Eubios Journal of Asian andInternational Bioethics
EJAIB Vol 16(5) September 2006 ISSN 1173-2571
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Official Journal of the Asian Bioethics Association (ABA)

Contents

page

Editorial: Environmental Ethics and Control
133
Altruism Beyond Con-specifics: The Role of
Nature Religions
134- Abhik Gupta
Tampering with Nature: An “Unended Quest” 140- Arieh Maoz
Agenda 21: Bioethics, Global Warming, and theMuslim World144- Arthur Saniotis and Amru Hydari Nazif
Towards an Embodiment of Environmental Bioethics- Arthur Saniotis
148
Are the Present Day “designer babies” a Threat to
Humankind?”: Response to Minnie Sarah151- Maitraye Basu
Science and Religion
152- K. K. Verma
Designing Humans - Archana Barua
154
Medically Assisted Procreation: Legal Framework
in Portugal
158- Maria Cristina Rosamond Pinto
News in Bioethics & Biotechnology
161
UNESCO Asia-Pacific School of Ethics
160
Asian Bioethics Association (ABA) Board Meeting;General Meeting; Election Notice161
Conferences
163
Ordering Information – enclosed form
Send papers to the editor in electronic form if possible.
Please use reference style used in News section, do not use
automatic footnotes or endnotes. Papers are peer reviewed.
The papers do not represent the views of Eubios Ethics
Institute, which upholds the principles of freedom of
expression.
Editorial address: Prof. Darryl Macer, RUSHSAP, UNESCO
Bangkok, 920 Sukhumvit Rd, Prakanong, Bangkok 10110,
THAILAND
Fax: Int+66-2-664-3772 Email: d.macer@unescobkk.org

Deadline for the November 2006 issue is 15 November,
2006.

Editorial: Environmental Ethics and Control- Darryl Macer, Ph.D.
UNESCO Bangkok, Thailand
In the past few months there have been several
major international bioethics conferences held in East
Asia, including the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Conference on
Bioethics Education, 26-28 July, 2006, Seoul, Korea.
This was a Joint Conference organized by Ewha
Women’s University, the Korean National Commissionof UNESCO and UNESCO Bangkok. A joint action planfor bioethics education was adopted which is available
at the UNESCO Bangkok website. This was soon
followed by the Eighth World Congress of Bioethics andSeventh Asian Bioethics Conference (ABC7), 6-9
August 2006, Beijing, China. There were many experts
in bioethics at the biennial meeting of the International
Association of Bioethics.
Unfortunately
there
were
few
papersonenvironmental ethics, and only one major session on thesubject (which I convened). In this issue of EJAIB there
are a further four papers on the subject, withperspectives from different philosophies and naturereligions in India, from Israel, and from the Muslim
World.
One of the themes that is found in modern
environmental debates is over control of nature. The
same issue of control also is applied to the question ofdesigning humans in later papers in this issue. The
question of control over “natural” processes is central to
ethical reflection, and as evidenced from the papers
here, is approached in different ways in various culturesand between different persons.
Asian Bioethics Association (ABA) members should
read the voting procedures for renewal of the Board, inthe section on ABA in this issue. The announcement will
also be sent to all members by Email. Please note thedeadlines, also for renewal of EJAIB in 2007.

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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

Altruism Beyond Conspecifics: The Role of Nature
Religions- Abhik Gupta, Ph.D.
Dept. of Ecology & Environmental Science
Assam University, Silchar 788 011 Assam, India
Email: agecol@rediffmail.com;
abhikgupta@yahoo.co.uk
Introduction
Altruism, which literally means unselfishness, an
act of benevolence or welfare to others, or in a broader
sense, cooperative behaviour, has stirred theimaginations of philosophers, political scientists,
economists, psychologists and evolutionary biologists
alike. Does altruism come naturally to those living
beings in which it is encountered, or is it an example offreak behaviour? If the latter is true, then why is altruism
encountered in a wide array of organisms ranging fromthe lowly protozoa, to the social insects, to the relatively
highly evolved vertebrates like fishes, birds, mammals,
and among the latter, in humans, who are believed to be
the most highly evolved form of life on planet earth? Cana behaviour that does not promote individual or group
fitness be nurtured and perpetuated by the ruthless andimpersonal process of natural selection?
Altruism posed a stiff challenge to Darwin, so
much so that he described it as an apparently“insuperable” problem, a “special difficulty”, andconsequently “fatal” to his theory of natural selection.
Although Darwin managed to come up with an answer
to this difficulty, it was Hamilton (1964a, 1964b), whomore than 100 years after the publication of the Origin ofSpecies, first came up with an evolutionarily plausible
answer to the riddle of altruism. Briefly stated, Hamilton
argued that altruism would be found more among close
relatives who share a large proportion of genes among
themselves. This theory of kin selection and inclusive
fitness, could, therefore, satisfactorily explain thephenomenon of altruism encountered among social
insects, other animals and among human kin. However,
altruism and cooperation among unrelated individuals
remained largely unresolved, and this was referred to as“the central theoretical problem of sociobiology (Wilson,
1975). Trivers (1971) made a pioneering contribution
towards solving the problem of altruism among nonrelatives through his theory of reciprocal altruism.
Subsequently, Axelrod and Hamilton (1981) showed
through their iterated prisoner’s dilemma game that a
conditionally cooperative strategy called tit for tat (TFT)
could constitute an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS).
However, later studies revealed that a strict TFT might
not be as robust as was earlier believed, although TFTlike strategies appeared to work well (Nowak andSigmund, 1992, 1993). It has also been shown that TFT
and non-cooperative (defecting) strategies could coexist
at equilibrium (Dugatkin and Wilson, 1991; Wilson,
1998). Other proposed pathways to cooperation include
those involving trait-group selection (Wilson, 1975,
1976, 1977; Wilson and Sober, 1994), and by-productmutualism that involves indirect reciprocity (Connor,

1986; Dugatkin, 1997). Another fact that emerged fromseveral studies is that reciprocity, indirect reciprocity andeven kin selection are most effective in promoting
altruism and cooperation in small groups, while
increasing group size hindered cooperation (Aoki, 1983;
Alexander, 1986; Joshi, 1987; Boyd and Richerson,
1988, 1989). It is also increasingly being realized that
cultural transmission via cultural traits or memes is likely
to play a significant role in the evolution anddevelopment of altruism among humans, especiallyunrelated individuals (Dawkins, 1976; Boyd andRicherson, 1982, 1990; Richerson et al., 2003; Delius,
1991). In fact, human altruism exhibits so muchindividual heterogeneity that mere gene-based
evolutionary theories are inadequate to explain
important patterns of human altruism. The roles playedby both cultural evolution and gene-culture co-evolution
need to be emphasized more for explaining theevolution of altruism in human societies (Fehr andFischbacher, 2003). It has also been proposed that
altruistic norms that are not individually fitnessenhancing can nevertheless “hitch-hike” on individuallyfitness-enhancing internal norms and thereby ensure
their transmission and continued survival (Gintis, 2003).
Despite the brilliant expositions on various
dimensions of human altruism provided by the
aforementioned studies as well as many others notreferred to here but included in several major recent
works (Dugatkin, 1997; Stewart, 2000; Richerson et al.,2003), the debate on altruism and cooperation among
unrelated individuals still continues. This is primarily
because human altruism is extensive and diverse, being
characterized by a number of features such as altruism
towards total strangers even in one-shot prisoner’s
dilemma games, the substantial differences in altruism
shown by people belonging to different cultures, as wellas the differences among the cultural institutions
themselves (Richerson et al., 2003).
This paper does not intend to address the problemof human altruism among related or unrelated
individuals. Instead it wishes to analyze, in the light ofthe concepts and theories of evolutionary sociobiology,
yet another dimension of human altruism, that not only
encompasses the non-human living world, but the nonliving components of nature such as rivers, forests,
mountains and the like, especially in the context ofnature religions practiced by many small and indigenous
communities the world over. It also aims to probe thelinkages that exist between evolutionary sociobiology
and normative ethics with relation to the emergence ofecocentric philosophies and lifestyles.
Human Altruism – A Function of Values
Why do humans exhibit altruism towards others,
including non-humans? It is basically because they
assign some value to the receiver that may be a relative,a nonrelative, a non-human plant or animal, or even a
non-living river, a mountain or a forest. Such values
could be of two basic types, viz., extrinsic or
instrumental value, and intrinsic or inherent value.
Extrinsic value derives from the objective properties ofsomething or somebody that has use for others (in thiscase to the doer of an altruistic act) by virtue of its
functions (Martell, 1994). Thus humans can exhibit

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
altruism to another living or non-living entity simply
because they expect some reciprocity, direct or indirect,
for present or for future, from the latter. For instance,
when we protect an animal or a plant, or an ecosystem,or the entire biosphere, guided by the principles ofsustainable development for building a safe andsustainable future for us and/or our progeny, we exhibit
an act of altruism emanating from a sense of assigning
such extrinsic value to these entities. This is because
we expect some reciprocal benefits, direct or indirect, forthe present and/or for the future generations, from these
entities to accrue to us. These altruistic acts to nonhumans are, therefore, essentially anthropocentric. In
contrast to such extrinsic values, an intrinsic value is avalue in itself regardless of its utility for us. For example
we are taught to believe that other human beings have avalue in themselves as conscious intelligent beings
regardless of their use or value for others (Martell,1994). When human beings do an altruistic act to total
strangers even in purely one-shot prisoner’s dilemma
games, they do so because of the recognition of some
intrinsic value in that other being, and neither becauseof the latter’s relationship with the former, nor in
expectation of some benefit or reward from the latter.
Such intrinsic value may be nurtured in association withsome internal norms(s), which may be defined as abehaviour pattern enforced by internal sanctions suchas shame, guilt, sense of honour, empathy for others,
and loss of self-esteem, etc., and transmitted bothvertically and horizontally. This is opposed to external
norms, which are driven by external sanctions likerewards and punishments (Gintis, 2003). External norms
and extrinsic values, therefore, may be seen as being
explained by the concept of reciprocal- both direct andindirect- altruism. If it is so, how could we then explain
the assigning of intrinsic value, especially to non-humanentities? And what role could nature religions beenvisaged to have played in assigning values, both
extrinsic and intrinsic, to non-human entities?
Nature as kin
Hamilton (1964a, ‘64b) first introduced the concept
of inclusive fitness to explain the evolution of altruism
among kin. Stated in a simple way, it means that
individuals are likely to perform altruistic acts towards
those other individuals with whom they share themaximum number of their genes. For example, anindividual shares on an average 50 % of its genes withsiblings and offspring, 25 % with grandchildren andnephews/nieces, and a mere 12.5 % with first cousins.
Hence an individual is more likely to be altruistic towards
its sibling/offspring than to a nephew/niece than to a firstcousin and so on. If we try to fit in the concept ofassigning intrinsic value into the theory of kin selection,then we may say that an individual tends to assign more
intrinsic value to his/her offspring/sibling than to anephew/niece and so on. However, in order tounderstand the origin and perpetuation of nature
worship in the light of the theory of kin selection, we
would have to move away from the genetic basis ofkinship to subjective and cultural ideas of kinship, as isoften understood by social anthropologists. Thus inother words, we have to invoke not only the gene, but
the meme as well (Dawkins, 1976). This also enables us

135

to understand the problem of kin recognition in the early
hunter-gatherer human societies where correct
recognition of parents, offspring or sibling was much
more difficult than it is today. Early hunter-gatherer
societies (and even later-day tribal societies) operated ina very limited geographical area and were almost totallydependent on the resources extracted from there. Suchcommunities have been termed as the “ecosystempeople” (Dasmann, 1988). Nature worship and offering
protection to nature through the creation andmaintenance of sacred groves, taboos on hunting, andother mechanisms of prudent resource use are thecharacteristic features of such communities (Gadgil andGuha, 1992; Gadgil and Vartak, 1994; Gadgil, 1995).
Ancestor worship is also common in these societies. In
such situations, where people lived and moved in asmall area, kin recognition was governed by the simple
rule that anybody they encountered everyday, was a kin(Dawkins, 1976). Based on his analysis of 25 culturesfrom all over the world, Wilson (1998) concluded thateven those tribal groups that comprised individuals who
were not genaeologically closely related could function
as integrated units exhibiting cooperation. Thus non-kin
could also be regarded as ‘kin’ provided they weremembers of the same group. In small areas, people not
only came across people, but the same forest, river,mountain, trees or even particular animals in their daily
wanderings for food and other resources. It is likely thatthey began to perceive these entities as their ‘kin’ aswell. It is known that a lot of genetic changes occurred inhumans during the Pleistocene as a result of living ingroups. Such changes were brought about by a culturegene coevolutionary process (Richerson and Boyd,
2001;
HenrichandMcElreath,2002).
The
coevolutionary changes equipped humans with cognitive
abilities, the ability to cooperate with distantly related
people living in the same group, and emotional
attachments to symbolically marked groups (Richerson
et al., 2003). As a result of this ‘perceived kinship’ andemotional attachment with nature, when people had to
extract resources from the plants and kill some animals
for food, they did this apologetically, and certain groups
even stopped harvesting certain plants and killingcertain animals, either totally or at least in certain
seasons or during certain life stages. Many tribes allover the world exhibit the phenomenon of totemism. The
tribals not only do not harm the totem plant or animal,
but also undertake specific rites and rituals to propitiate
the totem organisms. They trace their ancestry fromtotem plants and animals, and hence consider them askins or ancestors. That the tribal mind is capable of suchnon-dualistic pattern of behaviour by virtue of which they
can recognize non-humans as kin, is also revealed bytheir myths and folklores. An analysis of these myths
and folklores enables us to delve into the tribal mind, orin other words, into the minds of early human societiesthat lived in small groups as hunter-gatherers. Thesemyths reveal to us that the tribal mind was devoid of any
distinction among god, man, plants, animals and eveninanimate natural entities. The creatures themselves
played an important role in the creation and constructionof the world. Man’s origin could be traced to plants,
animals and inanimate objects, and there was kinshipbetween man and these entities. The tribal myths also

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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

deny the uniqueness of man in the possession ofknowledge, as non-humans frequently handed over vitalknowledge to him (Saraswati, 1993). A few examples
from the tribal myths and folklores from Arunachal
Pradesh, North East India may illustrate these points
further.
Sacrifice is the basis of many tribal myths ofcreation found in Arunachal Pradesh. The Apa Tani
tribespeople believe that ‘kujum-chantu’ (mother earth)died voluntarily to lay the basis of creation, the different
parts of her body forming the celestial bodies and otherelements. Thus a sense of ‘primordial altruism’ ran deepin the tribal mind. The role of love in creation was alsoemphasized in a Hrusso Aka myth, which says thatwhen the sky made love to the earth, all trees and otherliving creatures came into being. Several myths also
describe the important role of non-humans in creationand construction. The Hill Miris of Arunachal Pradesh
believe that in the beginning, there was water
everywhere, with only a gigantic tree raising its head
above. A worm gnawed at its wood and the dust fell all
around to form the earth. Finally the tree fell to theground, and the bark on its lower side became the skinof the earth, that on the upper side the sky, the trunk
rocks and the branches became mountains. Again, a
Gallong myth says that the prawn collected a great pileof rubbish on the surface and the crab dug a hole todrain the water, and thus the land emerged. A numberof myths also trace the non-human ancestry and kinshipof man, such as from frogs (Dhammai Miji myth), or froma flower (Khampti myth). The great primeval spirits had
three children, one a human, another a rock and yet
another a gourd. When the rock-child broke open the
gourd, the first humans emerged (Singpho tale). In
another story (Taraon Mishmi), the first men and womencame out of the tusk of an elephant (Elwin, 1958). There
are many stories of the marriage and sexual union ofhumans with gods, spirits, real animals (and not humans
in animal disguise) like snakes, monkeys, tigers, etc.,
and even leaves, trees and fire. In these myths, humans
are not even unique in the possession of knowledge,
which more than often came to him from animals. Thus
the birds (Hill Miri myth) or flowers and bees (Bugun
myth) taught the first man and woman the art ofreproduction; the spiders taught a girl how to weave(Singpho); and the rat the technique of cultivation(Saraswati, 1993). In another story (Idu Mishmi), thesparrow taught cultivation to man (Elwin, 1958). Thesemyths reveal to us that the tribals could recognize
intrinsic values in non-human components of nature. In
contrast, any other individual (of a different tribe from adifferent area) who the members of a given tribe did notencounter regularly was not considered as a kin andhence subjected to conflict and violence, often resulting
in ruthless intertribal conflicts accompanied by practices
like headhunting. Thus the same tribe members who
could be altruistic towards non-human entities andworshipped them as or along with their ancestors, could
fail to exhibit this behaviour when in contact withconspecifics from another tribe. Again, ecosystempeople become ‘ecological refugees’ (Gadgil, 1995)
when they are displaced from their original territory andforced to colonize new areas. In such situations, theymostly fail to exhibit their original altruistic attitude

towards nature because of their lack of attachment to, orin other words, their sense of kinship with, the elementsof nature.
Kin selection and reciprocity
It has often been suggested that ecosystem people
such as tribals maintain sacred groves and exhibit othermechanisms of protection of nature mainly because theytend to be prudent in their resource use and sacrificesome of their immediate benefits to ensure greater
benefits to accrue at a later date. Such behaviours are,therefore, believed to signify the society’s recognition of
the “bequest value” of the elements of biodiversity(Gadgil and Guha, 1992; Gadgil, 1995). In the languageof normative ethics, therefore, the actors displaying such
prudence assign only instrumental value to nonhumans, and consequently, are governed by theprinciples of direct or indirect reciprocity. However,people worshipping nature in sacred groves or throughtree or animal worship, cannot be said to assign only
extrinsic value to the objects they revere, and therefore,
there is something more in this relationship than mere
expectation of some reward at a later date. Furthermore,
it appears more probable that a sense of kinship withnature evolved earlier than reciprocity, as the ability ofthe ecosystem people of the early hunter-gatherer
societies to make any realistic assessment of theresource potential of their habitats was likely to have
evolved at a much later date through experiences
gained during scarcity of resources due to profligate
use. It is also more likely that the host would take sometime to counter-adapt against parasitic memes such as
the tendency for profligate resource use. Drawing ananalogy from genes, it was seen that a partial resistanceto myxomatosis could only evolve as a genetic trait
among Australian rabbits after the disease had wipedout a large portion of their populations (Delius, 1991).
Kellert (1996) has suggested that altruistic acts towards
non-humans in many indigenous cultures are often
motivated by “sentiments of affinity” and not calculated
empiricism. Deb and Malhotra (2001) have shown thatthe tribals of West Bengal, India, hold as sacred a tree
(Adina cordifolia) and a shrub (Euphorbia neriifolia),
which have no direct use values. Similarly, the sparrow,the jackal, the tiger, various species of songbirds, andvarious species of snakes are held sacred in many
indigenous cultures of Assam, Manipur and Tripura(Gupta and Guha, 2002). Such sentiments and beliefs
could perhaps be explained by the concept of ‘biophilia’(Fromm, 1973; Wilson, 1988). Many cultures,
exemplified by the Meiteis of Manipur and Assam, North
East India, go beyond biophilia to ‘ecophilia’ or‘cosmophilia’ through the practice of ‘Chingoiron’ – theworship of hills – and ‘Nungoiron’ – the worship of rocks(Singh et al., 2003). In Korean shamanism, deities could
exist, besides other places, in the trees, the ground, therocks, the spring, the river, and the sea (Rhi, 1993).
Altruism to nonhumans could be governed, even in
the same tribal group, simultaneously by “perceived kin”
selection and indirect reciprocity, the former evolving
first to be followed by the latter as a mutant meme. For
example, the Khasis of Meghalaya, North East India,
maintain sacred groves called Law Lyngdoh (forests ofpriests), Law Niam (ritual forests) and Law Kyntang

