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Team:Paris/EthicalReportConclusion
From 2009.igem.org
iGEM > Paris > Ethic > Ethical LabBook > Main
Conclusion
I wanted to end that work by opening questions, regarding all the stakes we have been through, and to suggest keys of lecture on what seem happening in that emerging field and recommendation. At first, regarding the third part of our analysis, we can see an exploded cartography of actors, something like a scientific chess board, where companies, states, civil society movements and observers, students, DIY movements are all playing a part to be involved in the governance of the field and, both to answer regulation necessities and to fulfill that aim, are proposing different ethical inventories and perspectives. This hybrid world of synthetic biology is saying something about state of emerging field in science, how the scientific field is now, as it always been, clearly link, mixed up with, related to economic, social, political and cultural stakes. Put into hybridity of actors and multiplicity of stakes, synthetic biology can be bring close to a festival, were the ethical needs can be related to the appreciation of the “public”. This public would be at the same time concerned citizens, patients, medias readers, etc. As in a festival, the cartography we dressed up in the third part can lead us to consider something like an In / Off separation in the field. In the “In program” we would find scientist, companies, states and international institutions, universities. In the “Off program”, civil society and DIY movements, activist like Steve Kurtz, etc. But, as we try to figure out, some elements like decision making processes, visibility or legitimacy to the public don't match up with that In / Off interpretation. Cases like the DIYIGEM initiative prove that thing can be reorganized, redesign under unforeseen event and we can not predict who will finally take the advantage of the situation. Largely, in the governance question and through scientific, technological and leadership issues, it is also very difficult to predict how and who is about to be the main deciding actor of the field. Let's keep in mind that safety concerns, as proved by the DIYIGEM rejection, will surely smooth out this hybridity, and make a In / Off separation more established.
What kind of statement can we pull of that? I think it could be interesting to question it ethically, in the scope of the youth generation meeting of IGEM 09. We can wonder about what kind of consequences this portrayal will create on future biological engineers. Taking over Merton's expression (Merton 1942) : In what scientific ethos this generation is about to work? Do something like universal norms can now be shared by all the synthetic biology community? Do communlalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality and skepticism can be shared by biotechnological companies' scientists and by a DIY engineer? I personally think that polyphony, explained in our introduction, is creating something on that norms and duties. They now look more than a toolbox in order to build ethical position, rather than a scientific community norms base as described by Merton in 1942. Beside an ethical toolbox which permit scientist and non scientist to position themselves in all the debates we have been through, something like a critical individualism seem operating in the actors' mind. The idea of a critical individualism is that we have no more the necessity to submit or adapt ourselves to the ethical and moral criterion of a whole community, differences and divergence is accepted and regarded as a possibility of new and innovative idea. Beside that kind of freedom in positioning, outcome from liberal western culture which promote the individual as the decider, critic still matter and organized. Thus, scientist can join so different perspective, as the Craig Venter Institute or the DIYbio local group of his city. This critical individualism seem to be this new scientific ethos in synthetic biology.
To resume our scour in this work, we can remember that our two first parts was about relating ethical stakes, which leaded us to the governance question. In order to face it pragmatically, we try to portrait interests and interactions of the different actors of the field. We always try, in this work, to answer to two imperatives : observing and wondering about what can be a morally and politically good practices in synthetic biology. This statement lead us not to limit ourselves to the risks and to face more global ethical needs such as socioeconomic problems. We have know to take the advantage of the emerging characteristic of the field as a freedom to challenge : In a daily and local effort : A reflexivity in a ethical reflexion on practices, discourses and social interactions. Element that are building...
… Disciplinary and larger problematic : A responsible position regarding what scientific paradigm, through concepts, perceptions and values, is coming with this field, sill under construction but soon established.
