RE: Time to question bioengineering.
June 22, 2011 at 9:05 pm
(This post was last modified: June 22, 2011 at 9:10 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(June 22, 2011 at 8:51 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Chuck, that is fascinating. A question I would put forward here is this: Is the Sacculina doing what it does by instinct or out of a calculated plan? Further, are we so reduced in our capacities that we should take refuge behind instinct in a situation such as the one which prompted this line of inquiry? I find that barnacle impressive for its adaptations to survive, and yet I feel that, as high order vertebrates, we are in a slightly different arena here.
Is there an ethics of barnacality? If not, does that mean that no such system must exist for man?
I like to put it to you this way. Calculated planning is part of human instinct, part of our adaptation to survive. We are indeed in a slightly different arena here. Where as the ancester of sacculina might have taken millions of generations of trial and error to make the instinct required to avail itself of the benefit of this mode of life, our much more versatile instinct had allowed us to develop the ability to take advantage of something analogous in perhaps just a few thousand generations.
Whether ethics of barnacality exists or not, we can make as many different flavors of eithics of humanity as we have spare moments with which to amuse ourselves. But we can also use our versatile calculation instinct to assess just what each plausible variety of ethics of "humanity" will do to humanity, and not just use our lesser instinct of self-righteousness to assert that what feels good to one must be accepted by all those to whom it may not actually be good.