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)(community forests). No exploitation of anything, evendead wood and leaf litter, is allowed in these groves
where a number of rites, rituals and religious
ceremonies are performed. People believe that the deadancestors reside in this forest till they find their proper
resting places (Dutta, 1986; Syngai, 1999). Thus the
Khasis ascribe intrinsic value to all living and non-living
entities inside these groves, and no future benefit
through prudent resource use could be associated withthese groves. The Khasis, however, also maintain othercategories of protected forests such as Law Adong(restricted forest), Law Risumar (nurtured forest) and
Law Shnong (village forest). Limited extraction ofmaterials from these forests is allowed with proper
approval of the community. Any altruism towards
nonhumans exhibited in this instance emanates from asense of reciprocity, that is, from assigning extrinsic
values, and should not be equated with the groves thatare part of the religious tradition, and hence involverecognition of intrinsic value in nature.
Table 1. Plants worshipped or attributed magicoreligious importance by the Meiteis of Manipur, North
East India, along with their bequest value (after Singh etal., 2003)
Name
of
Plant
Toona ciliata

theDactyloctenum
aegypticum
Cynodon dactylon
Rhus chinensis
Xylosomalongifolia

Status
Accorded
magicoreligious
importance-do-doWorshipped
magicoreligious
importance-do-do-Oroxylum indicum
Blumeabalsamifera
Plectranthus
ternifolius
Mangifera indica

Worshipped

Aegle marmalos-do-Ocimum sanctum

Magico-religious
importanceWorshipped
Not harvested
on Sunday, as itis the birthday ofthis plant

Terminalia arjuna
Adhatoda vasica-do-Bequest Value
Timber tree

Fodder grass
Fodder grass;
Medicinal
Medicinal
Medicinal

Medicinal
Medicinal;
Condiment
Medicinal
Fruits;Medicinal
Fruits;Medicinal
Medicinal
Medicinal
Medicinal

Altruism towards nature could also exhibit a trend
where an altruistic practice might have had its origin
governed by reciprocity, and then transcend to be
guided by a sense of kinship, and recognition of intrinsic
value. A few examples are cited here from the practicesof the Meitei community of Manipur, North East India.
Table 1 lists plants that are worshipped or accorded
magico-religious significance by the Meiteis, and their137

use or bequest value. However, the primary reasons forworshipping or revering these plants today are their‘divine’ associations, while their use values have beenrelegated to a secondary place (Singh et al., 2003).
Group size was found to be an important
governing factor in the development of altruism. Smallgroup size promoted altruism, while increasing groupsize hindered it (Aoki, 1983; Alexander, 1986; Joshi,
1987; Boyd and Richerson, 1988, 1989). Altruism andcooperation were also found to be favoured by long
relationships (Wilson, 1998). Thus the small group sizeof the tribes, accompanied by their long-term
relationships with their immediate environment, appear
to have played key roles in the evolution of altruism
towards non-humans. It has also been suggested that
our remote ancestors had only rudimentary culture andlacked cooperation on a scale larger than groups ofclose kin (Richerson et al., 2003). Therefore, the rightkind of environment was provided at a very early stageof human evolution for the origin of a feeling of kinshipwith nature.
Meme vs. MemeToday, only small isolated communities scatteredthroughout the world practice nature religion or nature
worship. The majority of the world’s population adheres
to religions that give humans an exalted status, superior
to, and different from, the non-humans. This decline ofnature religions began with the introduction of settled
agriculture, which required extensive clearing of forests.
Wild animals were viewed either as enemies or as
pests, and consequently were to be killed or driven
away. The aim of agriculturists everywhere was tohumanize the earth’s surface and replace the wild withdomesticated forms of life. Nature religions and natureoriented
worldviews
werereplacedbyananthropocentric worldview that first found expression in
Greek philosophers beginning with Socrates andculminated in Aristotle. This view continued to influencethth
the mainstream western philosophy in the 17 and 18
centuries. Descartes put forward his famous ‘mind-body
dualism’ that postulated that only humans had minds,
while all the other components of nature were merely
bodies or ‘machines’. Anthropocentric views were
upheld by the other leading philosophical spokesmen of
the scientific revolution, such as Bacon and Liebnitz.
Even earlier, 15th century renaissance thinkers like
Erasmus and Montaigne professed anthropocentric
humanism. This trend was carried forward into the 19th
and the 20th centuries by Marx, Dewey and Sartre,among others (Sessions, 1995).
Being essentially a replicator, the survival value ofa meme, just like that of a gene, depends on its
longevity, fecundity and copying-fidelity. As naturereligions are practiced by a very small fraction of theworld’s population, its fecundity is said to be very low.
Does it then imply that nature religion or nature worshipas a meme is virtually removed from the meme pool of
the human species, at least in the mainstream
societies? On the contrary, the picture becomesdifferent if we think of nature religion as a memecomplex. The rites and rituals accompanying nature
worship is just one such meme in this meme-complex.
The other memes that can be said to constitute this138

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

complex are an ability to appreciate nature’s beauty andbounty, recognition of an intrinsic value in nature, and ageneral feeling of biophilia or ecophilia. These lattermemes were not lost from the meme pool, in spite of the
man-nature dualism meme holding sway in western
societies. The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, forexample, developed a pantheistic nonanthropocentricphilosophical system in which God was identified with
Nature. Unlike Descartes, Spinoza found mental
attributes throughout nature. Spinoza’s teachings
influenced many leading figures of the 18th century
European Romantic Movement such as Coleridge,
Wordsworth, Shelley and Goethe, who sang praises ofnature and found a soul in nature and its various
components. In the philosophical front, nonanthropocentric ideas were put forward by Mill, Thoreau,
Marsh, Muir, Santayana and others in the 19th and early
20th centuries, and by the likes of Leopold, Brower,
Carson, Udall, White, Nash, Ehrlich, Naess and theirnumerous adherents in the middle and late 20th century(Sessions, 1995). Needless to say, this trend continues
to spread and is poised to remain as a significant
worldview during the present century and beyond.
Besides the western poets and philosophers, theimage of nature in the writings of many Eastern writers
also deserves mention. The ‘religion of soul’ perceived
in natural entities like flowers, clouds, seas andmountains found expression in the songs, poems andphilosophical musings of Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel
Laureate poet from India. In the Japanese language, theoldest word for beautiful is “kuashi”, which means adense growth of leaves. In mediaeval Japanese poetry,“hana” (flower) is a symbolic term for rhetorical beauty,“tane” (seed) stands for creative moment of poetic
activity, and “taketakashi” (tall tree) stands for sublime.
Basho, a well-known poet of the ‘haiku’ (short poem) is
reputed to have told his disciples to learn the spirit of thepine tree from the pine tree itself.
The meme of ecophilia not only survives in poets,
philosophers and ecocentric thinkers, but in the minds ofthe common people as well. Trees, animals, lakes,
rivers, mountains and the sea, or even a man-made citypark, as the case may be, forms an integral part of ourchildhood associations to be fondly remembered, often
mixed with a sense of nostalgia, just like those of old
friends and relations. Even the most hardcore
development-maniac is likely to find pleasure inwatching a flower in full bloom or fish in an aquarium.
The flourishing tourist trade centred round wilderness
areas is another example of the meme of ecophilia
running strong in the minds of countless people all over
the world. We may not be very far from the truth to saythat the nature religions of our remote ancestors form
the memetic core of such properties of the human mind.
The above examples are by no means exhaustive,
but merely illustrative of the meme of ‘natureappreciation’ or biophilia or ecophilia, which in otherwords, could be construed as a feeling of kinship withnature, continuing to be copied and perpetuated inalmost all societies the world over, but running stronger
in small indigenous cultures.

Which way would the arrow point?
It has been shown that both exploitative andcooperative strategies can coexist in the gene pool,
maintained by environmental heterogeneity andfrequency-dependent forces (Dugatkin and Wilson,
1991; Wilson, 1998). It is, therefore, not surprising thatdiametrically opposite cultural strategies like despotic
and exploitative as well as altruistic attitudes towards
nature coexist in the human meme pool. This makes us
view human populations as multi-strategy communities.
It is also an established fact that exploitation is generally
favoured in short relationships where repeatedinteractions are unlikely, while in contrast, long
relationships usually usher in cooperation. Bothstrategies are expected to be present in populations thatexperience short as well as long relationships (Wilson,
1998). Nature religions evolved and flourished during aperiod when small societies operated in a limited area,
conditions
thatpromotedlong
relationships.
Subsequently, forces like large-scale migration, trade,conquest and colonialism, coupled with vastly improved
technologies, led to situations where large reserves ofnature were open for exploitation to relatively small
human populations. If one forest was clear-felled, or one
river became polluted, or one plot of land became
infertile, there were others. Such conditions obviously
led to the prevalence of the myth of cornucopia, of
unlimited supplies of resources, in societies of‘biosphere people’ (Kormondy, 1996), and favoured
short-term, exploitative relationships. The humancultural evolution has now possibly come full circle, sothat it would be advantageous for long-term cooperative
strategies to be adopted by local communities forconserving nature in their immediate surroundings.
Involving schoolchildren and youth for protecting natureand for inculcating bioethical values in several countries,
attempts to prepare ‘people’s biodiversity registers’ inIndia (Gadgil, personal communication), and theincreasing involvement of civil society in conservation
initiatives, are examples of long-term, local cooperation
with nature being increasingly emphasized. However, if
we are optimistic enough to consider human societies,
like ecosystems, to be cybernetic in nature, these two
strategies could oscillate and alternate as ‘exploitationaccelerating’ and exploitation-counteracting’ (or to view
from the other side, ‘cooperation-counteracting’ and‘cooperation-accelerating’) mechanisms, based on
positive and negative feedbacks, respectively, operating
within certain boundary conditions over a span of time.
The human society has had its thrill and excitement of
positive feedback for a long time, it is time now to pay
heed to the negative feedback signals emanating fromall natural systems.
What role could nature religion, albeit in its new‘avataar’ as the meme of ecophilia, play in promoting
altruism towards non-humans? We often ask, “how toconserve?” The answer to this question may be foundby asking another question, “why to conserve?” Onemajor drawback of the anthropocentric approach
towards conservation is that in case of any conflict
between human and non-human interests, the former
almost always receives priority. The conflict between
human livelihood versus wildlife conservation in many
protected areas are good examples. An increase of theEubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
ecophilia meme in the human meme pool may be theonly answer to such dilemmas. This would also requirea shift from externalized norms such as rewards andpunishments to internalized norms like shame, guilt,
fairness, empathy, etc., while taking decisions about
conservation. A gene or a meme is individual- or groupfitness-enhancing or fitness-debilitating depending upon
the environment in which it operates. Today, a urban
community that invests more effort in preserving
greenery and keeping down pollution levels, or a ruralcommunity that sustainably manages its natural
resources, are likely to flourish and prosper than thosewhich do not. Hence, the meme of ecophilia is bothindividual- and group-fitness-enhancing in the present
context. Could we then expect that an all-ecocentric
strategy would be favoured by selection so as tobecome all-pervasive in the human society?
Unfortunately, being “blind” and “selfish” replicators, thegenes or memes cannot forgo short-term advantages(Dawkins, 1976).
Consequently,
anthropocentric
strategies are bound to invade, inspite of an allecocentric strategy being more equitably beneficial toall. A parallel to this may be found in the global ‘war andpeace’ scenario. In spite of the overall benefits of an allpeace, ‘all-dove’ strategy, invasion by war-monging‘hawkish’ memes cannot be done away with.
Nevertheless, notwithstanding the selfish nature of ourphysical and cultural replicators, we could perhaps
share the “qualified hope” of Dawkins (1976) on thecapacity of human species for “conscious foresight” todefy its selfish replicators, and possibly also theircapacity of exhibiting “genuine, disinterested, true
altruism”. That the humans possess the latter quality is
perhaps shown by the ecophilia of nature religions.
Whether they possess the former, only the future would
be able to tell.
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Tampering with Nature:
An “Unended Quest”*- Arieh Maoz 1 •Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development,
Chief Scientist Office, Bet-Dagan 50250, Israel
Email: ariem@moag.gov.il.
Abstract
The implementations of biotechnology raise awhole host of environmental and social issues from a
broad range of perspectives. After some years of heatedcontroversy throughout the world it has achieved also
the status of an ongoing societal issue. The complexityof the subject of the relations between the environment
and technology makes it difficult to find an appropriate
framework for the discussion of this issue. In order toreach a situation of a reasonable and thoughtful
dialogue there is an essential need to achieve the rightbalance between a clearly defined range of thetechnology and obtaining relevant and accurate*

K. R. Popper used the expression “Unended Quest” for his
book title (1982).

1

The views presented here are solely those of the author anddo not necessarily represent the views of either the ministry ofagriculture or the Israeli government.

information about its impacts. In order to achieve
success in this direction with the large public group – theordinary citizens - the main way that is suggested is toinclude the subject of bioethics, of all its broad range ofperspectives, in the science education program at alladequate age levels. This should go, jointly, with thevital need to preserve our natural resources and protect
the environment.
Key Words: Balance; Challenge; Conflict; Complexity;
Decision; Education; Responsibility; Partnership;
Tension; Uncertainty.
Since its dawn, western literature is filled with
examples dealing with the conflicts between tamperingwith nature, for whatever purpose of human action, andit's morals. This starts with the Bible that seems toestablish two different models for our interaction with theenvironment 3 . The selection of the words, subdue/rule inGenesis 1 as compared to tend/care in Genesis 2
suggest two alternative models for how we perceive theenvironment. The first model, the dominance model has,in the past, had a significant resonance. There are otherexamples for a second model that illustrate theexistence of very different views of the importance of theenvironment and of the criteria for partnership in theenvironment related decision-making. These may relate
to the prevailing balance between ‘rule’ and ‘care’. Thus,
we could see that the conflicts between nature care andnature rule by technology, have started long ago, andcontinue afterwards 4 , till nowadays. The pace oftampering with nature has been accelerated at the endof the 20th century with the appearance of the modern
biotechnologies like plant genetic modification and withthe appearance of stem cells technology andnanotechnology at the start of the 21st century. Thissituation emphasizes the continuous need for discussion
and development of appropriate societal tools that could
aid with embedding of such modern biotechnologies in
our life. This paper summarizes some aspects of social
behavior following the tension caused by tampering withnature. In this sense, some of the key questions that3
In Genesis 1 v. 28 we read ‘Be fruitful and increase, fill
the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea, the birdsof heaven and every living thing that moves upon the earth’. In
contrast in Genesis 2 v. 15 we read ‘The Lord God took the
man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it’.
4

Perdita: …
Are our carnations and streak’d gillyvors,
Which some call Nature bastards. Of that kind our rustic
garden’s barren, and I care not to get slips of them.
Polixenes: Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them?
Perdita: For I have heard it said, There is an art which in theirpiedness shares With great creating Nature.
Polixenes: Say there be;Yet Nature is made better by no mean
but Nature makes that mean; so over that art which you say
adds to Nature, is an art That Nature makes. You see sweet
maid, we marry a gentler scion to the wildest stock, and makeconceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an
art which does mend Nature-change it rather; but The art itself
is Nature.
Perdita: So it is.
Polixenes: Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, and do notcall them bastards. {W. Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale (ActIV, scene IV, lines 81-97)}4

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
were raised around broader participation of the society
in biotechnology will be discussed and, in turn, aconstructive societal tool that may assist successful
integration of these biotechnologies will be suggested.
The Tension
There are among us many who are uncomfortablewith tampering with nature. Parts of the public areconvinced that it is damaging, risky and even immoral.
In spite of this, manipulating nature was always animportant part of what civilization and human
intelligence is all about. We have been doing it since theinvention of the wheel; in addition to that nature and ourenvironment are, all the time, in a situation of dynamismand evolution. Moreover, one could say that since weare part of nature, everything we do and create is in asense natural too (previous footnote). If we will examine
this contradictory situation we may find that it reflects
concerns toward changes in the environment and their
unknown consequences. That leads, in many cases, toa set of rejection responses. Such responses are quite
natural if we will remember the concept of “the self” thatwas introduced to provide a ready and convenient
metaphor for deciphering immune reactivity. In theoriginal formulation, normally, host constituents are
ignored by the immune system, due to an immunologicalmemory, while the "new" - non-self: pathogens, foreign
substances, etc. are processed and destroyed. The
concept of “the self” became the foundation of immune
theorizing, and immunology dubbed itself the science of“self/non-self discrimination” (Burnet and Fenner 1949;
Burnet 1959).
An additional phenomenon that is psychological,
and describes the relation of humans with new orchanging environments, has been suggested (Wilson,
1984). Wilson related it to be one of the human ancientinstincts, Biophilia. Biophilia is based on knowledge andanother component - habitat selection. A habitat fromwhich people can, in a secure position, safely scan theenvironment, preferably an open topography withunobstructed line of sight.
Apart from being unknown, a new and changing
environment can present to us different faces, but are
they dangerous or risky? This situation involves
decision-making in an uncertainty circumstances. The
general philosophy, which dictates toward the mostconservative response, is that it is a reason to rejectpractices that have consequences that would be
impossible or difficult to reverse or mitigate. The broad
idea behind risk-based decision-making is that in somecircumstances accepting some degree of known risk or
uncertainty advances the public good.
Some of the most convincing applications of thecautionary approach involve situations where it is fairly
clear that human activity is affecting ecosystem processthat would function reliably in the absence of impact
from human beings. Straightforward cases of chemical
pollution of air and water fit this model, as do cases
where marine ecology is affected by intensive fishingactivity. Here, the default option of "no human activity"
genuinely seems to embody a cautionary approach.
However, it is not clear how to extend this model toagriculture, where the default option to adoption of
biotechnology is an array of farming practices in which141

humans are already having extensive impact on
ecological processes.
The claim that biotechnology threatens todestabilize an ecologically sustainable food system inagriculture can be disputed. Industrial practices inagriculture already utilize chemical inputs, mechanizedcultivation, harvesting and irrigation, and large-scaletransport of nutrients and genetic resources. Though thepoint is contested, it is not at all clear that these existing
industrial system is ecologically unsustainable or more
specifically, that biotechnology would lead to further
destabilization of the system.
Avoidance of Uncertainty
Avoidance of uncertainty in a nation or society has
been applied in the cautionary approach that is
supposed to minimize the risk exposure of in decisionmaking. That means precise rules and regulations
concerning different decisions to be made at eachorganizational level. This resulted in procedures andpolicies with a high degree of formalization. Strongly
risk-avoiding implies in increasing organizational
complexity that involve an opinion given by experts inorder to minimize the risk of wrong decision. Thus, suchrisk avoidance procedure based on professional
specialty requires cooperation of three key agents of thesociety: science and technology, government and theprivate sector. Another large group, however, that has
been left out of this cooperation are – thenongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Apart fromacting for environment conservation and nature
protection, the NGOs have been distinguished, in somecases, for their violent protests. With the help of themedia, which fed the controversy, it led, instead to a
democratic and open public discourse on crucial
bioethical issues, to an anti-science zealotry activity(Borlaug, 2000) with some undesired consequences.
Opinions given by experts require understandingthat scientific knowledge can be justified and madereliable, based on that, the knowledge which scientists
possess is conjectural knowledge. That is, knowledge
that is some times prone to error, yet, always capable ofimprovement and correction (Popper, 1959). Thismethodological approach in science, trial and error, canbe used for examining the consequences of ethicalnotions. Further, this approach can guide the profession
away from bad judgement especially when we identify
error in environmental policy as manifested inecosystem destruction. Thus, the maintenance of a selfcritical attitude is a matter of duty. Within therationalist/humanist tradition, the idea of avoiding
suffering or averting environmental degradation is one
that we can treat as a starting point.
At the basis of the above concerns, that havebecome real fear might be some disastrous cases.
Some examples of technology failures lead us to try to
succeed in a not so easy way, of navigating between
Scylla of risk and the Charybdis of public demonization,that all interventions in nature run the risk ofunanticipated upset of its controlled balance causing
unforeseen consequences. On the other hand, from thetime that humans with stone axes began felling trees,
human tampering with nature has had significant
environmental consequences. We cannot imagine,

