Steven,
I think your main argument of what's ethical in evolution and what's not
could be taken further to incorporate the morality (or not) of the
INCENTIVE behind any action that would affect evolution.
I expect that you will say that the incentive FOR PROFIT could be
justifiable on ethical grounds like any utalitarian action in nature?
(but if yes, what are we doing here?)
Maria-Stella
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 3:03 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: GE and politics
>
>
> In a message dated 99-10-05 11:40:34 EDT, Steve Bissell writes:
>
> << I think that this is the problem with environmental politics and one for
> which environmental ethics should be able to supply an answer. Is there a
> moral issue here? I've been asking this for the past couple of weeks and so
> far all I'm getting is that there is a potential for some sort of undefined
> harm from GE or GM crops. All right, if that is the case, so what? Have we
> decided that all potential harm is the issue? That poses a whole set of
> problems. Life is impossible without changing the environment and all
> change
> has the potential of harm. Is some sort of biological stasis the goal of
> environmental ethics? >>
>
> LM Dangutis replies :)
>
> Perhaps its not the GM or GE crops, we all have problems with. But the
> fact
> we are playing with evolution itself. In the 1990's research has come to a
> sort of new for front. I think my problem with all this from a moral point
> of view
> is that I don't think we have enough understanding of genetic procceses to
> fully
> carry out these procceses. If there is a moral question, it may lay in the
> pace of which we design and use technology. A new wonder drug a week, or a
> plant
> to make wire. The problem is the designs and use of technology in my
> opionion.
>
> Bissell here; I'm not sure what you mean by "playing with evolution."
> Evolution is not directed at some metaphysical goal of perfection. There are
> probably as many examples of disaster in evolution as success, at least in
> geologic time. Dinosaurs come to mind. Also I think that statement implies
> that there is some "outside" force working through evolution and thus the
> moral dilemma. If I believed in directed evolution I'd agree, but I don't.
> Evolution is undirected and blind as to consequences. If, for example, the
> GM scientists find a way of making plants resistant to insects, that's
> exactly what evolutionary process has done in a large number of plants. So,
> why is it a moral issue for scientists to rationally produce insect
> resistant plants and "natural" for it to occur through evolution? The
> consequence is the same in any case.
>
> The issue, then, is technology and a basic discomfort with science. That may
> be rational or not, but it is not a moral issue. I'm very uncomfortable with
> some aspects of technology, but that does not allow me to condemn all
> technology as morally suspicious. I think that the idea that because
> technology is advancing at a certain pace is the issue is a bit problematic
> as well. At any point in history, change was probably occurring at a pace
> too fast for many segments of society. That is hardly a new thing. My
> grandfather, who died in the 1950s, never rode in a car in his life. He used
> a horse drawn wagon. I never had a "store bought" shirt until I was 14 years
> old, my mother made all my clothes. Now I'm sitting here writing this on a
> computer, which if the Nazis had possessed in the 1930s we'd all be speaking
> German.
>
> I'm *not* an advocate of GE or GM or "messing with mother nature," but I
> still don't see it as a moral issue rising to the level which justifies all
> the attention it is getting.
>
> sb
>
> http://www.du.edu/~sbissell
> What we lost with that wild, primal existence
> was a way of being for which the era of
> agriculture and civilization lacks counterpoise.
> Human life is the poorer for it.
> Paul Shepard
>
>
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