There have been major technical developments in genetically modified plants. Identify and briefly comment on the ethical, social and/or environmental issues associated with the advances.

Some ethical considerations: Will new technology promote the general welfare by making improved food safety or reducing the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture? Or does the technology pose unknown risks for consumers and the environment that we would be wise not to run if we are concerned about the general welfare? What implications does the technology have for the rights of consumers, for example the right to be informed about the food one is eating? What implications does it have for the rights of scientists to be free to conduct their research in ways that protect their intellectual integrity? Finally, who will be the principal beneficiaries from the introduction of the new technologies and what obligations do they have to compensate the losers?

For most individual consumers, the choice whether to consume or not consume GM food is not a matter of ethics. A consumer who thought GM food unsafe would be unwise but not wicked to eat it. The consumption of GM food would be ethically problematic, but in an indirect fashion, if its production did harm, violated rights, or caused injustice.

One major issue has been avoided in the evaluation of GM, namely the ethical status of the natural world itself. GM crops do not raise questions about the rights of plants. They do, however, provoke a reaction that is difficult to place within arguments about welfare, rights and justice.

Entities that possess rights usually, although not always, possess the ability to waive their rights and to make choices about how they exercise them. Plants cannot pass that test. At another level, rights are often thought to protect the vital interests of creatures that cannot make choices for themselves: babies and unconscious people have rights even when they cannot make choices. It is a stretch of the imagination to think that plants have vital interests, as distinct from human beings having vital interests in what happens to plants.

Some people argue that the environment, have rights of their own. These people argue that genetic modification (GM) is intrinsically wrong, or 'unnatural'. Such views may come from either a religious or secular perspective. Whether the idea of rights for the environment are accepted or not, this could be taken as a way of saying that human beings have no right to act in a way that violates such boundaries. Others raise issues of 'naturalness' as a way of expressing uneasiness about what genetic modification means for our relationship with the natural world. Although they are prepared to accept that we already live with considerable human intervention in the environment, particularly in the high intensity agriculture involved in modern food production.

The important concern is that genetic modification, like some other technological advances, will not be an unqualified success and that it risks damaging the economic and amenity resources of the environment. Such concerns are more amenable to the traditional role of public policy in ensuring safety. They are not completely amenable, however, because of the difficulties in determining the nature and extent of any hazard. For example, we do not even have an agreed measure of the relative seriousness of different kinds of environmental harm.

The GM of plants also raises questions of rights in relation to environmental impact. For example, do seed companies, farmers and the food industry have a right to pose environmental risks, however small, in pursuit of benefits, whether these are profits, consumer benefits, or both? On most understandings of rights, individuals and others have a right to risk their own well-being, but not to risk that of others.

However, there are concerns. First, such crops might achieve a more efficient and comprehensive kill of pests than spraying (which inevitably misses a certain number of insects). This would result in less food for birds and other animals further up the food chain. Secondly, a high level of illing would exert strong selection pressure on any resistant insects, so that the pest resistance might quickly become ineffective. This might force farmers to go back to spraying. Thirdly, in built pest resistance might affect non-target species, including susceptible beneficial insects that feed on pest species.

The way that the costs and benefits of agricultural technologies fall on the citizens of well-off and poor societies respectively raises questions of justice, as well as difficult issues of how policy makers can steer technological change so that it does good to those who most need it.

A considerable amount has been said and written already about both the potential benefits and risks to the environment of GM plants, but we are only beginning to accumulate the data that will enable us to evaluate precisely the pros and cons of these issues. If further research indicates that some particular applications of GM technology pose such risks to the environment that they should not go into commercial production, they should be withdrawn.

BSc Computing

CF102 Assignment 1 - Ethics

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