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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

however, our life without technology. The increasing
impact of humans on the environment should havecaused more moral responsibility of man towards theenvironment. Unfortunately this is not always the caseand the questions to be ethically addressed are in manycases, quite complicated. Should we avoid technology?
Or use it for environment conservation.
But is technology alone to be blamed for much of
the environmental degradation, or is it human need or
greed causing that forests and fish are disappearing at
an alarming rate, formerly livable areas are turning into
deserts and the list of endangered and extinct species
grows each year. Oddly enough, there are cases whenpreserving the wilderness and the animals that live in it,
there are ignored people, overwhelmingly poor, who
often pay the price when land is set aside. In India for
instance, people who have had to uproot their families
and their villages, often leaving hunting grounds andfertile farmland that they and their ancestors occupied
for generations, just to make room for a few Asiatic
lions… (MacKinnon, 2003). Thus, the distinctions are
not always clear, and the many examples are not strictly“black or white”. Any way, no form in which technology
gets to us is really environmentally friendly, because
wilderness and diversity are eliminated.
How To Maintain A Balanced Perspective?
The above mentioned cases suggest two important
issues to be discussed in order to maintain a balanced
perspective: a. Integration of democratic forms intoscience. b. Tampering with nature and science andtechnology in the world we live in.
a. The above mentioned cases exemplify
situations where we may view science and technology
outcomes less as a simple input/output device. And
instead, we should view them more as a complex social
realm in which the full range of human motivations – andattendant opportunities that influence them – are at play.
This situation suggests of a new framing of thebiosciences arising from the combination of the dialogue
and conflict among scientists, government agencies andsocial groups in directions for future research anddevelopment. Such mechanisms for participation andaccountability are critical for popular sovereignty.
Including democratic forms in science does not mean,
as it is occasionally portrayed, voting on the laws ofnature. The transition to a model of democratic forms
requires participation and accountability in the
management of science integrity and responsibility. Thismodel of science integrated with society requires
rethinking notions of scientific integrity and responsibility
that are further discussed (Maoz, 2005). Supporting
democratic participation and accountability for science
does not mean being anti-science and neither is it morethreatening than other commonly accepted democratic
practices. By recognizing the interests present inscience, encouraging collaborations between scientists
and non-scientists, and attending to the societal outcomes derived from research, we can simultaneously
generate a more responsible, reliable, and relevantscience.
b. The global nature of today’s environmental crisis
imposes upon us a realistic perception about the natureof the world we live in and are dependent on. This will

oblige us to exercise our judgment as to how to use
knowledge for social good. This is not an easy task,
since it will need to combine both ecological andtechnological knowledge with a sense of responsibility
for a livable world. Indeed, this responsibility that falls on
all levels of human society, individual, state andinternational, is a sign of maturation for bothtechnologicalandenvironmental
management.
Extending the benefits of technology to the world’s
citizens is one of the most critical challenges thatbiotechnology face today. Overall, the available
cultivable land per person is declining rapidly and will be
reduced by half, once again, over the next 50 years(Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2004). We have toharness the potential of biotechnology in order tocombat hunger and poverty. This technology’s
legitimacy should motivate us to give the full use of ourabilities and resources to meet the many needs ofpeople around the world who are not yet in a position toreceive the benefits of biotechnology. Their real needs
must take precedence over hypothetical, sometimes
paranoid imaginings. The needs for rapidly increased
food, feed and fiber production, for the conservation ofnatural resources and biodiversity, and for poverty
alleviation do exist now. In the next two generations ourworld will consume twice as much as it has been
consumed in the entire history of humankind. The
amount of arable land cannot really be increased, so wemust make the land produce more and we must do itsustainably.
For carrying out this task, agriculture and thefarmers seem to be the vital “land stewards” (Aldo
Leopold 1949). Most likely to be upgraded byagricultural research attention to a diverse list of aims in:precision agriculture, brackish water reclamation,fighting desertification (by developing stress resistances,soil erosion prevention and no tillage technologies), post
harvest technology, integrated pest management andbiotechnology. Technologies may contribute to remove
the threat of “the world’s food supply that hangs by aslender thread of biodiversity” (Wilson, 2002). Mainly
three species – wheat, maize and rice stand between
humanity and starvation. Attempts to adapt wild plants
crops as well as inserting new genes into crop species
in order to improve their performance can help creating
new strains and increase biodiversity. If we fail, thenmore marginal land will be put into the service ofagriculture, creating more environmental problems,
ensuing poverty, and in some cases even disasters. The
second need is to preserve our natural resources andprotect the environment. Agriculture will remain any
society’s most important interface with the environment.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Then, how do we make environmental decisions
for agriculture? Modes of production, distribution, andconsumption take their toll on the environment, from thesimple fact that manufacturing uses energy, that
distribution requires transportation, and that mostconsumption is wasteful. Regardless of the details, it isclear that no matter how beneficial a scientifictechnology remains to this day, its development andimplementation, its replacement and maintenance, costa great deal of money. Efficiency is achieved

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
expensively even under the promise that great savings
will result eventually. Also some of the damage done tothe environment cannot be repaired no matter at what
price. At the same time, what is the price of notdeveloping certain regions of the world? All of thesequestions must be addressed economically that is,socially and politically, which, incidentally, is inevitably
also philosophically - and not left to spiritual musings.
Agriculture presents a complex array of questions
calling for decisions about the balance between one orother outcome and trade-offs between different impacts.
Where actions, including the use of technology, harm
both people and planet, the ethical imperative is clear.
Less straightforward, however, are situations whereserving environmental goals may be to the disadvantage
of producers. The context of crisis does not makedecision making any easier, but it may help to identify
some leading issues. We are urged to recognize andrespect both people and the earth, to subordinate thepursuit of private wealth to meeting the needs of thepoor and vulnerable, and to restrain the concentration of
power and control.
From Environmental Education To Ethical Education
Since the spread of technology considerably
shapes nature, it is important that the consequences,and the policies, laws and regulations pertaining, that
introduce a degree of uncertainty into our life, should be
examined democratically involving all parties of the
public. This means, that the institutional bodies related,their policies, regulation procedures and decisions
should be adequate and transparent; thus a large groupof the public will be able to absorb the relevant andaccurate information, analyze it (Braun and Moses,
2004) and most important, share the responsibility byfollowing its essence of meanings. This means that,science education must become an integral part ofgeneral education to all citizens. Following this approach
will give us an important gain, as a good investment in
both, economic development and democracy. This will
be in line with what has been achieved in the directionsof keeping rights of different parts of the public. It
seems, however, that it has not been paralleled with theright balance for the duties of certain public groups thathave been tainted by their inappropriate and violent
actions. In order to achieve success in this direction withthe large public group – the ordinary citizens - the main
way that is suggested, is to include the subject ofbioethics, of all its broad range of perspectives, in thescience education program at all adequate age levels(Thompson, 2003). This is an important consideration
since understanding of ethical issues develops as an
evolving process around real-life situations. Including
the subject of bioethics in the science education
program may be an important turn that may bring aboutdeveloping an ethical matrix and a "toolbox" for practical
ethics that will make ethical advice to consideredjudgments of what is ethically acceptable anddemocratic transparency. These aspects of practicalbioethics have been widely discussed in the literature(Carr & Levidow, 2000; Kaiser & Forsberg 2000; Mayer,& Stirling, 2002; Mepham, 1996, 2000a, b, 2001;
Schroeder & Palmer, 2003).

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The integration of practical bioethics in a
democratic process will require first, involvement of
three parties: People of biotechnology, the enterpriseand the scientific community that must prove that the“promise of biotechnology” justifies their efforts. Than,the large group of the public will be prepared to share
the responsibility for the development of the “nextgeneration” of biotechnology products. We have toremember, however, that prior to any discussion of the
ethical aspect of any of the biotechnology dilemmas, inany framework, the factual basis has to be sound, due
to an appropriate science education. Following thiscondition will ensure a reasonable discussion andsatisfy the need for information of the consumers tomake informed decisions. Adopting this approach, ofaddressing bioethics by the education program, bothgeneral and professional, is likely to have an influenceon the marketability of the “next generation” ofbiotechnology products, since it will finally be theconsumers that decide on the prospects of the emerging
technologies markets, such as recently nanotechnology(Bruns, 2003; Einsiedel and Goldenberg, 2004 ). In viewof this, the aim of the discussion should be to identify
specific issues to be addressed in a framework of an
education program and the ways and means to achieve
this goal.
We have to remember that all technologies haveproblems because perfection is not the humancondition. The answer is to improve technology once
difficulties appear, not as some would wish, discard
technology all together. Remove the problems but retain
the benefits! By adopting this approach, together the
moral imperative demands with the respect for every
form of life, which should be expressed by the limitationof the intervention only to the level justifiable by theobjective human needs. If we transform such basis fromthe level of an individual to the level of whole society
then we will be able to talk about – integration withnature.
References
Borlaug, N. E., “Ending world hunger: The promise of
biotechnology and the threat of anti science zealotry”, Plant
Physiology 124 (2000), pp.487-490.
Braun, R., and Moses, V., "A public policy on biotechnology
education: what might be relevant and effective?" Current
Opinion on Biotechnology 15(2004), 246-249.
Bruns, B., "Participation in nanotechnology: methods andchallenges", presented at Information to empowerment: aglobal perspective, International association for public
participation, Ottawa, Canada, May 19-22, 2003.
Burnet, Frank Macfarlane and Fenner, Frank. The Productionndof Antibodies (2 edition. Melbourne: Macmillan and Co.
(1949);
Burnet, Frank Macfarlane. The Clonal Selection Theory of
Acquired Immunity. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press(1959).
Einsiedel E. F. and Goldenberg L, "Dwarfing the Social?
Nanotechnology Lessons from the Biotechnology Front"
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 24, No. 1, 28-33(2004).
Carr, S. & Levidow, L. 2000, Exploring the links between
science, risk, uncertainty, and ethics in regulatory
controversies about genetically modified crops, Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 12: 29-39

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Kaiser, M. & Forsberg, E.M. 2000: Assessing fisheries – Usingan ethical matrix in a participatory process, Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 14, 1-200
Leopold, A., “The Land Ethic” in A Sand County Almanac,(Oxford UK, Oxford University Press 1949).
Maoz, A., 2005, "Accountability, Responsibility andBiotechnology – Concepts revisited for Environmental
Ethics", (submitted for publication in JAEE).
Mayer, S. and Stirling, A. 2002: Finding a precautionary
approach to technological developments - lessons for theevaluation of GM crops. Journal of Environmental andAgricultural Ethics 15, 57-71
Mepham T B 1996: Ethical analysis of food biotechnologies:
an evaluative framework, in
Food Ethics, edited by T B Mepham, Routledge, London. pp.
101-119
Mepham T B 2000: Farming animals for food: towards a moral
menu: Food Ethics Council, Southwell, 48pp
Mepham T B 2000: A framework for the ethical analysis ofnovel foods: the ethical matrix. Journal of Agricultural andEnvironmental Ethics 12, 165-176
Mepham T B 2001: Novel foods. In 'The Encyclopedia of
Ethics of New Technologies" ed. R F Chadwick, Academic
Press, San Diego. pp. 299-313
Nuffield Council on Bioethics. 2004. The Use of Genetically
Modified Crops in Developing Countries. London
Schroeder D. and Palmer C. (2003), Technology assessment
and the ethical matrix. Poiesis and Praxis. 1, 295307Stirling, A. 2000: ‘Rethinking risk: application of a novel
technique to GM crops.’ Technology, Innovation & Society
18, 21-23
MacKinnon, I., “Wandering the wilderness”, Newsweek March
17(2003), pp.55-56.
Popper, K. R., The logic of scientific discovery (Routledge,
Hutchinson, New York (1959).
Wilson, E. O, Biophilia (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University
Press (1984).
Wilson, E. O, The future of life (Vintage, New York 2002).

Agenda 21: Bioethics, Global
Warming, and the Muslim
World- Arthur Saniotis, Ph.D.
Visiting Research Fellow, Discipline of Anthropology
School of Social Sciences, The University of Adelaide
Email: saniotis@yahoo.co.uk- Amru Hydari Nazif, Ph.D.
Secretary, Indonesian National Bioethics Commission
Email: amru96@cbn.net.id
The issue of global warming and the Muslim world
has so far received scant theoretical attention. The factthat Muslims comprise a substantial part of humanity
demands greater scholarly analyses. The problem with
global warming is that changes are gradual and notapparent in our daily lives. For many, the non-apparent
nature of global warming has enabled the continuationof ecologically unsound practices without understanding
their future ramifications for the planet. This paper will
delve into some of the issues in relation to global
warming and the Muslim world. The limited theoreticalscope of this paper is to promote more rigorous
theoretical explorations into this area. The first part ofthe paper examines the environmental role of ASEAN
and the nature of the UNCED dialogue and its agenda
on biodiversity conservation. The second part of thepaper will delve into the broader environmental
problems which are facing the Muslim world as aconsequence of global warming and will indicate
possible future scenarios. Furthermore, the paper willdevelop areas in which Muslims may act to re-introduce
ecological practices.
BackgroundIn the 1990s the scientific community of the world
was in the middle of an international process ofnegotiations on a scale that the scientists neverexperienced before. They were asked to come forward
and give their best assessment on what and how the‘environment’ and ‘development could be brought
together. Some would say that it was merely an exercise
in the protection of the environment. Consequently, thedialogue was dominated by economic issues, such as
poverty eradication issues, health care issues, theproblems of technology transfer, and biotechnologyrelated food production, in particular. The ‘global’ extent
of environmental problems is not being comprehended.
In 1992 the world, with much anticipation,
welcomed the UN Conference on Environment andin Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This
Development 5
Conference was pre-ceded by the organizing of complex
and difficult Preparatory Committee Meetings 6 . The
Conference itself went on relatively smoothly for tendays 7 .
The Agenda 21 document as an output of theConference gives emphasis on the important role given
to science in the management of the environment, andthe future of humanity living on planet earth. Scientists
are improving their understanding in areas such as
climatic change, growth in rates of resource
consumption, demographic trends, and environmental
degradation. Changes in those and other areas need tobe taken into account in working out long term strategies
for development. A first step towards improving thescientific basis for these strategies is a better
understanding of land, oceans, atmosphere and theirinterlocking water, nutrient and biogeochemical cycles
and energy flows which all form part of the Earth system(Robinson 1993).
The Association of the South-East Asian Nations(ASEAN) put the management of the environment as aregional priority due to the trans-border character of theenvironmental problems :"... being a grouping ofdynamic developing countries, ASEAN should take a
5 Although, often called the “Earth Summit’”, this name tends to

be used in a political context. This conference searched for abasic principle in managing the environment above thesovereignty of states.
6 This conference was chaired by Ambassador Tommy ThongBee Koh from Singapore; and the Preparatory Meetings were
held four times in the period 1990 to 1992 (27 months) in New
York, Geneva, Nairobi, and New York, three cities in threecontinents, to prepare the documents to be agreed to in the
Conference.
7 The Conference was attended by 116 Heads of States, 172
states, 8000 delegates, 9000 people from the media and 3000
representatives of accredited non-governmental organizations.

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
leading role towards achieving a proper balance
between environmental protection and economic
development... ". ASEAN formulated their common
stand prior to the UNCED in Rio, June 1992 in: "ASEAN
Common Stand on the United Nations' Conference on
Environment and Development and Related Issues".
The specifics were: "new and additional financial
resources to meet incremental costs of protecting the
global environment; the establishment of basic
environmental standards for a minimum level of qualityof life and environmental protection; and, equitable,balanced and comprehensive solutions to theinter-related issues of economic development andenvironmental protection".
Environment and international cooperation
The output of UNCED was the Agenda 21
document and two documents, namely (1) Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development, and (2)Non-legally Binding Authoritative Statement Of
Principles For A Global Consensus On The
Management,
ConservationAnd
Sustainable
Development Of All Types Of Forests. Two conventions
were also signed toward the end of the UNCED : (1)United Nations Framework Convention On Climate
Change, and (2) Convention On Biological Diversity.
These two conventions were the first two important
agreements in dealing with the global warming problem.
The Muslim world and Global Warming: BioethicalIssuesLack of Technological Innovation
The geographic spread of what is commonly
known as the Muslim world covers the countries inSoutheast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Middle East,
Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, and also several
countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The sizeof this Muslim world is approximately 1.5 billion people
or one fifth of the world’s population. The Muslim world
represents an extraordinarily diverse population,
comprising three thousand different ethnic groups. The
diverse nature of the Muslim world is antithetical toWestern stereotypes of Muslims as being a ‘monolith.’
Such negative constructions are both fanciful andnegate the significance of the Muslim world in relation toworld events.
Muslims are the fastest growing population with anannual growth rate of 2.9%, as compared to 2.3% for
the rest of the world (Muslim Population Statistics). In
the last fifty years the population of Muslims worldwide
has increased by over 235% (Muslim Population
Statistics). According to present estimates by 2025
Muslims will make up approximately 30% of the world’s
population (Muslim Population Statistics).
Major
population increases are predicted in Muslim countries
in Asia and Africa. By 2050, the populations in many
Muslim countries will double and even triple, causing
unprecedented social change (UNFPA State of theWorld Population 2004; India Talking Hindustan
network).
Many Muslim societies are undergoing rapid socialchange that is incommensurable with the rate of
economic and social reforms. With the exception of
Malaysia and some Gulf states, the bulk of Muslim

145

countries lie in the ‘south belt’ – which consists of theworld’s poorest countries, commonly referred to as the‘third world’. The south belt region is also represented
by countries which have had the highest rates ofresource exploitation by first world countries, crippling
rates of foreign debt, and minimal adaptive resources in
the form of new technologies and scientific innovation.
In short, many Muslim countries are unfavourably
positioned from accessing key technologies which would
mitigate their dependence on dwindling resources(Saniotis 2006a; De Lemos 2006, p. 57; Matthew 2000,
p. 110). Lack of scientific innovation is typified by thefact the Muslim world produces minimal scientificresearch. Nasim (2000) and Saniotis (2006b) state that
the Muslim world has a dismal track record in scientificresearch.
“The dismal state of Science andTechnology” in Muslim countries is reflected in thestatistic that the “entire Muslim world contributes 1.033
percent to the international literature as opposed to
1.059 and 1.64 by small European countries like
Belgium and Switzerland” (Nasim 2000). Arguably, thisdubious distinction reflects endemic social problems
facing Muslim countries such as poverty, lack ofintellectual freedom, and over expenditure on militaryarmaments. Another significant fact is the lack of social
mechanisms to correct this oversight. The lack oftechnological innovation is what Enriquez ascribes to asa failure to commit to “power of technology” (2001, p.
71). In his analysis, Enriquez suggests that the “future
belongs to small populations who build empires of themind” (2001, p. 56). If Enriquez is right, then much of
the Muslim world will face ongoing poverty and isunlikely to catch up with technologically advanced
countries. This is a huge dilemma since the “knowledge
component” of countries will be a significant determinantst
in ensuring societal survival in the 21 century. Muslim
countries will face increasing problems as a lack oftechnological innovation means that their adaptive
strategies to tackle global warming will be hampered.
Even resource rich economies with a poor knowledge
base means that the technologies which would
otherwise be available will probably be beyond theircapacity to implement.
Global Warming and the Muslim World
Concomitant with high levels of poverty in the
Muslim world is the rate of population growth asindicated earlier.
Many Muslim countries haveburgeoning, poor populations which are chiefly
dependent on depleting environmental resources. At
present, most of the world climatologists concur that
global warming will produce various erratic weather
patterns such as increasing storms, typhoon, cyclonic
and tornado activity, due to heating of the world’s
oceans. In many parts of the world, global warming willprobably increase drought activity and decrease
precipitation rates at record low levels. The likelihood of
more intense tropical storm may affect low lying Muslim
countries or countries with large Muslim populations
such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Philippines, India,
Thailand, China and sub- Saharan Africa. “Tropicalstorm intensities” may cause massive flooding andincrease the spread of water borne diseases such as
malaria, dengue fever, while dislocating tens of millions

