’t like to be told that genes determine any part of their behavior,” said Fukuyama. But he said modern biology has even more controversies in store.

“In the next generation, we won’t have to rely only on behavioral genetics to uncover connections between genes and behavior,” he noted. “We’ll start to uncover molecular pathways that exist between certain alleles and behavioral variations. I don’t know what the outcome will be,” continued Fukuyama, “but with the discovery of causal mechanisms linking genes and behavior, it would potentially open these (molecular) pathways to manipulation.”

Neuropharmacology

A struggle for recognition, driven by feelings of status and worth, is the basis for all political behavior, Fukuyama said. “A lot of this is related to the dignity and self-worth that human beings have been programmed by evolution to feel, and that’s the way we sort ourselves out in society.”

By providing a “medical shortcut” to alter these feelings, Fukuyama noted, psychotropic drugs may have important consequences for control of both individual and political behavior. Drugs such as Prozac, for example, work by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin in the brain. And serotonin determines feelings such as dignity and worth.

Ritalin is of even greater ethical concern. It is prescribed for the control of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), “a squishy diagnosis, and a perfect example of a socially constructed disease that wasn’t even recognized two or three generations ago,” said Fukuyama. While the drug has indeed been beneficial for many children, there are others for whom ADHD is merely the tail of the normal distribution of behavior.

Fukuyama noted that drugs like Ritalin alter what we regard as the foundation of virtue and character. “If we believe that human character is formed out of the ability to overcome adversity through training and self-mastery of one’s impulses, what we’ve done is create a medical shortcut around this.”

And psychotropic drugs like Prozac and Ritalin are only the tip of the iceberg, he added. In the next generation, new drugs may be created that will improve memory and increase the threshold for pain.

Life Extension

It’s already happening today: The birth rate in Japan and many European countries is declining, while the ratio of older citizens to younger ones is increasing. Some European nations are witnessing a decrease of more than 1 percent of their populations each year. And the size of Japan’s work force peaked in 1998.

Medical advances in the next half-century may add years, if not decades, to the human life span. But even without these advances, such age shifts are destined to have a profound impact on national economies. For one thing, where will the money come from to pay all of these retirees their social security pensions?

Another area to feel an impact is foreign policy, explained Fukuyama. In the next 50 years, Europe and Japan will be full of older individuals, while most developing nations will have populations where the median age is in the low 20s. To keep their economies going, Europe and Japan will have to import workers from developing countries to supplement their work forces. “These workers will be culturally different,” noted Fukuyama. “Those countries that can successfully assimilate people from different backgrounds will do the best.”

Moreover, Fukuyama asserted that dramatic age shifts at the population level will have an enormous impact on the creation of new ideas. “Generational turnover is absolutely critical to innovation and social change,” he said.

Genetic Engineering

Technologies are available that enable doctors to screen embryos for genes linked to certain diseases, select one lacking the errant genes and implant it in a woman to ensure the development of a relatively healthy baby. The combination of these technologies with the eventual discovery of genes for such traits as height and intelligence may open a Pandora’s box of possibilities for “designer humans.”

But just because we’ll have the ability to accomplish this doesn’t mean we should. “Human rights depend on human nature,” said Fukuyama. “If you have a technology that is powerful enough to change the underlying essence of what human beings are, then we will inevitably change the nature of those rights. There’s too much casualness about redesigning human beings and improving them genetically.”

A New Public Policy

So how do we regulate such technology to ensure that it’s put to the best use? Fukuyama asserted that current regulatory bodies, such as Congress, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration, “are completely inadequate to deal with the choices we’ll have to face in the future. Legislative bans on broad areas of science and technology are not an appropriate model. We need a better regulatory structure.”

International regulation is another possibility, but such governance must be created – and succeed – on a national level first. One promising effort is establishment of the 17-member President’s Council on Bioethics, which held its first meeting last January – with Fukuyama as a member – but this is a deliberative and advisory body with no regulatory function.

“In addition to debating moral and philosophical issues,” concluded Fukuyama, “we can now begin a very concrete discussion about how we can make use of what is obviously a tremendously valuable and promising set of technologies – but have them work in ways that help humans to flourish, rather than the reverse.”

Also read: Agricultural Biotechnology in Developing Countries


Author

Image
Contributing Author