{"title":"The Virtue of Mortality","authors":"Andrew Flescher","doi":"10.1111/jore.12403","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <p>As technology's frontiers advance, we acquire the capacity to alleviate the aspects of suffering and sorrow that are caused by our genetic programming, while also inviting unwelcome side consequences. CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a bacterial defense system with genome editing capabilities, is now being implemented to startling results. It is being used to correct for harmful mutations by permanently altering genes, promising to eliminate defects in whole species. Advantages notwithstanding, and apart from insufficiently considered dangers precipitated by the well-intended technology, there are other moral issues to consider. What does existence look like in which humans become resistant to experiencing genetic defects? We can welcome medical innovation's reduction of undue hardship, but is there a threshold past which a permanently improved version of us makes us ineligible to participate in the human condition? This essay offers a theological and Aristotelian critique of using CRISPR for extensive human gene editing, arguing that it is our imperfections, including susceptibility to disease, decline due to aging, and the ephemerality of joy, which make us human.</p>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":45722,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jore.12403","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
As technology's frontiers advance, we acquire the capacity to alleviate the aspects of suffering and sorrow that are caused by our genetic programming, while also inviting unwelcome side consequences. CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a bacterial defense system with genome editing capabilities, is now being implemented to startling results. It is being used to correct for harmful mutations by permanently altering genes, promising to eliminate defects in whole species. Advantages notwithstanding, and apart from insufficiently considered dangers precipitated by the well-intended technology, there are other moral issues to consider. What does existence look like in which humans become resistant to experiencing genetic defects? We can welcome medical innovation's reduction of undue hardship, but is there a threshold past which a permanently improved version of us makes us ineligible to participate in the human condition? This essay offers a theological and Aristotelian critique of using CRISPR for extensive human gene editing, arguing that it is our imperfections, including susceptibility to disease, decline due to aging, and the ephemerality of joy, which make us human.
期刊介绍:
Founded in 1973, the Journal of Religious Ethics is committed to publishing the very best scholarship in religious ethics, to fostering new work in neglected areas, and to stimulating exchange on significant issues. Emphasizing comparative religious ethics, foundational conceptual and methodological issues in religious ethics, and historical studies of influential figures and texts, each issue contains independent essays, commissioned articles, and a book review essay, as well as a Letters, Notes, and Comments section. Published primarily for scholars working in ethics, religious studies, history of religions, and theology, the journal is also of interest to scholars working in related fields such as philosophy, history, social and political theory, and literary studies.