146

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)of people. These populations are likely to become
susceptible to communicative diseases as a result ofovercrowding and unsanitary conditions (Biermann &Dingwerth 2004, p. 4).
Predicted increasing droughts may have adeleterious affect on poor Muslim countries by
exacerbating already diminished food and water
resources (Saniotis 2006c). At present, water resourcesin the Middle-East and North Africa are facing depletion
rates. These regions are using more than 50% of theirwater sources while their populations are increasing(Marcoux 1996). Approximately, 1.7 billion people livein water stressed countries “using more than 20% of
renewable water supply”(Salam).
Most of thesecountries are Muslim countries which include:“Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya,
Pakistan, Saudi, South Africa, Syria, Tunisia, UAE,
Yemen, Palestine, and several areas of China andIndia” (Salam). Changes in river flows and runoff andincreasing rates of evaporation may “contribute to thesalinisation of irrigated agricultural lands,” while “rising
sea levels may result in saline intrusion in coastal
aquifers” (Salam).
Gleik and Homer-Dixon have suggested thepossibility of forthcoming “water wars” (Gleik 1991;
Homer-Dixon 1994, 1999). For Homer-Dixon, conflicts
over water resources will arise in the Middle-East andelsewhere and may be assuaged by ethnicity andreligion (1999). Changes “in rainfall distribution is likely
to cause a partial drying-out of some of the most fertile
regions of the tropics, resulting in a significant reductionin the ecological carrying-capacity of the land anddecreases in food production” (Oxford Research Group).
Warnings of oncoming conflicts should not be
overlooked.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide andmethane contained in the earth’s permafrost may
contribute to the melting away of the Arctic ice, which
would result in more precipitation falling in the oceans
and the arctic and less precipitation falling in the world’s
tropical regions which sustain a large portion of theworld’s population (Oxford Research Group).
Future Plans of Action
One of the major problems that Muslim countries
are facing is the unfamiliarity with the notion of global
warming. For instance only 12% of Pakistanis know
about global warming (Pew Global Attitudes Project).
One reason for this insouciance could be Muslims’ lackof concern for environmental issues in general (Memri2006). While the Qur’an and the prophetic traditions(hadith) are noted for their ecological awareness, this is
not reflected in present day Muslim societies’environmental attitudes. On the contrary, some of theworst environmental disasters in the last sixteen years
have occurred in Muslim countries. During the Persian
Gulf War 1990-1991, Iraqi soldiers set alight dozens of
Kuwaiti oil wells. The fires continued for seven months
and sent poisonous smoke, causing an “environmental
and economic catastrophe” (Chilcote 2003). Chilcote
claims that Iraqis also poured 10 million barrels of crude
oil into the sea (2003).
Chilcote attributes highrespiratory problems and cancer rates among Kuwaitis
as being caused by the aftermath of the war (2003).
Another case in point were the repeated mega forest

fires in Indonesia in 1982-1983, 1987, and 1997. Eachtime the forest fires destroyed millions of hectares ofpristine rainforest and covered Indonesia andsurrounding countries in a layer of smoke.
The
inordinate extent and length of the forest fires, claimed“by the Paris-based International Union for theConservation of Nature and Natural Resources as theworst…in recorded history” was even more damnable as
they were allegedly caused by logging companies incollusion with officials in the Suharto government(Achmadi 1988; Down to Earth 1997).
The ongoing ecological crisis facing many Muslim
countries needs to be curtailed, by firstly, allocating
sufficient resources in education and technology.
Developed countries need to assist Muslim nations totechnologise at rates which are commensurable andsensitive to their specific socio-economic needs.
Moreover, developed countries, the World Bank, andIMF, need to assist in alleviating the massive debt
burden that Muslim nations have procured. Debt relief
is vital in ensuring environmental recovery, since poor
people are forced to survive from remaining natural
resources. Global poverty is intrinsically tied to global
warming since forests are removed to pay off national
debt and to provide land for farming. The putrefaction
process tied to dead forests releases large amounts ofcarbon dioxide and methane, both chief contributors to
global warming.
One can learn from past experiences on how intraand inter-group dialogues can be initiated. In the global
market economy there are various modalities that havebeen attempted.
The UNCED-inspired North-South dialogue
What is important here was the political statement
made by the EU on technology cooperation andcapacity building, which outlined the guiding principlesof the dialogue process on technology, technology
transfer, and capacity building in technology. All thisrelated to the environment. Among others we notice that: “although commercial transactions will play animportant part in the transfer of technologies, technology
cooperation cannot be left to the market alone... theEuropean Community and its Member States areprepared to consider purchasing patents and making
them available as part of aid package while taking fullaccount of the need to protect intellectual property
rights...".
Modality of a South-South dialogue within the Muslim
world
UNCED was the beginning of a long journey ofwhat we now refer to as traditional knowledge. In theConvention on Biological Diversity and in particular in its
Article 8(j) the acknowledgement of the importance forbiodiversity conservation was linked to the ‘knowledge,
innovations and practices of indigenous and local
communities embodying traditional lifestyles’. The
concept grew from the intended and essential link tobiodiversity and traditional lifestyles to a more open
concept of tradition-based technology, part of a modern
society, not necessarily “localized”. While more than
thirty years ago, UNESCO, in its General Conference in
Paris
on
20
November
1974,
adoptedaEubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
Recommendation on the Status of Scientific
Researchers with the observation that:… “scientificdiscoveries and related technological developments andapplications open up vast prospects for progress madepossible in particular by the optimum utilization ofscience and scientific methods for the benefit ofmankind and … give rise to complex ethical and legal
problems”.
In short, these and similar statements are theguiding principles behind what make modern-day SE
Asian countries take up the challenge to translate thesestatements to become an integral part of thedevelopment policy on intellectual property andtraditional knowledge (TK). The attachment of coherent,
proper and acceptable IP rights to traditional knowledge
would be suitable as the core of their national
development objectives. This is a very important featureof the national development policy and it serves as aprotection system that shall be framed within theobjectives of serving the best interest of the people. The
protection of traditional knowledge, like the protection of
IP in general, is provided as a means to these broader
policy goals.
Concomitantly, educational regimes need to be
developed and promulgated which inform Muslims of therealities of global warming and which place an onus on
increasing Islamic ecological values. In Malaysia, thesocietal blueprint called Vision 2020 sets out measuresin which Islamic ecological values are wedded to socioeconomic development (Majeed 2003).
In Aceh,Indonesia, permission has been given for the
implementation of Shari’ah (Islamic canon) which will
inform “sustainable resource governance” (Saniotis
2006b; World Wildlife Fund 2006). While it is untenable
to implement full scale ecological development in mostMuslim countries, change in environmental attitudes canbe employed at the grass roots level.
The majority of the world’s Muslims come fromvillage communities which are dependent on land
cultivation and pastoralism. Ecological practices which
are central to Islamic values can be re-introduced in a
gradual and non-interventionist way with the assistanceof non-government organisations, as well as, fromgovernment initiatives. Dickinson (2005) cites that
Zanzibar fishermen have extensively used Islamic
ecological values in response to over fishing practices.
Local religious leaders have played a central role inrevivifying environmentally friendly practices asprescribed in the Islamic tradition.
One can only hope that the Islamic Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), adopted
by virtue of Resolution No. 2/11-C of the Eleventh
Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, in May 1980,
can play a significant part. The Islamic world should
consider examining the global warming issue in a proper
context and perspective. One can certainly see that it iswithin the grasp of ISESCO to make a difference, as
formulated in the organization’s objectives, which aims
to develop applied sciences and the use of advanced
technology within the framework of the lofty andperennial Islamic values and ideals.
Secondly, environmental policies as indicated by
ASEAN and UNCED need to be realised. International
co-operation between developed countries and Muslim

147

countries is crucial to the establishment of basic
environmental standards and equitable solutions. Policy
goals need to include protection and encouragement oftraditional knowledge.
Finally, and most importantly, Muslims need to reengage with their Islamic ecological heritage which had
informed previous generations of Muslims, and avoid
the anthropocentricism which has undervalued the richenvironmental teachings of Islam. This will be a gradualprocess, beginning at the personal level and extending
to communal and national levels.
References
Achmadi, Heri. 1988. Forest fires: logging is to blame. InsideIndonesia. April. (Accessed on August 16 2006, at
http://www.fire.unifreiburg.de/media/2003/news_1999_ind.htm)
Biermann, Frank & Klaus Dingwerth.. 2004. Global
Environmental Change and the Nation State. Global
Environmental Politics 4.1:1-22.
Chilcote, Ryan. January 3, 2003. Kuwait still recovering from
Gulf War fires. CNN.com./WORLD. (Accessed on July 42006,athttp://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/03/sproject.irq.
kuwait.oil.fires/)
De Lemos, Haroldo. Mattos. 2006. Environmental
Technologies and International Trade. Comparative
Technology Transfer and Society (4)1:56-70.
Dickinson, Daniel. 2005. Eco-Islam hits Zanzibar fishermen
BBC News, Pemba, Tanzania 17 February. (Accessed on
June
30
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4271519.stm)
Enriquez, Juan. 2001. As the Future Catches You: How
Genomics and Other Forces are Changing Your Life, Work,
Health and Wealth. New York: Crown Business.
Gleick, Peter 1991. Environment and Security: The Clear
Connections. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47: 17-21.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 1994. Environmental Scarcities andViolent Conflict: Evidence from Cases. International
Security 19: 5-40.
— 1999. Environment, Scarcity, and Conflict. Princeton.
Majeed, Abu Bakar Abdul. 2003. Islam in Malaysia’s Planningand Development Doctrine. In Richard Foltz, Frederick
Denny, Azizan Baharuddin, eds. Islam and Ecology. USA:
Harvard University Press.
Matthew, Richard A. 2000. The Environment as a National
Security Issue. Journal of Policy History (12) 1: 101-122.
Memri. 2006. Algerian Reformist Malek Chebel: 27
Propositions for Reforming Islam.
Anti-Terrorism
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Muslim Population Statistics (Accessed on August 9 2006, at
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Nasim, A. 2000. Ethical Issues of the Human Genome Project:
An Islamic Perspective, In Bioethics in Asia. eds: Norio
Fujiki and Darryl R. J. Macer. Eubios Ethics Institute. pp.
209-214.
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SUSTAINABLE SECURITYFOR THE 21ST CENTURY.
(Accessed
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2006,
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s/globalthreats.pdf)
Pew Global Attitudes Project. America's Image Slips, But
Allies Share U.S. Concerns Over Iran, Hamas. No Global
Warming Alarm in the U.S., China. (Accessed on June 24
2006,athttp://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=827)
Robinson, N. A. (ed.) 1993. Agenda 21: Earth’s Action Plan,
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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

Salam. IMPACT ON MUSLIM COUNTRIES Accessed on July
5
2006,
at
http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/september01_in
dex.php?l=2
Saniotis, Arthur. 2006a. Muslims and the Environment:
Bioethical Challenges. Unpublished paper.
— 2006b. Health, Illness and Medical Bioethics: An Islamic
Perspective. Eubios Journal of Asian and International
Bioethics (EJAIB) Vol 16 (3) May 2006. p. 71-76.
— 2006c. Bioethics, Global Warming, and the Third World.
Unpublished paper.
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PRS1139449417&language=e

Towards an Embodiment ofEnvironmental Bioethics- Arthur Saniotis, Ph.D.
Visiting Research Fellow, Discipline of Anthropology
School of Social Sciences, The University of Adelaide,
Australia
Email: saniotis@yahoo.co.uk
A major issue arising from the recent UNESCO
Bangkok Consultation Workshop on Codes of Ethics inEngineering, Science and Technology (May 2006) wasa concern to teach ethics at key social levels. The Sri
Lankan participant stressed that an approach towards
ethics pedagogy has “to come from the heart” and not
be confined to intellectualism. During the course of theconference co-participants concurred with this view dueto the massive ethical abuses occurring worldwide.
While the transmission of ethics is crucial in present
modernity, the systemic entrenchment of non-ethicalattitudes reflects both misinterpretations of socioreligious worldviews and the pre-eminence of unbridledmaterialism.
This paper is a philosophical response to theaforementioned workshop and will elucidate an
approach to environmental ethics that concerns itself
with human embodiment.
A concern with humanembodiment not only privileges our perceptual
engagement with our life-worlds but also our capacity for
self reflexivity. My approach conjoin concepts from thephilosophers Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, andDavid Abram. A common feature of each thinker is therecognition of ethical issues in response to human waysof being.
Heidegger’s “night world”
The eminent German philosopher Martin
Heidegger was concerned with the technologicaldirection of humankind due to the advent of weapons ofmass destruction in the 20th century. Heidegger was
especially critical of modernity and apparent changes inhuman embodiment that were increasingly being
informed by technology. In Heidegger’s vision, thewestern world is characterised by instumentalism in its
engagement with nature (1997). Things become an“object of technique” which are methodically plannedand systematically controlled order of action” (Feenberg
2000). In this schema, nature is a means for humanends. Old growth forests are turned to chipboard,
animals are mustered for human consumption, nature
reserves become tourist arenas, once free roaming
animals are confined in zoos for the human gaze,
imitation flowers garnish shop fronts.
The onus on quantification gives rise to what
Theodore Rozak refers to as “terrible simplification”(Grossman 1999). Here the mainstay of growth gives
rise to a “deliberately sustained system of inequalities”
or in Illich’s words “the modernization of poverty”(Grossman 1999). Heidegger aptly calls the present
human condition as “night world”.
A poignant viewpoint is offered by Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World (1969) where “the radical
overextension of rationalization makes human beings
into objects of technique on much the same basis as
raw materials or machines”.
The link between
rationalization and mechanized modes of being is
expressed by Farias (1989:287):
Agriculture is now the mechanized food industry, inessence the same as the manufacturing of corpses ingas chambers and extermination camps, the same as
the blockade and starvation of nations, the same as the
production of hydrogen bombs.
As Jackson (1996:5) argues, technology’s
preoccupation with maintaining a rational pattern oforder and control is historically constituted by a concern
for dominating nature and those human beings (whoare) categorised as being inferior. Horkheimer, like
Heidegger, wrote on the tie between technologicalprogress and new forms of dominance over nature,
leading to “the elimination of all dimensions of “spirit”(Gur-Ze’ev: 9). “Men have to pay for man’s dominationof inhuman nature by denying the nature within them”(Horkheimer 1985:368). Athanasiou (2003) observes
that the apotheosis of this decorporealisation of the
body was in the Nazi concentration camps. These
camps ushered a new kind of bio-power, “in terms of
mechanical economy” − via destructive technologies”(Horkheimer 1985:368).
Like Heidegger and Marcuse, Feenberg avers thatthe calamity of modernity is “the value-free or neutral
character of technology” (Dahlstrom 2004), or more
precisely, "the obliteration of humanity's special status
and dignity as the being through which the world takes
on intelligibility and meaning.” (Feenberg 2005:2). Froman environmental ethical viewpoint, the value freecharacter of modernity has given rise to misrecognising
nature in terms of ‘thingness’ or to coin Martin Buber atransition from an “I-Thou” to an “I-It” relationship. This
alteration has been reinforced by the scientific cartesianmodel which considers non-humans as ‘souless’machines; base, unfeeling and inferior.
Foucault’s archaeology of history discloses how inecological terms the last three centuries have beenEubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
concerned with “the development of a taxonomy of livingorganisms” (Solis 2004: 1). The key concept of thistaxonomy is humanity’s historical role in its construction(Solis 2004:5).
The belief that humans have the right to envisionor construct such a table personifies this notion and thetable’s material existence allows for a deconstruction ofwhat its presence personifies for contemporary society(Solis 2004:5).
However, the construction of a taxonomy of nature
became contingent upon viewing nature as being underthe exercise of human authority. Here, Foucault draws
a correlation between the governmentality of the bodyand the governmentality of nature.
According to Foucault, an emerging discourse
arose from the 16th and 17th centuries in Western
Europe which was concerned less with controlling “aspecific territory” and more about administering humanpopulations (Foucault 1991; Darrier 1999). This was toensure “the abundance and prosperity of the population”(Rutherford, 1999: 47). Consequently, the administeringof people demanded that human beings become “theobject of scientific inquiry”, thereby leading to the rise ofsocial and physical sciences (Darrier 1999).
As
government resources increased in these sciences,scientists “were deemed holders of “expert knowledges”
who represented the power of the state (Darrier 1999;
Foucault, 1975; Rutherford, 1999). The views of socialand physical scientists were “considered normal” andincontestable, marginalising alternate knowledges(Darrier 1999).
Concomitant with the rise of the social andphysical sciences was the emergence of a form of
power that Foucault referred to as biopower. Biopower
was concerned in controlling human populations andrelied on “expert knowledges” from “the social andphysical sciences to control the human individual inorder to create a more docile and productive citizen”(Darrier 1999; Foucault, 1975; Rutherford, 1999). For
Foucault, biopower is an “anatomo-politics of the human
body, that is concerned with disciplining the “individual
body to increase its utility” and manageability (Simon &Aggarwal 2005:8).
Rutherford links the regulatory
power exercised on the human body by medical science
with the attempt by episteme to control and manage
nature. However, as Simon and Aggarwal 2005:8) point
out nature has a knack of escaping “the technologies of
biopower”.
Take for instance, the recent tsunami(December 26 2004), which devastated parts of SouthEast Asia, South Asia and the eastern coast of Africa.
The tsunami exposed the limits of human biopower ofnature, unveiling the ‘myth’ of human control.
Another significant aspect of present humanembodiment is the extent to which human language isdetached from “its origins in communal experience”(Grossman 1999). Here, metaphors of market growth
supplant existential metaphors that contour our
aesthetic engagement with the world. Technologicallanguage, based on a linear time/space model
adumbrates our daily rhythms. Human dependence on
cybernetics is further technologising our embodiment,
mediating our social relations to the point that face toface encounters are being mitigated. Dewey saw thatthe onus on a technological mediated sociality was149

diminishing traditional ways of knowledge transmission.
Take, for instance, Jackson’s claim that the art ofstorytelling, which was central to many cultures has
become an anachronism along with the storytellers(1998). The telling of myths was a crucial method inwhich humans connected with the non-human world.
The mythopoeic understanding of nature which ourancestors shared has been deprecated by a cynicalmodernity.
Furthermore, the western use of metaphors
intimates a cleverly crafted euphemistic language aimed
at disguising the level of human violations.
Euphemisms such as ‘collateral damage’ (civilian
casualties), ‘illegals’ (legal refugees seeking asylum),and ‘non-lethal weapons’ (weapons which are notdesigned to kill but can cause serious injury or death)and many others are frequently used to the extent thatthey have become normalised. In other words, the useof ‘doublespeak’ is tied to a prevailing disregard forhuman rights and indifference towards the environment.
Environmental Bioethics and Embodied AwarenessIn the previous section I elucidated the “prevailingtelos” (James 2002:2) of human embodiment, based ona regimented and technological comportment that hasalienated human beings from nature. This kind of“technological bodily comportment” (James 2002:3) has
encouraged a distortive outlook towards ecology.
Heidegger proposes a way out of this human existential
quagmire. He argues that in order to “recover ourrootedness in the world” we need to be released toward
things (James 2002:2). Releasement toward things’ ishaving an awareness of one’s surroundings, or what
Merleau-Ponty refers to as “an implicit kind of bodily
intelligence” (1996).
In pragmatic terms, then, releasement toward
things may come from paying attention to the everyday
environment which goes at most times unnoticed fromour perception. Heidegger (1971) postulates that things
are in their being openings awaiting to be revealed. In
creating this concept he borrows the Greek term poiesis
to mean ‘bringing forth’ Julian Young (2002:41) statesthat for the Greeks poiesis was “utterly mysterious,
incomprehensible”…“the Greeks…experienced theirworld as brought into, and sustained in, being by an
overwhelmingly powerful, utterly mysterious force.”
Heidegger gives the example of poiesis of acraftsperson who is attuned with the wood which he/she
is working with. The craftsperson ‘answers to’ thedimensions within the slumbering wood (James 2002:3).
In this way, Heidegger regards the environment as ahorizon awaiting to be revealed by our perceptual
participation. Environmentally speaking, Heidegger’s
speculation allows us to treat our everyday lifeworlds
with greater empathy. As James (2002:2) declares: “Tobe released toward a particular stretch of road is toattend to it for what it is in itself, to appreciate thejourney, rather than simply passing over it in sullen
indifference on one’s way to work.”
Along these lines, David Abram calls for asensuous awareness with our surroundings.
This
entails in attuning our ‘animal’ senses to the animate
world. Abram a la Merleau-Ponty determine the world
as a ‘sentient other’ capable of reciprocating human

