Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law

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Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law Society
(CCELS)Annual meeting, June 12, 2004 The
Human Genome and Humanity

• Alex Mauron, Bioethics Research and Teaching
  Unit,
• University of Geneva, Medical Faculty

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A bit of history

• 1953  It has not escaped our notice  Watson
  J Crick F.
• Nature 171, 737-738 (1953).

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2003 Postcard from the party

• 22 April 2003 Celebrations for DNA and its
  sequence in humans.The International Genome
  Sequencing Consortium celebrated the "essentially
  complete" human genome early last week in
  Bethesda, Maryland, although the sequence itself
  is due to be formally unveiled in May.
  Festivities for the finished sequence were
  designed to coincide, more or less, with the 50th
  anniversary of the elucidation of the structure
  of the DNA molecule, and the double-birthday bash
  became a backslapping Who's Who of the past
  half-century in molecular genetics.

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On to the  omes 

• From the genome
• to the transcriptome, proteome, metabolome
• The omes have become the new (re)incarnations of
  the body. The vesalian metaphor carries on.

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Know thy genome

• The Human Genome Project is a cultural artefact
  too.
• Genetic knowledge has become a highly visible
  form of self-knowledge.
• Knowledge of the genome has fueled speculation
  about the self-transformation of humanity by
  genetic manipulation.

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The nature of human nature Why is the genome so
special?

• Genomic metaphysics the belief that the
  genome constitutes the ontological hard core of
  an organism, determining both its individuality
  and its species identity.

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Where does genomic metaphysics come from ?

• Genomic essentialism in contemporary culture, as
  expressed for instance in the popular reception
  of the controversies about behavioural genetics.
• Genomic concept of individuality, for instance as
  used in ethical debates on the human embryo.
• Persistence of the typological (pre-Darwinian)
  species concept.

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Conceptual couples as  intuition pumps 

• 1.1 genotype - phenotype
• 1.2 genes - environment
• 1.3 germinal - somatic
• ...these couple seem to reflect a basic pattern
• 2.1 inner - outer
• 2.2 core - surface
• ...and then there are other more or less similar
  philosophical couples
• 3.1 essential - accidental
• 3.2 hidden - manifest
• 3.3 potential - actual
• 3.4. subject - object

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Self-engineering of mankind 3 questions

• Why is homo faber sui ipsius (man the self-made
  maker) a controversial proposition?
• 2. Why is a genomic understanding of the self the
  main focus for debating this autopoietic
  enterprise?
• 3. Why not the brain instead?

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An uneasy proposition...

• Classical mythology (Prometheus and Epimetheus)
  man has open-ended capabilities, unlike animals.
• Renaissance the human self is to some extent
  constructed by man (Pico della Mirandola).
• Modern theology (Karl Rahner) Man as Co-creator.
• Peter Sloterdijk Mankind creates spheres
  through which it constructs itself.

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A narrow focus for debate

• Especially in Europe, the debate about homo faber
  sui ipsius is mostly played out on topics that
  involve the genome and procreation.
• Eugenics is increasingly used as a synonym for
  biotechnological modification of man.

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A simple question

• Educating, taming, shaping the minds of human
  beings by traditional means is OK. Intervening
  in the human genome is not OK.
• Why is neuronal manipulation ethical and
  genomic manipulation unethical?
• (Mauron A. The Question of Purpose. In Stock G,
  Campbell J, eds. Engineering the Human Germline
  An Exploration of the Science and Ethics of
  Altering the Genes We Pass to our Children. New
  York Oxford University Press, 2000)

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• Intervening on the phenotype of humans is thought
  of as superficial.
• Intervening on the genotype of humans is thought
  of as essential and intimate

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Genomic identity is not personal identity

• For instance
• The genomic identity of a new person is
  established at fertilization.
• But monozygotic twinning can occur.
• A single zygote (i.e. the bearer of a single
  distinctive genomic identity) can become two
  persons with separate numerical identities.

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Genomes and species

• How many human genes do you need to introduce
  into a pig to make it noticeably human?
• There are no human genes
• Pre-Darwinian concept of species the species is
  the normal type, the species concept is among the
  a priori principles structuring the living world.
• Present The extensive commonality between
  genomes makes the relationship between genomes
  and species ever more problematic.
• -gt  Respecting the human species  is not
  identical with  respecting the human genome .

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The 1 solution

• The human genome and the chimpanzee genome are
  99 identical.
• The full seqencing of the human genome (2003) and
  the well advanced seqencing of the chimpanzee
  genome allow some provisional (and disturbing)
  conclusions about this difference (Dugaiczyk,
  2004).
• There are no specifically human genes there is
  no Kant gene to turn the monkey into a
  responsible person able to behold the starry sky
  above and the moral law within.
• A most conspicuous difference is, in the human
  lineage, the proliferation of specific Alu
  sequences, which presumably induce widespread
  changes in chromosome structure and gene
  expression patterns (alternative splicing etc.).
  This rather messy change is typical of the human
  lineage and not found in the chimp lineage.

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The ideological effects of genomic metaphysics

• Bioethical issues connected with identity
  problems (cloning, standing of the embryo, etc.)
• Metaphysical genomics drives the controversy
  in the direction of pseudo-problems linked to
  faulty understandings of individuality.
• Another example a common argument for the
  futility of reproductive cloning is that another
  human organism with the same genome will not be
  a similar person because the environment is
  different. This is correct, but largely beside
  the point
• Two cloned individuals will share (mostly) their
  genomic identity, but not their numerical
  identity.
• Only the latter actually counts in defining a
  person.
• Being the same is not synonymous with being
  exactly alike

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• The anti-technological hysteria that holds large
  parts of the western world in its grip is a
  product of the decomposition of metaphysics, for
  it clings to false classifications of being in
  order to revolt against processes in which these
  classifications are overcome. It is reactionary
  in the essential sense of the word, because it
  expresses the ressentiment of outdated bivalence
  as contrasted with a polyvalence that it cannot
  understand.
• Peter Sloterdijk

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The genome vs the brain

• Genomes are inherently replicable.
• In contrast, every brain has a biography of its
  own. Therefore, the brain provides a much better
  material  home  for the self than the genome
  does.

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The genome vs the brain

• Many transhumanist utopias and dystopias, but
  also current or soon-to-be realized
  biotechnological projects, are brain-based and
  have no special link with eugenics or with
  genomic identity.
• Prosthetics increasing fuzziness of the living
  vs. non-living distinction.
• Mood enhancement the enhancement vs. therapy
  problem
• Uncoupling humans from specific physiological
  contingencies.

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From the 1982 classic  Blade Runner 
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Neuroethics

• Genetic determinism, neuronal determinism...
• Qualified determinism vs. determinism tout
  court.
• In what sense does scientific progress about
  qualified determinism advance the philosophical
  question of determinism?

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 Your Honor 

• my genes made me do it
• my brain made me do it
• Similarities? Differences?

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Thanks

• To the  Centre lémanique déthique , the
  Jeantet and Leenaards foundations for support,
• To Achilles Dugaiczyk, Carl Feinstein and Samia
  Hurst for stimulating exchanges.