The introduction of biotechnology products has been a source of much controversy in large part because of the moral and ethical issues that development and distribution of these products raises. In view of the burgeoning volume of activity in biotechnology research and development and the far-reaching consequences that biotechnology products may have, there is some urgency to have full and open discussion of these issues. This article identifies a number of the issues that biotechnology has raised and theoretical resources available for aiding deliberation about them. It also sketches a framework for practical reasoning that encompasses many of the issues and examines the relationship between moral and ethical issues concerning biotechnology and other questions that span or extend beyond ethics.
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