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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

engagement. In his work Spell of the Sensuous (1996)
Abram elegantly peruses the human journey throughforests in which we interact with the environment as theenvironment interacts with us. Such a view coincides
with many indigenous and Asian understandings of theenvironment as a living, sentient being. In bioethicalterms sensuous engagement with one’s surroundings
gives an individual an ability towards empathising withthe environment. Indigenous and Asian cosmologies
have been attentive to the environment as aninterconnected living matrix in which each organism
affects other organisms. An ecocentric embodiment
would allow humans to dynamically interact with theenvironment.
Let us examine aspects of Abram’s theory in
relation to seed technology and women’s knowledge inIndia. At present, there is growing debate in India
concerning the introduction of genetically modified (GM)seeds. Multi-national companies have reassured Indian
farmers that GM seeds have greater yield capacity thannon GM seeds. Even if this is the case, what issignificant here is that seed has been passed down bygenerations of Indian women. Such knowledge has
enabled women to carefully select superior seed stock
which is insect resistant and environmentally friendly. In
other words, knowledge of seed stock is coalesced withtraditional farming methods which underscore an
ecologic symbiosis. Moreover, womens’ knowledge ofseed stock contributes “to the viability of the agricultural
diversity and production” (Sustainable Development
Department, United Nations).
A concerning aspect of the introduction of GM
seeds is that it foregrounds “knowledge of DNA” (Sahaet al. 2004:454). This means that 90% of resources
used are towards the study of DNA (Saha et al.
2004:454). What is missing is an understanding of thecomplexities of interaction between cultural andenvironmental processes. Moreso, the absence ofaltruistic perspectives countermands sustainable
development. Saha et al. (2004:454) indicate the central
role of human perception in informing “altruistic
decisiveness towards the environment” throughout
human history. Hence, sound ecological management
is interwoven with human perception at various levels.
A perceptual obstacle that is intrinsic to western
technological embodiment is the onus on a visioncentred universe. Stoller (1989) contends that theEurocentric importance of sight which is at odds with theway non-western cultures perceptually engage with theirenvironments. In recent western history vision has
worked in tandem with technology and science. One
reason for this is the role of sight in legitimating facticity.
In other words, western science’s proclivity towards
empirical observation and measurement is more
accommodative to the sense of sight than the othersenses. What this means is that the unique ways inwhich the sensory perceptions are used cross-culturally
are increasingly being imposed by a western visioncentred universe. In addition, modernity’s onus on
images is expediting a vision centred imperialism. Thishas grave consequences from a bioethical perspective
since it prompts a shift away from the plurality ofexperiences in which human beings experience ecology
to a homogenous interpretation.
If bioethics is,"fundamentally an interpretive enterprise" as Ronald
Carson (1990: 250) argues, then an understanding of
how sensory perceptions are operative cross culturally
needs to be encouraged. “It is in such encounters withdifference that one recognizes the merits and limits of"strange" practices, including one's own” (Carson
1999:207-8, 209).
In
GeorgeBerkeley’s
explanation,sightexperiences external objects in relation to how anindividual is “arranged in physical space,” whereas thesense of touch experiences external objects as theycome into contact with one’s body (Abstract for
Touching Shadows 2006:3). This is illustrated in thefollowing example: When you see the dog approachingfrom the distance, you are attending to visualcues”…whereas “When you touch a dog, you do not
merely touch a sign of the dog; you touch the dog itself”(Abstract for Touching Shadows 2006:13). In the latter,
one’s experience of their lifeworld is existentially more
immediate. It is not surprising, then, that in thosesocieties (primarily indigenous societies) where tactility
is privileged that their understandings of the world areinterlaced with metaphors of sentience. Conversely,
western societies’ poor use of the tactile sense has
reinforced the process of separation from nature. In
these societies nature is conceptualized by metaphorsof quantity (Grossman 1999).
In the light of Heidegger, Stoller, and Abram I
propose for a retrieval of the sensory perceptions in thebioethics debate. Bioethics should not simply be viewed
as a form of intellectualism which objectifies the natural
world it claims to protect, but rather interdependent withthe world of the senses. The globalisation of bioethics is“inextricably entangled with psycho-social, economic,
legal, religious” and perceptual issues (Pellegrino
1999:84). “Whatever name we give to moral reflection”
in bioethics “such reflection cannot thrive in isolation”
from embodied perception (Pellegrino 1999:85). The
multi-dimensional nature of the moral life is contingent
upon educating the cogitative and perceptual processes(Pellegrino 1999:85). “The rapid emergence of difficult
ethical dilemmas” (Pellegrino 1999:85), resulting fromtechnological hubris demand a renaissance of ethics
which aim at a “meaningful engagement with the
problems of humanity's ethical and biological present
and future” (Pellegrino 1999:86).
References
Abram, D Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language ina More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books,
1996.
Abstract for Touching Shadows, pp. 1-37.
(Accessed
on
May
29
2006,
at
http://philosophy.duke.edu/pdf/sorensen_duke.pdf)
Athanasiou, A. ‘Technologies of Humanness, Aporias of
Biopolitics, and the Cut Body of Humanity’, A Journal of
Feminist Cultural Studies Spring 2003,14 (1).
Carson, R. A 1999 Interpreting Strange Practices. In
Confucian Bioethics, ed. Ruiping Fan (ed). The
Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. pp. 207-9.
—‘Interpretive Bioethics: The Way of Discernment’,
Theoretical Medicine 11: 1990, 51-59.
Dahlstrom, D ‘Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe andRedemption of History’, Notre Dame Philosophical
Reviews, University of Notre Dame, 2004. (Accessed on
May 25 2006, at http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=5262)

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
Darier, D ‘Foucault and the environment’, in Darier, E. (ed.)
Discourses of the Environment, Oxford: Blackwell 1999.
pp.1-33.
(Accessed
on
May
26
2006,
at
http://www.personal.psu.edu/kls393/chapter3.thesis.pdf)
Feenberg, A Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe andRedemption of History, Routledge, 2005.
— ‘Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Reflections on the20th Century’, [Hitotsubashi University conference on "The20th Century---Dreams and Realities," Dec. 2000](Accessed
on
May
25
2006,
at
http://wwwrohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/feenberg/hit1ck.htm)
Foucault, M ‘Governmentality’, in Burchell, G., Gordon, C. andMiller, P. (eds.) The Foucault Effect, 1991. pp. 87-104.
— (1975) Discipline and Punish: The birth of the Prison,translated by Alan Sheridan New York: Pantheon Books.
1977.
thGrossman, R Uprooting “Growth” as Metaphor: 20 Century
stReflections for the 21 ’, December 1999 (Accessed on May
25
2006,
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http://www.ratical.org/corporations/uprootGrowth.html)
Gur-Ze’ev, I ‘Walter Benjamin and Max Horkheimer: From
utopia to redemption’, (Accessed on May 26 2006, at
http://construct.haifa.ac.il/~ilangz/Utopia4.html)
Heidegger, M The Question concerning Technology, New
York: Harper & Row, 1997.
— “The Thing,” Poetry, Language, Thought, Harper Colophon
Books, 1971.
Horkheimer, M ‘Universitat und Studium’. Gesammelte
Schriften, VIII., Franfurt, 1985.
Huxley, A Brave New World, New York: Harper and Row.
1969.
Jackson, M ‘Introduction’, in M. Jackson (ed.), Things as they
are: new directions in phenomenological anthropology,
Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1996.
— Minima Ethnographica: Intersubjectivity and the
Anthropological Project, The University of Chicago Press:
Chicago & London, 1998.
James, S. P ‘Heidegger and the Role of the Body inEnvironmental Values’, Trumpeter, 2002.(Accessed on May
27
2006,
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http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/content/v18.1/james.html)
Merleau-Ponty, M Phenomenology of Perception, Colin Smith,trans. London: Routledge, 1996.
Pellegrino, E. D ‘The Origins and Evolution of Bioethics: Some
Personal Reflections’, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal
9.1 1999, 73-88.(Accessed on May 29 2006, at
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/journals/k
ennedy_institute_of_ethics_journal/v009/9.1pellegrino.html)
Rutherford, P. 1999. “The Entry of Life into History,” In Eric
Darier (ed.), Discourses of the Environment, Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 1999.pp. 37-62.
Saha, D., Sen, H. S. & A. Saba ‘Integral and Diffeential
Analysis of Bioethics in Understading Agroenvironmental
Altruism’, in Daryl R. J. Macer (ed). Challenges for
Bioethics from Asia. Eubios Ethics Institute, 2004. pp. 450458.
Simon, G. & S. Aggarwal ‘The intersection between Political
Ecology and Health Geography at the scale of theembodied subject’, Geography 515: Progress Report,
August 6 2005.
Solis, B ‘Foucault and the Defense of Deep Ecology’,
Department of Government and Politics, University of
Maryland-College Park, 2004.
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Stoller, P The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in
Anthropology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
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Victor F Heidegger and Nazism, Temple University Press,
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Young, J Heidegger’s Later Philosophy, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.

Are
the
Present
Day“designer babies” a Threat
to Humankind?”: Response to “A
Christian Response to the Issue of “Designer
babies”’” by Minnie Sarah, EJAIB (July 2006)- Maitraye Basu, M.D.
MPH Scholar, Achutha Menon Centre for Health
Science Studies, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for
Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram
695011, Kerala, India
Email: maitraye_basu@rediffmail.com
The indiscriminate use of the term “designer
babies” by the media only highlights the future dangerof producing “designer babies” in the truest sense of theterm by altering genes as per ones wish by choosing
desirable or cosmetic characteristics and evokes asense of fear in the minds of the people. It fails to
portray the tremendous capacity of this procedure
towards betterment of humankind. In the article, titled ‘A
Christian Response to the Issue of “Designer babies”’ byMinnie Sarah, M. Theol, Candidate for Doctorate in
Theology at the South Asian,Theological ResearchInstitute (SATHRI), Bangalore, India,
published in
EJAIB Vol 16 (4) July 2006, the author took up a similarrole as the journalists without delving deep into theconcept and analyzing whether we are really designingbabies or how feasible it is to design babies and tradewith those.
The argument put forth by the author citing the
Hashmi case, as in other papers as well, can bequestioned. The child produced as a tissue match of its
elder sibling does not need to be treated as acommodity. Such a child who saves the life of the elder
sibling is not looked down upon but will be considered a
prized family member not only by the parents but also
by the sibling whose life is saved, an argument very
rationally put forth by the Hashmis themselves. Also thefact raised by the authors that the “saviour sibling” will
be mentally traumatized knowing the purpose of its birthis a baseless. Rather than being mentally traumatized
the “saviour sibling” will have more reasons to feel proud
for being able to save its elder sibling. If we are perfectly
comfortable and happy with one person donating anorgan to save the life of another person and applaud
that person for his/her act, then won’t it be setting of
double standards if we raise an eyebrow to the conceptof “saviour siblings”?
Once again if we set aside our emotions and thinkof this technique in the light of the French Chamber ofRepresentatives, which has come up with a new law
banishing the concept of “designer babies” andreplacing it with the concept of “double hope babies”

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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

where the first hope signifies the birth of a healthy childin a family having a chance of giving birth to children
with hereditary diseases and the second being that thischild, born with the aid of advanced reproductive
technologies, could help treat an elder sibling, we willprobably see this new technique as a marvel of modern
science rather than a threat to humankind.1
Moreover the birth of a child affected with severe
genetic diseases like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy,
Haemophilia, Cystic Fibrosis, Thalassemia, to name a
few is not only traumatic for the parents but also to theaffected individual. It is not only the parents who have toincur huge medical expenditure but it is also theaffected individuals who have to bear the burden of thedisease differentiating them from fellow healthy children
as well as suffer the pangs of medical treatment manyof which are invasive yet without any hope in the longrun. The technique of PGD (Pre-implantation Genetic
Diagnosis) which is presently used to screen embryos
2for genetic disorders and select healthy embryos toproduce the so called “designer babies”
is thus amarvelous solution.
Presently the very issue of “when does an embryo
gain the potential of a human status?’ being a matter ofmuch debate, the question, of killing the embryos otherthan the one selected, raised by the authors is notstrong enough. Even if we go by the fact that allembryos are living and thus basic human rights areapplicable, this technique of selecting the embryos very
early in the stage of development (in the mere 8 cellstage) is certainly more humane than undergoing alegally acceptable Medical Termination of Pregnancy fora foetus which has severe medical defects, at a muchlater stage of its development when it has more definite
signs of life.
Again the fear posed by the authors that theseadvanced reproductive techniques are only theforerunners of the real “designer baby” - chosen for eyeor hair colour, atheleticism or intelligence or some otherparental whim like the desire to have a boy or a girl is arare possibility. Intelligence, athelicism and beauty are
not only guided by genes but also have strong
environmental influences as well. The existing
techniques can only be used to look at one or two genes
at a time, on the other hand most character traits wemight want to choose – anything from height tointelligence – are influenced by a whole range of genes
and are really difficult to be changed at ones free will. It
would actually be next to impossible to make a true
“designer baby” using the present techniques like the
PGD as there is no way of altering the genes inside an
3embryo using PGD. Moreover these techniques havevery low success rates, are too expensive and complex
and are still in the rudimentary stages of development.
They are used extremely sparingly measuring the pros
and cons of success and failure. It is hard to imagine
that anyone will undertake it simply for fun. So with thepresent level of expertise in genetic engineering andalso with the existing laws prevailing, the chance of
creating real “designer babies” through manipulation of
the genetic makeup of the embryo is not a possibility inthe near future. The future possibility of the misuse of
these techniques can be coped through enforcement oflaws and strict vigilance because it would be illogical toban the progress of science due to the inability to
enforce strict regulations and vigilance.
The whole lot of customary apprehensions put
forth by the authors like the concept of eliminating theembryos because they are diseased would tempt us topick babies for their physical or psychological traits aswell and in the frenzied act we would land up breedinga race of super-humans who will look down on those
without genetic enhancements are baseless in thepresent context and seems to be a distant possibility
only. Moreover based on future apprehensions won’t it
be unethical to curb the progress of science, which isintended to benefit humankind. Thus considering thepresent beneficial effects, it seems only logical topermits the rational selection of genetically healthy
embryos and the selection of “saviour siblings”
especially given that prohibiting those would result in the4preventable deaths of many. To conclude, the socalled “ designer babies” of today are aimed to do moregood than bad to the society and instead of criticizing
and looking down upon these techniques guided byirrational emotions and theological philosophies, thesemodern scientific techniques should be appreciated fortheir capacity to do good.
References
1. Fagniez PL, Loriau J, Tayar C. “Designer baby” changed toFrench for “double hope baby”. Gynecol Obstet Fertil. 2005
Oct;33(10):828-32.
Availableat
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retriev
e&db=PubMed&list_uids=16139550&dopt=Abstract.
th
Accessed on 27 August, 2006
2.Bionet.
Designababy?
Availableat
http://www.bionetonline.org/English/Content/db_intro.htm;
accessed on 28th August,2006.
3. bbc.co.uk.Nature and Science: TV and radio Follow-up.
Who is afraid of designer babies? Available at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/babies_prog_summary.shtml; accessed on 28th August,
2006http://www.tecsoc.org/biotech/focusbabies.htm
accessed on 15th July,2006
Should selecting saviour
4.S Sheldon and S Wilkinson.
siblings be banned? J Med Ethics 2004;30:533-537.
Availableat
http://jme.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/30/6/533
thaccessed on 29 August, 2006.

Science and Religion- K. K. Verma, Ph.D.
Retd. Professor of Zoology, HIG 1/ 327,
Housing Board Colony, Borsi, Durg 491001, India
Email: kkvermain@sancharnet.in
kkvermain@yahoo.com
Often we hear statements suggesting that scienceand religion are two contesting areas, for example“Religion is superior to science, as it can explain every
thing and every phenomenon, whereas science is notable to throw light on many of them”, or “Science is fastadvancing, and religion is going to become redundant”.
But this notion is wrongly based, as science and religion
represent two different attitudes of human mind, andthey should be taken as non-overlapping areas.

