Philosophy & Ethics – Lecture 6 (30-05-2018): Biotechnology and bioethics
First:
- Natural history (Aristotle – 1800)
- Biology (±1800)
- After 1945:
o Molecular life sciences
o Life Science
o Biotechnology
Jacques Loeb (1859-1924):
- Rockefeller institute for medical research in NY (1901)
- Biology = biotechnology
- ‘The goal of biology is not to understand but to control and improve life’
- ‘Artificial parthenogenesis’ (artificial life in vitro) sexuality without
reproduction / artificial life without sexuality.
Nature = raw material to be transformed by the power of biology. Nature provides
only a very restricted set of options (e.g. reproduction)
Biology = technology, an active science. The biologist is an engineer.
Technical control of life is possible and desirable
The goal is not to understand nature but to create something better, to move beyond
the distinction between the normal and the pathological.
For Loeb the ultimate goal of biology was creation of life in the laboratory
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900):
- Will to knowledge = will to power
- Darwin (survival) growth, expansion, reinforcement, amplification.
Guillaume Friedrich Wilhelm Hagel:
Had a similar view as Nietzche.
Biology is no longer simply describing nature.
Transforming the object:
- Scientific research entails negativity, it ‘negates’ the visible, tangible, living
organism as a whole (as a Gestalt) to reveal the inner structure, forces and
processes.
Transformation from matter to molecule. Shift from the organism as a whole, to the
basic components which can be described in terms of chemical formula, which can
be controlled/manipulated.
1953:
Watson & Crick discovered the structure of DNA.
First:
- Natural history (Aristotle – 1800)
- Biology (±1800)
- After 1945:
o Molecular life sciences
o Life Science
o Biotechnology
Jacques Loeb (1859-1924):
- Rockefeller institute for medical research in NY (1901)
- Biology = biotechnology
- ‘The goal of biology is not to understand but to control and improve life’
- ‘Artificial parthenogenesis’ (artificial life in vitro) sexuality without
reproduction / artificial life without sexuality.
Nature = raw material to be transformed by the power of biology. Nature provides
only a very restricted set of options (e.g. reproduction)
Biology = technology, an active science. The biologist is an engineer.
Technical control of life is possible and desirable
The goal is not to understand nature but to create something better, to move beyond
the distinction between the normal and the pathological.
For Loeb the ultimate goal of biology was creation of life in the laboratory
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900):
- Will to knowledge = will to power
- Darwin (survival) growth, expansion, reinforcement, amplification.
Guillaume Friedrich Wilhelm Hagel:
Had a similar view as Nietzche.
Biology is no longer simply describing nature.
Transforming the object:
- Scientific research entails negativity, it ‘negates’ the visible, tangible, living
organism as a whole (as a Gestalt) to reveal the inner structure, forces and
processes.
Transformation from matter to molecule. Shift from the organism as a whole, to the
basic components which can be described in terms of chemical formula, which can
be controlled/manipulated.
1953:
Watson & Crick discovered the structure of DNA.