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
Science is an attitude of enquiry through analysisof data, collected through observations in experiments
or observations in the field, using normal senses. The
analysis of the data is done through simple logic, andinferences are reached. Care and objectivity are
expected from the science worker, so that theinferences or results are verifiable (Verma and Saxena,
2000). On the other hand a religion is based on faith.
The followers of a religion have to have simple faith on
every thing said in religious scriptures about state orform of God, rituals for worship, ethical principles etc..
Leaders in a religion, many of them, are blessed with a
special perception, a sixth sense, special intuitions or ametaphysical capacity. According to Rev. Dalai Lama,as per the Budhist concept, empirical experience also
encompasses “meditative states as well as the evidence
from senses” (Sternberg, 2006). In contrast a person,with normal senses and normal capacity of reasoning,
through training, may become a successful science
worker.
Do we need science? Certainly science is a humanneed. Inquisitiveness and trying to understand every
phenomenon and to reach an explanation/inferences
are a natural tendency of the human mental working.
When this tendency is expressed in a systematic andorderly approach, it is science. Science has played amajor role in development of civilization. We cannot
imagine our life today without electricity, communication
facilities, modern agricultural and medical sciences.
While applied science makes our life comfortable,
healthy and progressive, ecology or environmental
science makes us aware of where we are overdoing,and emphasizes the need of sustainable development,
and of conservation of natural resources and of
biodiversity.
Do we need religion? We do. There is no humanpopulation, which does not practice some form of
religion or does not worship God in some state or form.
In fact religion is a biological necessity of man. His
intelligence, which is the basis of science, has its
limitations. In spite of all scientific progress, there areexperiences and phenomena, which have remained
unexplained. We often come across people, whorecount such experiences. Humans, as a result, sufferfrom fear of the unknown. His faith in religion and God
gives him strength against this fear; hence the need ofreligion.
The great philosopher and former President ofIndia, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan has pointed out anotherreason for why we should have religion. He says thatthe phase of science and technology in human history
has brought with it-self the cult of specialization. For
scientific and technological progress specialists areneeded. A specialist knows so much about his area ofspecialization, but often lacks in perception of the broad
arena of life. As Dr. Radhakrishnan has put it, “Modern
specialization has led to the fragmentation ofknowledge”. While we need specialists, we also need awide perspective of life and of the planet supporting it.
Every organized religion has this perception and aholistic approach to needs of life and society.
Most scientists are religious. Even in USA, which ishaving a raging conflict between science and religion(vide infra), about 40% US scientists believe in God,

153

“but Collins (a leading molecular geneticist) says that is
not reflected in science’s public face” (Editorial, 2006).
Most scientists, however regard science and religion as
distinct realms. Recently several books on science andreligion have been published. Specially notable among
them are those by Francis S. Collins, the leading
molecular geneticist, Roughgarden, an evolutionary
biologist, E. O. Wilson, an eminent entomologist andinvertebrate conservationist, and Gingerich, an emeritus
professor of Astronomy at Harvard. In essence they all
say, “But does science require the abandonment offaith? Not necessarily, and certainly not entirely, theseauthors argue.” (Dean, 2006). At the same time mostly
they do not endorse mix up of science and religion,
Unfortunately sometimes there is a bad intermixingof science and religion. During the past some years
people in some countries, specially in USA, have started
challenging the Theory of Organic Evolution, and trying
to replace it with what they call Intelligent Design (ID). ID
is only a modified version of the Book of Genesis in the
Holy Bible, modified to give it a scientific flavour. The
controversy between evolution and ID has been blownout of proportion through a huge media coverage inUSA. Often reporting on this subject comes from
“reporters with no scientific training”, and generally
equal time/space is accorded to biologists andcreationists, “creating illusion of scientific equivalence”(Rosenhouse and Branch, 2006). Evolution versus ID
has been discussed in an earlier communication(Verma, 2006). From that earlier paper I would repeat
here only what Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit Directorof the Vatican Observatory, said: “Intelligent Design isn’tscience, even though it pretends to be”.
Francis S. Collins completely rejects ID, “… as Dr.
Francis S. Collins (in his 2006 book) (has) put it, whenreligions require belief in “fundamentally flawed claims”
about the world, they force curious and intelligent
congregants to reject science, “effectively committing
intellectual suicide”, a choice he calls “terrible andunnecessary” ” (Dean, 2006).
Reviewing Hanzen’s 2005 book on life’s origin, Fry(2006) says, “(the book) written from the careful yet selfconfident perspective of an experimentalist, serves as asolid rebuttal to such assaults (from supporters of ID).”.
Bonner (2006) has reviewed a book, edited byJohn Brockman, and published in 2006. The bookincludes a series of essays, which forcefully
demonstrate that ID has no scientific basis. Bonner
points out that specially notable are the essays by Jerry
Coyne, who masterly sums up the major evidences insupport of the evolutionary theory, and the one by Tim
White, who describes the remarkably complete series offossils, showing vividly the course of evolution leading to
the modern man.
Overlapping of science and religion is certainly
highly undesirable. But there are some ways, in which
the two fields may have useful intersection or crosseach other’s path, without encroaching into each other’sarea. Instances of such intersection:
1. Sometimes personal ambitions overcome thecompulsion of observing science norms, and this resultsin scams in science (Verma, 2006). A recent example isthe case of stem cell “research” by the South Koreanscientist Hwang Woo-suk. Such scams are responsible

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for loss of funds and time, and hamper scientificprogress. Some exposure to a religion, at least inchildhood, may reduce the possibility of such scams, as
every organized religion has a strong ethicalcomponent.
2. Roughgarden, an evolutionary biologist, in her
recent book, points out that religion has a role in ethicalconsideration of biotechnological developments or
Bioethics. She says, “I’d love to discuss the moral
issues of biotechnology within a community of faith”(Dean, 2006).
3. E. O. Wilson opines that, “if religion and science
could be united on the common ground of biologicalconservation, the problem (of conservation) would soon
be solved” (Dean, 2006). Hindus in India worship sometrees, and in some parts they protect forests with areligious zeal.
4. A logical and analyzing attitude of mind of ascientist should help in sieving out genuine religion fromsuperstitions and deviations, introduced by those withpersonal ill-based ambitions. This role of science shouldbe helpful in reducing conflicts between different
religions.
References
Bonner, J.T., 2006. Design flaws (a review of the book“Intelligent Thought : Science versus the Intelligent Design
Movement”, edited by John Brockman, Vintage Books,
2006). Nature, 442 (27 July, 2006): 355 – 356.
Dean, C., 2006. Faith, reason and God and otherimponderables: books on science. (The author cites fromand reviews several recent books, including (1) Francis S.
Collins’ “Language of God”, Free Press, 2006., (2) Joan
Roughgarden’s (Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflectionsof an Evolutionary Biologist”, Island Press, 2006., and (3) E.
O. Wilson’s “Creation: Meeting of Science and Religion”, W.
W. Norton, 2006).. The New York Times, July 25, 2006.
Editorial, 2006. Nature, 442 (13 July, 2006): 110.
Fry, I., 2006. Search of life’s beginnings (a review of Hanzen’s
book “The Scientific Quest of Life’s Origin”, Joseph Henry
Press, Washington DC, 2005). Science, 312 (26 May
2006): 1140 – 1141.
Rosenhouse, J. and Branch, G., 2006. Media coverage of“Intelligent Design”. Bioscience, 56 (3) (March, 2006): p. ?.
Sternberg, E., 2006. A compassionate universe (a review of
the Dalai Lama’s book “The Universe in a Single Atom”,
Morgan Road, New York, 2005). Science, 311: 611 – 612.
Verma, K.K., 2006. Scams in science. Eubios Journal of Asianand International Bioethics, 16 (1): 3 – 4.
Verma, K.K., 2006. Evolution versus intelligent design. Zoos’
Print Journal, 21 (3) (March, 2006): 2204 – 2206.
Verma, K.K. and Saxena, R., 2000. Man in biologicalperspective. Himanshu Publications, Udaipur.

Designing Humans- Archana Barua, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati,
North Guwahati, Guwahati-781039,India
Email: archana_barua@yahoo.co.in
Abstract
It is said that the present situation in human history
is a challenge to philosophy to vindicate its traditional

claim to the possession of a vision of humans that canhelp, integrate, and enrich human experience. Standingon the threshold of the biological century, we find that
more than physics or mathematics, it is now biology thathas turned aggressively useful, and that bio-thinking will
shape our vision of ourselves in the years to come. If all
our distinctive human traits, our sensitivity andemotions, our altruism and compassion, are written in
our genes, if these are identified as our weak points thatneed to be corrected, human designers will replace thesport of nature with models of human fancy. Genetic
engineering will provide genetic therapy provided these
are not culture laden terms but are similar to the
problems in mathematics to be solved in a matter of fact
way by the disengaged and detached man of reason.
Designing humans as an artificial and a mechanicalprocess assures perfection since the humans so
designed are no more blind victims of genetic lottery.
Combining sperm and egg in a dish test tube babies are
made, or a genetic duplicate is made cloning humanbeings. In this transition from biology to bio- and genetechnology, many complicated questions will remainunanswered: questions about human manipulation andpersonal identity, the question of surrogate mothers andpre-natal embryo transfer, about intolerance for diversity
and for imperfection, about obsessions for becoming
God like and perfect, about attaining knowledge that is
absolutely certain and exact. This paper will make an
attempt at exploring some philosophical issues in light ofrecent trends in gene technology with special emphasison the human genome project and its ethicaldimensions.
Introduction
Genetic engineering raises issues about the natureof life itself, about what it is to be human, about the
future of human race and about our rights to knowledge
and privacy. “Until now we have all been children of
nature, the progeny of evolution”. 1 We were neither
designers of the flora or the fauna, nor responsible forthe being of humankind or of nature. With genetic
engineering at our doorstep, we are not only physiciansand healers acting midwife to assist birth, we arebasically active manipulators and skillful surgeons withsophistication and excellence.
On the other hand, this biological turn in our
thinking could take a positive turn with its due
recognition of our historical and situational limitations.
Unlike other homothetic society of sciences, a productlike physics, chemistry, and mineralogy, and geology
etc., biology is idiographic to Earth. We can expect only
on this Earth historically derived genes and their Earthly
generated products. A human designer can only narrate
the story of these particular and historical genes. Our
knowledge here is more of stories than law-like;knowledge here is an instrument of biological andcultural adaptation. This scientific story of nature is also
constituted by the dominant sociology of science, aproduct of Western, European culture. In thisbackground, this article is a humble attempt at unfolding
the story of the Earth bound humankind that cannot be
separated from the story of the Earth. It is a story about
the relation between the two. Human designers should

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
take note of our historical and situational limitations
while designing.
The first part of the article is a gradual explorationof what will make sense of our being human and how
this is lately being challenged. I present here somerudimentary understandings of what it is to be humanfrom some philosophical perspectives.
Humans as the contemplator: the visionary person in
Plato, Socrates, and the Greeks
Plato’s ideal human is a contemplator and a loverof the eternal Forms of the Good, Justice, and Virtue.
Episteme is achieved through the exercise of reason
that, for Plato, was intellectually and morally superior totechné. The realm of the real is superior to the realm of
the appearances. For Plato, the material world, uponwhich techné operates, belongs to the realm of
appearance. The pursuit of wisdom and virtue throughgrasping the forms of the Good, Justice and Beauty,
remains the ultimate philosophical goal. The highest
intellectual/moral life is the life of contemplation inspiredby the love of such forms. The desire to dominate thematerial/natural world through techné is not a part ofthat ideal. The role played by the techné in such a
conception of the good life and the good society is avery limited one. The highest human fulfillment andflourishing is not to be found in the mastery of thesensory world or in the comforts that such control may
bring. For Socrates, human flourishing is not predicted
upon ‘the realm of necessity’, which is taken care of bytechné (technology).
For modern people such as Marx, intellectual andartistic flourishing is only meaningful and possible if
structured upon a material base of abundance. There isa transition here from normative concept of humans tovalue neutral pure descriptive one, from humans as
spiritual to people as functional, from people as thinkers
to being essentially a doer. Both the thinker and thedoer are free subjects in their own right. The one is acontemplator, the other, a manipulator and a reformer;
both remain natural humans and free agents either as
designers or as manipulators. They are specimens of‘the natural’, not yet reduced to some artifacts. However,
all manipulators are not always so privileged. There isalways some exceptions to any rule whatsoever.
A drug addict’s art of manipulating others is not a
free agent’s planned act for which they owe
responsibility. It is their addiction or clinically diagnosed
compulsion that has transformed them to a patient, andan object designed, rather than a free designer.
Something is lacking here which takes away somethingvital from the human way of doing an act, or even from abiotic way of doing it, which was definitely different fromthe robotic performances of mindless machines. Thiswas one significant fields for philosophers todifferentiate biotic life forms from abiotic ones.
The plant did not come into existence for the sakeof providing seeds to the insects or to the humans. The
insects did not come to provide food for the bird, nor isthe nightingale here on earth to sing melodious songs
for the pleasure of humankind. All these exist, primarily
to unfold their own telos. Only biotic entities have a goodof their own. “The lake is found by glacial action, andthen dries one day so does a tree. Each entity follows its

155

own manner of persistence, change and decay; we cancut a tree ultimately, but all biotic entities exist forthemselves, striving to maintain their functioning2
integrity and to realize their own tele.” the top of thefood chains to an entirely herbivores biosphere. Thatamounts to humanizing nature with a vengeance.
This is common in all forms of biotic life. Take theemperor penguins in Antarctica when the female has
hatched its egg, both the female and male penguins
strive to ensure that hatched egg is successfullytransferred from the former to the later. This operationmust be completed within a very short period as the egg
would nod strive the cold if exposed for the two minutes.
When the transfer has taken place, the male thenprotects and hatches it during the next four months,
while his female partner travels about a hundred miles
or so to get to the sea in order to feed and fatten herself.
“At the first stirring of the Antarctic spring, the egg ishatched. The hatching is timed to coincide with thereturn of chick’s mother from the sea but in spite of thelong separation, the partners successfully recognize andlocate each other. At this point, another intricate transfer
begins -----the mother takes over straightaway and mustfeed the chick, as any delay would cause it to die of coldand hunger. When the offspring has been handled overthen it is the turn of the male partner to walk thehundred miles or to the sea to feed himself-he had
endured hunger and extreme cold for months, allthrough the depth of the narcotic winter protecting and3hatching the egg.” But an abiotic entity, a mountain, if it
is eroded by natural forces, does not send any
recognizable signal to another part of it to replace what
is being eroded.
One of the most significant changes within thetwentieth century and early decades of the twenty-first
century is the development of our ability to manipulate
life through genetic engineering. Biotic artifacts imply
that non-humans are neither ‘for themselves’ nor ‘bythemselves’. Humans now have re-coded the internal
design of these biotic entities; the formal cause isalready taken over. Biotic entity may continues to exist
for itself, provided humans allow them to exist the way
they should, following their respective trajectories,
independently of human interests and intervention. It issignificant that nature has only instrumental value forhumans. Even for Bergson, it is even more significant
that human consciousness and intelligence, as
embodied in instrumentation and manufacture as well as
the scientific reasoning, which stands behind these, so
effectively breaks down any recalcitrance and resistanceof non-human nature against the penetration andimposition of human intentions upon it. In other words,
the transformation of the natural into the artifact truly
affirms humanity’s mastery of nature. Homo faber reigns
supreme.
With genetic engineering, organisms that produce
asexually can have genetic material spliced into theirgenes from individuals other then themselves. The
same holds also for those that reproduce sexually.
Animals, on the other hand, reproduce sexually, whilesome plants reproduce asexually. That means that
under genetic engineering a major difference between
some plants and most animals can be obliterated.
Science promises to achieve in overnight laboratories

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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

the process of natural selection, which would otherwise
take millions of years in nature. Research predicts that,
one-day, geneticists may be able to remove traits fromhuman beings that are considered undesirable andreplace them with more acceptable ones. However, thatis in our future. Currently, the battle is to be able tofreely and legally complete the research that will
eventually lead to this kind of genetic engineering of
humans.
Now that we come close to such an understanding,greater progress becomes possible. Embryology is ascience of tomorrow. This is a shift from holistic to
atomic conceptions of human and of nature; the shift
from the macro to the micro, from organizations to unconnected atoms. Biotechnology has therefore tempted
many to consider putting right what they perceive to be
severe limitations in nature itself. One such limitation,
which ‘designer proteins’ and transgenic organism hope
to overcome, is that natural evolution can capitalize
errors during DNA replication. Furthermore natural
evolution necessarily is a slow process, favoring thoseindividual organisms with mutations, which bestow anadvantage on their possessors’ Like Tudge, thesethinkers are eager to ‘help’ nature during anticipatedperiods of extreme atmospheric or ecological stresswhen the necessary random mutation may not be
forthcoming’. 4
Others, such as Easter Brook, go even further totalk about overcoming ‘design flaws’ in nature, replacing
nature with ‘New Nature’. For instance, the ‘New Nature’envisaged is one in which predation by animals against
animals would have been eliminated. Modern civilization
holds it to be axiomatically correct that pain is anabsolute evil, and the removal (or diminution) of pain an
absolute good. That amounts to re-designing theexisting biosphere in which carnivores operate at, thetop of the food chains to an entirely herbivores
biosphere. That amounts to humanizing nature with a
vengeance.
In this journey of man as contemplator to man as
Homo faber, both the one who designs and the one
which is designed, has undergone change. Natural
evolution is in danger of being superseded by humancontrol and manipulation of biotic nature. Instead ofnatural selection, it is now possible to have humanselection of characteristics deemed to be desirable to be
spliced into the genomes of different life forms.
Biotechnology makes it possible (at least in principle) for
Homo faber to rearrange genetic material in ways, which
please it. Organisms no longer inherit genetic material
that cans even come from other unrelated species. Their
genetic composition can be humanly designed andengineered in the laboratory. This may marginalize thegap between natural human and their image, the biotic
artifact, between human and their replica, the similar
other.’ Robert Sinsheimer, a leading molecular biologist
and a key figure in the initiative to establish the project,wrote in 1969: “For the first time, a living creature
understands its origin and can undertake to design its
5
future”.
Defining humans
We should pose the basic question: 'in genetic
terms, what makes us human?' This is now synonym

to,’ what actually specifies the human organism?'
Molecular biologists have estimated that there are
100,000 to 30,000 genes, which make up a humanbeing. The lower estimate assumes about 30,000 basepairs per gene; but as some genes may only be 10,000
base pairs long, there could be as many as 300,00
genes, according to the highest estimate. That meansthat the human DNA sequence is composed of threebillion base pairs.
But whatever the estimate of the number of genes,
the number alone underestimates the complexity of thehuman organism, because many genes encode ten to
twenty different functions in different issues. Some ofthat genetic inheritance may turn out to be unwelcomefor instance, Tay-Sachs disease is a common disorderamong some groups of Ashkenazi Jews in North
America who, through many generations of marrying
within the groups, have increased the chances of theiroffspring inheriting the deleterious gene from bothparents, who might each be a heterozygous Tay-Sachs
carrier. The therapeutic aspect of gene-technology isalways welcome but there are other exciting possibilities
that ask for human restraint and in- depth understandingof a holistic picture of humans and our interconnections
with things and beings around us than a simple
identification of defective genes. In this journey fromcontemplation to manipulation, what is left behind in thisprocess is the spiritual realm that gave rise to holistic
vision of man and his counterparts. With our piecemeal
knowledge and fascination for details, we have lost thatsense of wonder to celebrate life as a gift. This needs
recognition of the dreamer and the planner, along withthe skilled artisan and the craftsman and his practicalknow how. Or else, either the technical man istransformed completely to the human of technology who
will solve life or death problems in the same spirit thatsolves a problem in mathematics.
Life has lost its mystery and its sacredness, asbirth is no longer a mystery, nor is death. Now thehuman story and the Earth story is found to be simply
coded in genes in complete ignorance of the fact that
this Earth story can not be only that which is simply
coded in human genes. Even genes, as they spin anatural history that they also record, are placed in larger
events of climate, geomorphology, or marine hydrology.
The story takes place at multiple levels, of which themicroscopic genes are only one, the level of smallest
scale.” There are, on smaller scales still, atoms,
electrons, quarks, on which the story motifs aresuperimposed, but we do not know of any cyberneticallytransmitted accumulating historical coding, that isregistered in structures and processes at these lower
levels. There are, on larger scales the native range
events with which the phenotype must reckon, theblooming, buzzing confusion of life on land and in the6sea.”This gene-story cannot take account of the culturaland the spiritual realm of humans. It has no explanation
to the fact that in culture, people can act in ways that
decreases their fitness. The self is not simply biologicaland somatic but cultural and ideological. Along withbiological reproduction, there is cultural reproduction ofwhat one values most. That is equally required sincehumankind has relied, in the main (and still does), on

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
cultural means to regulate and determine humanreproduction. “Once the cultural selection is in place, theonly technique relied on is copulation, helped in someinstances by subsidiary techniques, which vary from
culture to culture, like eating the right foods, or saying
the right prayers in the hope that there would be
success in conception and that then offspring turn out tohave certain desired values “.7
We may once again distinguish here the processesof techniques from technologies, reproduction fromhuman production, and humans as cultural from humans
as natural as well as humans viewed from a holistic
perspective to the atomic and microscopic picture ofhumans. This is also a shift from the joy of creativity to
the mechanical act of manufacturing humans in afactory. This technological manner of human making
process can be compared to as artificial a process as
cake –making.” The formal cause and the materialcause appear to lie within the union of a particularsperm and particular egg to form the embryo, whichdevelops into the infant born nine month later. The
production, unlike the reproduction of human offspring,
literally involves the making of babies. Such babies, likecakes, are true artifacts except that one is biotic andhuman, whereas the other is abiotic. ‘The super session(in principle) of reproduction by production even in thecontext of human reproduction is the true measure of
the ontological transformation humankind has effected,
and the extent to which it has not only humanized nature
but in the process, using the same technologies, has
8also naturalized humanity itself”.
In contrast, human reproduction, under nontechnological conditions, does not approximate orsatisfy at least one special condition that characterizes
process of production of babies under artificial
conditions. James Kimmel describes how this uniquerelationship between mother and child is missing in an
artificial environment that is deprived of this specialbond between the two. Under natural circumstances,mother and baby are structurally separate, and without aplacental attachment after birth, but they are notphysically or emotionally separate. “They evolved to bea nursing couple in close, physical contacts day andnight – a couple who are reactive to each other’s moods
and feelings. A mother smiles when her baby smiles,
laughs when her baby laughs, is anxious when her baby
is anxious, content when he is content, peaceful when
he is peaceful, and sad when he is unhappy. A baby
smiles when his mother smiles, laughs at her sounds ofdelight, becomes upset when his mother is upset,
anxious, distant, angry, or not available when he wants
9
to be with her”.
“The human individual, as compared to otheranimals, is poorly endowed to survive in nature. We
have no claws or fangs that can serve as weapons, weare slow moving, and we have no protective armor.
Even our superior brain, coupled with the manual
dexterity that allows us to create what we can imagine,
would have little survival value if we were not able to act
collectively. Indeed, the human brain, with its capacity
for language, empathy, and the ability to imagine and toplay at being another, evolved as it did to enhance ourcapacity for collaborative and collective behavior. Those
traits that allow us to survive in the modern world, such157

as self-sufficiency, independence, competitiveness,selfishness, and indifference to the plight or misfortuneof others would have had little adaptive value when we
lived in small groups as hunter-gatherers. Our adaptive
strength then was in our ability for combined and unified
functioning, not in our individual and separate skills,
10
powers, possessions, or wealth”.
The nurturing mother-infant interaction, rooted in
the mother's capacity to care about the life she creates,
was for most of our existence the model for all humanrelationships and the foundation for human society. It
allowed the newborn to be born in an immature state
and to slowly develop his brain and mind in relation toloving others. The nurturing process, predicated on theunity of mother and baby, developed individuals who
would find it natural to function in unison with others.
We would be a very different kind of species - a very
unsocial one - if we were born fully developed and did
not require mothering.
Donald Winnicott, the English psychologist, hassaid that, “ ‘There is no such thing as a baby, there is ababy and someone.’ This statement captures the realityof the human baby – a reality that is often overlooked inour society because babies are inaccurately perceived
from the moment of birth as separate individuals. We nolonger value and support mothering or the babies’
critical need to develop in relation to a tender, nurturingmother. We have deviated from the nurturing aspect ofreproductive biology by changing the baby's "someone".
In a society where a baby lives and develops without her
mother’s presence and without human tenderness,some babies, if not most, become a different kind of
human than they were meant to be. They must adapt toand fit the substitutes that have replaced natural
mothering: formula, pacifiers, cribs, playpens, security
objects, and substitute caregivers. In doing so, they are,as adults, different from adults who develop in relation toa nurturing mother. Inappropriately and poorly nurtured
children grow up without the internalization oftenderness. We evolved to pass on to the newborn our
11tender feelings for them.”
The moral dimension
The rise of applied and practical ethics as a field in
philosophy has created a need to give answers to manysuch concrete moral problems that must be addressedfrom these changing perspectives on production,
reproduction etc. There is, however, no consensus
about what ethical theory (utilitarianism, deontologist,
virtue ethics etc.) should be adopted. Moreover, mostethical theories seem to be disconnected from cases.
Thus the question what role ethical theories should playin moral practice is one of the most important issues inapplied and practical ethics with the understanding that
moral problems cannot and should not be viewed asrational decision problems, but should be compared with(industrial or engineering) design problems. By
presenting moral problems as well-structured or
multiple-choice problems, ethicists have implicitly
suggested that we should choose one of the given
alternatives through a rigid analytic methodology. Thishistorical context of conceptualizing the humanchallenges the importance of humanness as a fixed
entity. The emerging perspectives of cyborgism, post

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Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

humanism, Trans humanism seek to reject humanness
as guiding, normative concept, taking it as a process
toward disembodiment throughout cybernetics.
But then, the question remains: ‘what roles dohumans play’? Is it normative, or value neutral
functionality, that defines man? Is human dignity anatural possession like one’s beautiful blue eyes, or justa vulnerable body? Are humans an incomplete processthat is in the making, and that is to be rewritten andrecomposed many more times? Do they possess
subjectivity, or, inter-subjectivity? Are we the sole authorof our life, or only one of the co-authors, working as ateam with other seen or unseen designers? Is a person
one or many? Are we basically static, or dynamic? Is
everything about a human just in the genetic code thatcan be easily decoded by intelligent designers? Humans
might be genetically disposed to grow bald, fear
strangers, and avoid incest; men to dominate women;both to want many children or to be selfish. But how
should we modify these traits in our genetically
improved future? To make people wish for fewer
children?
In enhancing such traits as intelligence, memory or
altruism, there might be unforeseen consequences.
”There exists a genetically engineered strain of the fruit
fly Drosophilae that learns ten times faster than thenormal strain. At first sight, the application of thesetechnologies to humans sounds marvelous. Imagine
learning ten times faster; think of all the benefits it could
bring. However, there may be costs. Improved learning
implies improved memory and if you have a far superior
memory you will forget far less. Most of us haveexperienced unpleasant happenings that we are only
12
too grateful to forget.” Further, there is some evidence
to suggest that the handful of people who have total
recall or perfect photographic memories find life difficult.
For a start, they don’t always find it easy to know whatday, month or even year it is. If one has perfect memory,
events that occurred a year ago may be almost as freshin one’s mind as events minutes ago. This can lead toconfusions and can make social relationship difficult.
Conclusion
I have made attempt at defining these twoprocesses of reproduction and production as the phaseof transition from techniques to technology. While theuse of techniques might lead to creations such as songs
and poems, the use of technology may, on its own, leadto artifacts.” The former falls into the domain that
requires deliberate and intentional creation, but only themaking of things leads to the production of an artifact,which is defined as the material embodied of humanintentionality”. 13
Perhaps what is objectionable to Plato’s
contemplator man should be equally objectionable tothose of his fellow travelers who were left behind in the
cave. One thing, that is common to both, is the initialblindness, of darkness or of light. Taken in isolation,much light and sunshine is as bad as too less of it. The
only happy solution remains, the return of the Platonic
humans to our own inner cave and to re-search its
interior with this light of wisdom. This is also a
recognition of the fact that no person can become God
like perfect designer unless and until one gives due

recognition of the fact that people are both God andbeast, both the one who knows, and the one who does
not know.
References
1, 7-10. Ralston, Home S, Gene, Genes and God. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
2-6. Lee, Keekok , Philosophy and Revolutions in
Genetics.New York: Macmillan , 2003.
11. Kimmel, James Kimmel, The Human Baby - The NaturalChild
Project
http://www.naturalchild.com/james_kimmel/human_baby.ht
ml.last accessible 12 January 2004.
12-13. Hoberman, J.M, The Science of performance andDehumanisation of Sport. New York 1992. 12 January
2004.

Medically Assisted
Procreation: Legal
Framework in Portugal- Maria Cristina Rosamond Pinto M.D.,PhD, F.A.C.M.G.
Professor of Genetics and Medicine,
Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon, Portugal.
E mail : genetica_medica@hotmail.com
1. General Considerations
Medical Assisted procreation (PMA) has been
performed in Portugal since 1984 but is was only on the
25th May 2006 that the Parliament (Decree 64/X) set
the legal rules and legislation subsequently announced
by the President of the Portuguese Republic. The Left
Wing Parties voted favourable (Socialist Party,
Communist Party, Extreme Left Block and the Green or
Ecological Party) along with eight deputies of the Social
Democratic Party. The Central Social Democratic Party,
the Popular Party and the rest of the Social Democratic
Party voted against the Decree 64/X. The new law aims
the problems of infertility afflicting a great number ofcouples filling in an important gap of the Portuguese
legal System.
In 1998 the Parliament approved the Decree nº.
415/VII to legislate about PMA. The Decree was vetoedby at the time President Jorge Sampaio. The expresident thus responded to the appeals of thePortuguese scientific community which strongly
opposed one of the most controversial issues of the
Diploma which restricted insemination to a limit of 5
oocytes. Another reason for the then President’s veto
was the insufficiency of the Public Debate concerning
PMA. On May 2006 the now supreme Chief of thePortuguese State pointed out that he had found no“special or meritorial reasons“ to demand a statementfrom the Constitutional Court.
However the President alerted to the need offurther legislation within the scope of an “effective
protection to the human embryo!”. The President
emphasized the need to an effective protection
concerning cryopreserved embryos (which areconsidered viable within the framing of the new Law )regarding which there might occur “before a lag time ofEubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
three years a commitment break of the beneficiary inusing the embryos in another transfer procedure
simultaneously with the refusal in consenting to the
donation to another couple“?!! It was also pointed out by
the President that the embryo dignity should beguarantied out of the scope of a parental project “eventhough the new Law allows in vitro research in embryos“!.The National Council for Medically Assisted
Procreation (CNPMA)It is recommended that thisCouncil should include nine personalities of renowned
merit to guarantee special qualification within the rangeof ethical scientific, social and legal aspects of PMA.
The CNPMA will be the fundamental instrument rulingthese subjects with the responsibility to analyze theresearch Projects implying that these embryos may
contribute to the goodness of humanity. The
independence, multidisciplinarity and pluralism of thesemembers of the CNPMA should be guaranteed alongwith the transparency of procedures and the existenceof conditions for an adequate performance regarding thecompetence of the CNPMA. However the possible
resource to the Courts should be an open possibility.
1. Five of the CNPMA members will be elected by the
Parliament and the remaining shall be nominated by theholders of the Ministries of Health and Science. The
president and vice-president will be elected among thenine members. The mandates will last for 5 years but
each of the members may fulfill one or more mandates.
The following are considered competence of the
CNPMA:
1. Updating of scientific information concerning PMA
and of the technques approved by legislation.
2. To establish the conditions that should rule theCenters where the PMA technology is performed as wellas the Centers where gametes and embryos arepreserved.
3. To issue statements about stem cells Banks and thefinal disposal of biological material in case the Banks
should be closed.
4. To appreciate, approve or report the research
projects involving embryos and to develop the PMA
technology within the range of the National HealthServices.
Beneficiary Scope
The resource to PMA according to the Law may
only be performed in infertility cases and also for thetreatment of a serious disease or considering the risk oftransmission of genetic diseases, impending infections
or other diseases. The beneficiaries may only bemarried couples not separated by law regarding welfare
or properties or couples of distinct genders living inconditions legally similar to the married couples at least
two years before they seek PMA. The law encompasses
artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization (IVF), sperm
intra-cytoplasmic technology, transfer of embryos,
gametes or zygotes and also pre-implanted genetic
diagnosis. IVF is focused in Article 24ª which refers that
“only the number of embryos considered sufficient to a
successful IVF should be bread in accordance to a goodclinical practice and within the principles of informed
consent.“ Regarding the number of oocytes to beinseminated in each procedure the Law specifies that“the clinical situation of the couple should be taken in

159

account as well as the general indication to prevent
multiple pregnancies“. Article 22ª dwells on the use of
sperm after the death of the spouse or living companion
as above focused referring that it is not lawful to carryon sperm insemination from the dead notwithstanding
the fact that such consent was given in life ! Issue Nº.2of the same article establishes that the sperm which
may be collected for insemination purposes from a
spouse viewing a future sterility scenario will be
destroyed if the spouse or man with equal legal status
dies during the period established for the semen
preservation!
However issue Nº.3 considers lawful a portmortem embryo transfer to fulfill a parental project
clearly established in writing before the father’s demise
once the lag time considered adequate to “ thoughtfulconsiderations of a righteous decision has elapsed “!
Regarding donor insemination it may only occur viewing
the fact that with the ongoing medical, scientificknowledge it is not possible to achieve a pregnancy withthe husband’s sperm or with the legal partner of thewoman who will undergo insemination.
2. Research
In the present Law only cryopreserved exceedingembryos may be considered for research purposes aslong as they are not carriers of any serious genetic
anomaly within the context of preimplantation genetics
diagnosis or further reserved to any parental planning.
For these two situations research will depend on
the prior consent, duly expressed and informed of thecorrespondent beneficiaries.
According to the Law, research is also allowed inembryos that are not appropriate for transference or
cryopreservation for PMA or in embryos obtained
without sperm fertilization. Article 3 points out that the “
resource to embryos for scientific research may only beconsidered if it brings human benefits. Each scientificproject depends on the recognition and decision of the
CNPMA.
The article 9th of the Law (issue nº.1) relating toembryo research
specifically points out that “thecreation of embryos through PMA with the purpose ofscientific research in embryos is considered lawful if itaims at the purpose of prevention, diagnosis or embryo
therapy, as well as the improvement of PMA techniques,
establishment of stem cell Banks regardingtransplantation programs or any other therapeutic
purposes “
What Referendum?
The discussion about the PMA law now decreed
triggered a reaction from the People in favour of a
National Referendum; the petition signed by 82.000
people was presented to the Parliament on the 25th
May 2006 on the very same day that the PMA law wasapproved by the Parliament and the Petition was shoved
in a drawer !The subjects to be submitted to areferendum focused on three major issues and wereaddressed to controversial themes like the “creation ofsuper-numerary embryos“, the “legitimacy of the accessto PMA“ and “surrogate maternity“. The Petition wasn’t
only subscribed by lay people but by Medical University
Professors members of the National Ethical Council for160

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

Life Sciences. The basis for this petition was the claimof a lack of Public debate on one side and the argumentthat “only the Public opinion should count on such
subjects“ and that such questions are not scientific but
dwelling with situations where public opinion is crucial!.
The Petition claimed that the Government had no
legitimacy to legislate about the side damages of PMA.
The Petition defended that regarding the two issues
above focused “legislation should prohibit the creation ofsupernumerary embryos although addressing this“
particular issue to a separate Law and forbidding thedonor gametes fertilization (male or female)“.
3. Portuguese Physicians feedback and closing
remarks
If in the past there were some doubts about the“beginning of human life“ (even Hippocrates did nothave such doubts when he strongly opposed Abortion),
nowadays due to the DNA knowledge these doubts aredefinitely bypassed ! Life begins with the embryo! The
embryo has all the potentiality of an adult; the embryo isa being with individuality following a predetermined
program towards adult life. The right to life peculiar to a
newborn child may thus be identical to that of theembryo unless one chooses not to consider the latest
scientific achievements! The embryo of course doesn’t
think or feel although it is known that there is sensitivity,
memory, etc. inside the maternal womb. It seems that
according to the Hippocratic tradition extended
manipulation of germ cells may not be accepted due tothe risks that it may involve to the human being namely
when it reaches its complete development! Although the
President of the Portuguese Medical Board favoured theexistence of the new Law, the majority of thePortuguese physicians claimed that "the human being
had the right not to be artificially manipulated or evendestroyed as will happen to the supernumerary embryos
or to the embryos with anomalies“, focusing homologous
as well as heterologous fertilization! Their opinion
expressed that germ cell manipulation regardless of the
product of conception “being out of wedlock or theoutcome of a marital relationship entailed an extremely
high risk to the future newborn“. That to ”abuse suchhuman rights did not seem“ appropriate of a Estate of
Law but rather endeavored to Estates with Eugenic
Policies ! In general, Portuguese physicians seem to be
confronted with two problems:
1. The medical performance to improve conception after
intercourse between a married or lawfully registeredcouple.
2. The use of manipulation of ova or sperm viewing thesame purpose but regardless of marital intercourse.!
Portuguese Medical Professionals feel that the Law
should respect the ethics of the health professionals. To
make things worse Portuguese Health Professionals
emphasize that the subject endorsed by the new Law
was not even discussed by the media which may attimes be very selective defending certain points of view
while totally disregarding other issues! Whatever thelegislator may think or wish the practical resolution of
the subjects endorsed by the new law is in thephysicians hands concerning as well other healthprofessionals. Therefore the Law should respect the

Ethics of the Health Professionals, who were definitely
not consulted by the Legislators of the Decree 64/X/06.

News in Bioethics & Biotechnology
http://www2.unescobkk.org/eubios /NBB.htm
Codes of Ethics
http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=4008
UNESCO Bangkok is compiling a database of Codes ofConduct in Engineering, Science and Technology
currently implemented in the Asia Pacific region. Thereis a list with files and links to codes that have been
identified on the website.

International Bioethics Education Project News
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bioethicseducation/>)

IAB Genetics & Bioethics Network: On-line
The complete address list is updated on the Internet.
Send all changes to Darryl Macer. A website will beestablished at the IAB website soon.

UNESCO Asia-Pacific School of Ethics
http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=4913
The "School" is a regional network of individuals,
institutions and associations that are working on projects andmeetings together with the Regional Unit for Social and
Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP). The
Unit collaborates with numerous partner organizations tocarry out projects and activities, in addition to UNESCO field
offices and HQ. RUSHSAP also consults and collaborates
with
non-governmentalorganizations(NGOs),
intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), institutions andindividuals with special expertise.
While UNESCO is compiling an on-line and open
GlobalEthicsObservatoryofdatabases
access(www.unesco.org/bioethcis/geobs)
asacomprehensive information source for individuals, ethics
committees, organizations, teaching programmes and laws,
the members of this regional School of Ethics are actively
working on projects together with RUSHSAP. Additional
members are welcome and enquiries including the nature of
the proposed collaboration should be addressed torushsap(at)unescobkk.org.
Institutions working on Bioethics Education projects include:• Arul Anandar College (Autonomous), Karumathur,
Madurai District, India• Ateneo de Manila High School, Loyola Heights,
Quezon City, the Philippines• Beijing Normal University, Attached High School,
Beijing, China• Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, Sindh
Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Karachi,
Pakistan• Eubios Ethics Institute• Ewha Institute for Law and Bioethics, Ewha Woman
University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)• Indonesian National Bioethics Commission, Sasana
Widya Sarwono LIPI, Jakarta, Indonesia
Annapackiam
Collegefor
Women• Jayaraj(Autonomous), Periyakulam, Tamil Nadu, India• Ministry of Science and Technology, Thailand• National Bioethics Committee, Colombo, Sri Lanka• Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai, India• St. Teresa’s Institute of Education, Mumbai, India
Associations and individuals are listed on thewebsite, together with their current main fields ofcollaboration with UNESCO Bangkok programmes andprojects in the region.

Asian Bioethics Association (ABA)
Report of ABA Board Meeting (7 August 2006)
Presided over by Sang-yong Song (President of ABA)
Also present: Jayapaul Azariah, Darryl Macer, Renzong Qiu,
Noritoshi Tanida
Absent: Sahin Aksoy, Leonardo de Castro, Yeruham Leavitt,
Un Jong Pak, Hyakudai Sakamoto, Xiaomei Zhai
The meeting was held in the evening during the Seventh
Asian Bioethics Conference (ABC7), and the Eighth World
Congress of Bioethics, Beijing, China.
1) Apologies were recorded from absent members.
2) The Board thanked Prof. Renzong Qiu, the president of the2006 International Association of Bioethics (IAB) World
Congress and the Seventh Asian Bioethics Conference, for thearrangements for the successful meeting.
3) Sang-yong Song gave his president’s report.
4) Darryl Macer gave the Secretary’s report on membershipand fees. The situation was that 20 members of 140 members
had paid fees to the secretary in 2006. Further persons had
requested free copies of EJAIB, and these were being
continually subsidized by Eubios Ethics Institute. Also someBoard members had not paid any fees. Arrangements werealso to be explored for collecting ABA membership fees at
the time of registration for the ABC8 conference, which
would have a 20% reduction to all fee classes for ABA
members.
5) There was discussion of ABC8 (chair: Dr. Soraj
Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand 19-23
March 2007). There was not further follow-up from Indonesia
about ABC9 in 2008 or 2009. The Board accepted in principle
an offer from the National Ethics Committee of Singapore tohost an ABC in the year 2010.
6) The Board adopted the agenda for ABA General Meetingat ABC7, to be held at lunchtime on the 9 August during thecongress.
7) The procedure for receiving nominations for elections
during October, and conducting voting by email in November
2006 was confirmed. There would be a number of persons
whose terms would be ending in November 2006, and newnominations were called for. There was also a discussion thata growing number of activities were happening in South East
Asia, and the may need to be increased representation fromthat region in the future.

Report of ABA General Meeting (2006)
Minutes of the ABC7 ABA General Meeting

161

Presided over by Sang-yong Song (South Korea) and Darryl
Macer (Thailand)
Held on 12:00-13:00, 9 August 2006 in Beijing, China
concurrent with the Seventh Asian Bioethics Conference (6-9
August 2006).
60 persons were in attendance, and non-members werewelcomed.
1) There was an explanation of ABA, its history. There wasappreciation expressed to the ABC7 congress president,
Renzong Qiu, for the current congress.
2) Self-introductions of ABA Board Members who were
present.
3) Secretary’s report. Persons were reminded of the optional
fee structure of the ABA. It was noted that most members of
ABA do not contribute financially to the ABA, but that there
was growing interest in bioethics in many Asian countries.
4) President’s report, with an appeal for membership made by
Sang-yong Song. He reviewed the history of the ABA, notingthat by nature it was a much less formal structure than IAB,
which had certain advantages.
5) A presentation of the forthcoming ABC8 conference wasmade by the conference chair, Dr. Soraj Hongladarom ofThailand. The next Asian Bioethics Conference will be heldin Bangkok Thailand at Chulalongkorn University 19-23
March, 2007.
6) The meeting welcomed the prospects for regularconferences to help serve the members. Those persons who
volunteered to be country or regional representatives should
contact the secretary, Darryl Macer, and they would be postedonthewebsite.
The
websiteforABAis<www2.unescobkk.org/eubios/ABA.htm>

Call for Nominations for ABA 2006 elections

Election Notice
For registered ABA members as of 31 October, 2006.
According to the Constitution of ABA every two years
there is an election for the Board of ABA. Please see theconstitution for reference. In particular articles:"6.1 Officers of the Association shall be the President,
seven vice-presidents (one from each of China, India,
Japan, Korea, South Asia (East of India), West Asia
(West of India), and Asian Ethnic and Religious
Minorities, and a General Secretary. They are nominated
and/or elected by members of the Association. The
President can serve a maximum of two years in office.
The Other Officers should stand re-election every two
years.""6.4 A vice-president can be elected for a maximum of
two successive terms as a vice president."
Every member of good standing (=has registered withthe secretary as a ABA member for 2006) can nominate
candidates for the Board, stand for Board elections, andvote in the elections. The following board positions areup for re-election in October, 2006 with the new board
to be announced on in November, 2006, for the next twoyear period. Those nominated need to confirm their
willingness to be ABA Board members and to bemembers.

162

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

The board positions seeking nominations are:1) President: vacant(under the constitution a president stands only two years
and thus Prof. Sang-yong Song will retire, but be amember of the future Board as immediate pastpresident)
A nomination has been received and accepted for theelection of Jayapaul Azariah as the next ABA President.
Alternative candidates for this Board post and all theother Board positions are welcome.
2) Vice-presidents requiring new persons
Due to the limitation for vice-presidents of a maximumof two terms, the following positions need to be
renewed (the current Board members whose terms areending are listed), and nominated persons are listed
below [at the time of printing].
Vice President for China: Xiaomei Zhai [nomination
received for Yanguang Wang]
Vice President for India: Jayapaul Azariah [nomination
received for Abnik Gupta]
Vice President for Japan: Noritoshi Tanida [nomination
received for Atsushi Asai]
Vice President for West Asia (West of India): Sahin
Aksoy (Turkey) [nomination received for Aamir
Jafferey]
Vice-President for South Asia (East of India,
excluding other named regions): Leonardo de Castro(Philippines) [nomination received for Soraj
Hongladarom]
Vice President for Asian Ethnic and Religious
Minorities: Frank Leavitt (Israel) [nomination received
for Alireza Bagheri]
3) Other board positions
Two other board positions exist who can be relected,
which are also open to nominations for contesting.
Vice President for Korea: Un Jong Pak
Secretary: Darryl Macer (Thailand/New Zealand)
The Board also welcomes persons who wish to act ascountry or regional representatives, and volunteers arerequested by the secretariat.
The responsibility of Board members includes attending
ABA Board meetings, and to attend ABC conferences,noting that this may mean finding your own funds toparticipate in the conference.
The closing date for nomination and acceptance ofcandidates is 25 October. Candidate names andacceptance from the candidates should be Emailed to:asianbioethics@yahoo.co.nz
In the event that there is only one candidate nominatedby 25 October, the position will not need to be subject
to election. The positions which are contested will be
subject to a secret Email ballot between 4-20 November.

Every paid up ABA member as of 31 October, 2006, canmake one vote for each contested position.

ABA Membership
http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=41
Membership fees are usually payable at the time of renewal
to EJAIB, the official journal of ABA. A three tier system
exists for annual fees:a) Regular price (US$50 Euro 50 Yen 5000).
This includes the EJAIB journal subscription and freeassociate membership of Eubios Ethics Institute.
b) Reduced contribution (the amount is up to the member, andis also suggested for students)
This includes the EJAIB journal subscription.
c) No fee, because the person is not in a position to pay thefee.
This does not include a hard copy of the EJAIB journal, but
anyone can apply to Eubios Ethics Institute separately for a
hard copy of the Journal, to be considered case by case.
New members:
Dr. Ali Azmat Abidi
Liaquat National Hospital
Stadium Road, Karachi No – 74800 = Sind – Pakistan
Drabidi-lnh@cyben.net.pk
Fax: 4968386
Farkhanda Ghafoor
NHRC, Pakistan Medical Research Council
Sh. Zayed Medical Complex
Lahore, Pakistan
fghafror99@hotmail.com
Fax: 092-42-9230293
Dr. Sultana Habibullah
Pakistan Medical Research Council
Research Centre
Dow Medical College
Karachi, Pakistan
Sultana57@cyber.met
Fax: 2779311
Dr. Mahjabeen Khan
C-95 Bostanerafi Society
Jammia Millia Road
Malir, Karachi, Pakistan
Maha-khan57@yahoo.com
Fax: 09221 4500720
Bagher Larijani, MD
Director and Chief Scientific Officer, Endocrinology andMetabolism Research Center, Tehran University of Medical
Sciences, Teheran, IranEmail: emrc@sina.tums.ac.ir
Website: emrc.tums.ac.ir
Dr. Inayatullah Memon
21/8 – Soldier Bazar
Saddar, Hyderabad
Sindh, Pakistan
inayatm@yahoo.com

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
Prof. (Ms.) Farhat Moazam, M.D., PhD
Professor and Chairperson, Center of Biomedical Ethics andCulture (CBEC), Sindh Institute of Urology andtransplantation (SIUT)
Dewan Farooq Medical Complex, Karachi 74200, Pakistan
Email: bioethics@siut.org and famoz@mindspring.com
Sunil Moreker, M.D.
P.D Hinduja National Hospital
A 132 Palash Towers, Veera Desai Road, Andheri (w),Mumbai 400053, India
Email: morekersunil@yahoo.com
www.hindujahospital.com
Dr. Seema Muntaz
1/2 Q, Park View appastmcuts
Block VI, Pechs
Karachi – 75400, Pakistan
Masam_5@yahoo.com
Fax: 6440090-6440099
Dr. Rana Muzaffar
Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT)
Karachi, Pakistanrmuzafar@super.net.pk
Fax: 9221-9215469
Rubina Naqvi
Associate Professor Nephrology
Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation
Civil Hospital
Karachi – 74200, Pakistan
naqvirubina@yahoo.com
Fax: 9221-9215469
Abdul Ghani Sasoli
c/o Jan Book
Stall Manan Chock, Jannah Road
Quettia Balochistan, Pakistanghanitohrd@yahoo.com
Fax: 0812 854203
Dr. Anjum Shahid
PMRC, Research Centre
Nich, Karachi, Pakistan

163

Karachi, Pakistan
Sajidsultan818@hotmail.com; sjdsultan@yahoo.uk.co
Dr. Ghazala Usman
F-4, Roomi Garden Block 5
Kehkashan, Clifton
Karachi, Pakistanghazalusman@yahoo.com
Dr. Yasmin Wajahat
67/0/2 Opp. Masjid-e-Noor
P.E.C.H.S., Karachi – 75400, Pakistan
ywajahat@gmail.com
Ms. Farzaneh Zahedi, M.D.
Your field of academic specialization: Medical Ethics,
Endocrinology
Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center, Medical
Ethics and Medical History Research Center, Tehran
University of Medical Sciences;
Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center,
5th floor, Shariati Hospital, North Kargar Avenue,
Tehran 14114, Iran
No. 5, Shahid Shadaki Alley, South Kerman St., Resalat
Highway, Tehran 16348-43513 , IranE-mail: fzahedi@tums.ac.ir
Dr. Riffat Moazam ZamanDept of Psychiatry
The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
65/1 St. 17, D.H.A. Phase 5, Karachi, Pakistan
Roffat.moazam-gaman@aku.edu

Persons who want to confirm their membership of the ABA
must send their completed membership form and fees to thesecretary (copy the form in this issue), Darryl Macer, (byEmail, fax or airmail).

PLEASE RENEW ABA membership fees if you
wish to continue to receive EJAIB! Also if you
wish to vote and be eligible to stand in theNovember 2006 Board elections.

Send papers to EJAIB Editorial OfficeMuhammad Shahid Shamim, MBBS, FCPS, FRCS (Glasgow)
Assistant Professor, Surgical Unit-I, Civil Hospital, Karachi,
Dow University of Health SciencesB-122, Block “I”, North Nazimabad,
Karachi-74700, Pakistan
Email: doctsaab@yahoo.co.uk
Ethics in Medical Curriculum and Informed Consent,
Surgeon.

Editorial address:

Dr. Faisal Ghani Siddiqui
42/142 – Defence Officers Society
Hyderabad – Sindh, Pakistan
fgsiddiqui@gmail.com

Conferences
A bioethics conference calendar website is:
http://www.who.int/ethics/events/en/
World Philosophy Day, 15-16 November,
2006, Palais des Congres, Marrakech, Morocco.
Please note that the inaugural session is scheduled
for the evening of the 15 November. The following
roundtables will occur during the 16 November: I.

Dr. Sajid Sultan
Sindh Institute of Orology and Transplantation (SIUT)
Dow University of Health Sciences
Baba-e-Urdu Road

Prof. Darryl Macer
RUSHSAP, UNESCO Bangkok,
920 Sukhumvit Rd, Prakanong,
Bangkok 10110, THAILAND
Fax: Int+66-2-664-3772
Email: asianbioethics@yahoo.co.nz
d.macer@unescobkk.org

164

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)

Philosophy, cultural diversity and communication;
II. Modernity and the condition of women; III.
Philosophy and the obstacles to a coalition ofcultures; IV. Philosophy: teaching, discussing andtranslating; V. Philosophy and the North-Southdialogue: What difficulties? What future?; VI.
Citizenship and human rights; VII. What bases fora just and cooperative world order?; VIII. Religious
reform, open society and human rights. Then
immediately followed by: Asia-Arab Inter-regional
Philosophical Dialogues: Encounters of Asia andthe Arab Regions with Modernity, 17-18
November,Marrakech,
Morocco.
Contact:d.macer@unescobkk.org
UNESCO Bioethics Dialogue, 14 December,
2006;
New
Delhi,
India.
Contact:d.macer@unescobkk.org
UNESCO Bioethics Forum, 21-22 February,
2006;
Islamabad,
Pakistan.
Contact:d.macer@unescobkk.org
UNESCO Bangkok is currently planningmeetings in Vietnam, Australia, Bangkok, Apia,
Suva, Kyoto, Dubai, Laos, Malaysia, India,
Indonesia and central Asia for 2007. Proposals arealso welcome. Contact: d.macer@unescobkk.org
Eighth Asian Bioethics Conference (ABC8),
and the Second UNESCO Bangkok Bioethics
Roundtable(BBRT2), 19-23 March 2007,
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Contact: Dr. Soraj Hongladarom Email:hsoraj@chula.ac.th

The goals of EJAIB include:
1. EJAIB is the official journal of the Asian
Bioethics Association (ABA) and the IUBS
Bioethics Program.
2. To review and update news and trends inbioethics from around the world. Bioethics is
broadly defined as life ethics, including both
medicalandenvironmental
ethics,andenvironmental, ethical, legal and social issues
arising from biotechnology.
3. To pay particular attention to issues raised bygenetic and reproductive technology, and othernews for the International Association of Bioethics
Genetics Network. To publish letters on such
topics, promoting international debate.
4. To publish research papers, and relevant news,
and letters, on topics within Asian Bioethics,
promoting research in bioethics in the Asian region,and contributing to the interchange of ideas within
and between Asia and global international

bioethics. Asia is defined for the general purposesof this journal as the geographical area, including
the Far East, China, South East Asia, Oceania, theIndian subcontinent, the Islamic world and Israel.
5. To promote scientific responsibility, in
coordination with MURS Japan (Universal
Movement for Scientific Responsibility); and theInternational Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS)
Bioethics Program.

EJAIB Editor: Darryl Macer
Associate Editors
Jayapaul Azariah (All India Bioethics Association,
India),
Masahiro Morioka (Osaka Prefectural University,
Japan).
Managing Editor: Nobuko Yasuhara Macer
Editorial Assistant: Moritz Schimd-Drechsler
Editorial Board: Akira Akabayashi (Japan), Sahin
Aksoy (Turkey), Angeles Tan Alora (Philippines),
Atsushi Asai (Japan), Alireza Bagheri (Iran),
Gerhold Becker (Germany), Hasna Begum(Bangladesh), Minakshi Bhardwaj (UK), ChristianByk (IALES; France), Ken Daniels (New Zealand),Leonardo de Castro (The Philippines), Ole Doering(Germany), Norio Fujiki (MURS Japan), Tran Han
Giang (Vietnam), Dena Hsin (Taiwan), Rihito
Kimura (Japan), Abby Lippman (Canada),
Margaret Lock (Canada), H. Ahmad Ludjito(Indonesia), V. Manickavel (Nepal), Anwar Nasim(Pakistan), Mary Ann Chen Ng, (Philippines), JingBao Nie (China, New Zealand), Pinit Ratanakul(Thailand), Qiu Ren Zong (China), Hyakudai
Sakamoto (Japan), Sang-yong Song (Korea);
Noritoshi Tanida (Japan), A.K. Tharien (India),
Yanguang Wang (China), Daniel Wikler (USA),
Michael Yesley (USA), Jeong Ro Yoon (South
Korea).
Send papers to the editor in electronic form
if possible. Please use numbered reference
style, do not use automatic footnotes or
endnotes. Papers are peer reviewed.
The journal is independent of UNESCO andthe contents are not endorsed by either Eubios
Ethics Institute or UNESCO, but are publishedin the spirit of academic freedom.
South-South dialogue is encouraged, andpapers outside of Asia and the Pacific arewelcome.

Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (September 2006)
How to order books or journal or the CD!
Cheques in local currency are accepted from accounts withmajor banks in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA, U.K.
(The currency has to be the same as the address of the bank,and the cheque made out to "Eubios Ethics Institute").

165

Please use the renewal form enclosed and prices are
below: Other currencies (use a bank or post draft) andcredit cards use NZ$ for the Overseas price.
In Japan use postal transfer to the "Eubios Ethics Institute"account 00340-9-32465.

Eubios Ethics Institute Publications (Books sent by SAL post, Journal by Airmail - Price included)
Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics
Other countries/credit card
Price:

US$35 Euro 35 UK£20 NZ$40 A$40 C$40 ¥3000

NZ$60

Shaping Genes: Ethics, Law and Science of Using Genetic Technology in Medicine and Agriculture
by Darryl Macer, Oct. 1990, 421pp.
Cost: US$20 UK£10 NZ$30 A$25 C$22 ¥2500 Others or credit card NZ$30
Equitable Patent Protection in the Developing World
by William Lesser, May 1991, 150pp.
Cost: US$15 UK£8 NZ$20 A$20 C$17 ¥1500
NZ$25
Attitudes to Genetic Engineering: Japanese and International Comparisons (Bilingual)by Darryl Macer, May 1992 330pp.
Cost: US$30 UK£15 NZ$35 A$30 C$30 ¥3000
NZ$40
Human Genome Research & Society
Eds: Norio Fujiki & Darryl R.J. Macer July 1992 ISBN 0-908897-03-0 (English),
230pp. ISBN 0-908897-04-9 (Japanese), 240pp. Cost: US$20 UK£10 NZ$30 A$25 C$22 ¥2000

NZ$30

Intractable Neurological Disorders, Human Genome Research and Society Eds: N. Fujiki & D. Macer
Feb. 1994 ISBN 0-908897-06-5 (English), 320pp. ISBN 0-908897-07-3 (Japanese), 340pp.
Cost: US$25 UK£12 NZ$30 A$30 C$27 ¥3000

NZ$40

Bioethics for the People by the People
by Darryl Macer,... May 1994 ISBN 0-908897-05-7, 460pp. Cost: US$30 UK£15 NZ$35 A$35 C$32 ¥3000 NZ$50
Bioethics in High Schools in Australia, Japan and New Zealand,
by D. Macer, Y. Asada, M. Tsuzuki, S. Akiyama, & N.Y. Macer
March 1996, ISBN 0-908897-08-1, 200pp.(A4)
Cost: US$25 UK£15 NZ$30 A$30 C$30 ¥2000

NZ$40

Protection of the Human Genome and Scientific Responsibility (Bilingual)
Editors: Michio Okamoto, Norio Fujiki & D.R.J. Macer,
April 1996, ISBN 0-908897-09-X, 210pp.
Cost: US$25 UK£15 NZ$30 A$30 C$30 ¥2500

NZ$35

Bioethics in India (includes 115 papers from Jan.1997 conference)
Eds: Jayapaul Azariah, Hilda Azariah & Darryl R.J. Macer
June 1998 ISBN 0-908897-10-3, 403 pp.
(Printed in India)
Cost: US$30 UK£18 NZ$34 A$36 C$36 ¥3000
NZ$45
Bioethics is Love of Life: An alternative textbook
by Darryl Macer, July 1998 ISBN 0-908897-13-8, 152pp. Cost: US$26 UK£14 NZ$34 A$34 C$32 ¥3000
NZ$40
Bioethics in Asia (includes 118 papers from Nov.1997 conferences, ABC’97 Kobe and Fukui Satellite)
Eds: Norio Fujiki & Darryl R.J. Macer
Cost: US$36 UK£20 NZ$40 A$38 C$40 ¥3000
NZ$50
June 1998 ISBN 0-908897-12-X, 478 pp. October 1999 ISBN 0-908897-14-6 (Japanese), 320pp.
Ethical Challenges as we approach the end of the Human Genome Project
Editor: Darryl Macer, April 2000 ISBN 0-908897-15-4, 124pp. Cost: US$20 UK£12 NZ$30 A$30 C$30 ¥2500 NZ$35
Bioethics Education in Japanese High Schools (in Japanese only)
Editor: Darryl MacerApril 2000 ISBN 0-908897-16-2, 112pp. Cost: US$20 UK£12 NZ$30 A$30 C$30 ¥1000
NZ$35
Bioethics and the Impact of Human Genome Research in the 21st Century
Eds: Norio Fujiki, Masakatsu Sudo, & Darryl R.J. Macer March 2001 (English and Japanese bilingual, 350pp).
Cost: US$30 UK£20 NZ$40 A$38 C$40 ¥3000

NZ$50

Bioethics in Asia in the 21st Century
Eds: Song Sang-yong, Koo Young-Mo & Darryl R.J. Macer
August 2003 ISBN 0-908897-19-7, 450pp. Cost: US$35 Euro35 UK£20 NZ$40 A$38 C$40 ¥3000
NZ$50
Bioethics for Informed Citizens across Cultures (updated in 2006 as C.C.I.Bioethics below)2004, 280pp. (A4)
Editor: Darryl Macer
Cost: US $20 Euro 15 UK £10 NZ $30 A$33 C$33 ¥ 2000
NZ$35
Challenges for Bioethics from Asia
Ed: Darryl R.J. Macer
November 2004 ISBN 0-908897-22-7 656 pp. Cost: US$35 Euro35 UK£20 NZ$40 A$38 C$40 ¥3000
NZ$50
A Cross Cultural Introduction to Bioethics 2006, 300pp. (A4)
Editor: Darryl Macer

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