This essay introduces a collection of articles gathered under the theme of “law, science, and constitutions of life.” Together, they explore how revolutions in notions of what biological life is are eliciting correspondingly revolutionary imaginations of how life should be governed. The central theoretical contribution of the collection is to further elaborate the concept of bioconstitutionalism, which draws attention to especially consequential forms of coproduction at the law–life nexus. This introduction offers a theoretical discussion of bioconstitutionalism. It explores the constitutional significance of interplay between scientific and technological power over life and a given political community’s shared imaginary of what modes of reasoning, judgment, and rule are proper and legitimate in a well-ordered state. It argues that knowing what life is for purposes of governance does not follow from scientific knowledge alone. Rather, such knowledge is refracted through culturally distinctive imaginaries that commit societies to particular understandings of what life means and what should be done to encourage its flourishing.
ChoM. K.TobinS. L.GreelyH. T.McCormickJ.BoyceA.MagnusD.2008. “Strangers at the Benchside: Research Ethics Consultation.” The American Journal of Bioethics8 (3): 4.
2.
DoezemaTessBenjamin HurlbutJ.. 2017. “Technologies of Governance: Science, State and Citizen in Visions of the Bioeconomy.” In The Bioeconomy: Life, Technology and Capital in the 21st Century, edited by PavoneV.GovenJ., 49–71. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
3.
DoubledayRobertWynneBrian. 2011. “Despotism and Democracy in the United Kingdom: Experiments in Reframing Citizenship.” In Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age, edited by JasanoffSheila, 239–62. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4.
EvansJohn H.2010. Contested Reproduction: Genetic Technologies, Religion, and Public Debate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
5.
FoucaultMichel.2010. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979. New York: Picador.
6.
FoucaultMichel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1. New York: Random House.
7.
FrowEmma. 2020. “From ‘Experiments of Concern’ to ‘Groups of Concern’: Constructing and Containing Citizens in Synthetic Biology.” Science, Technology and Human Values46(5): 1038–64.
8.
GloverJonathan. 1984. What Sort of People Should There Be?London, UK: Penguin.
9.
HabermasJürgen. 2003. The Future of Human Nature. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
10.
HilgartnerStephen. 2000. Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
11.
HilgartnerStephen. 2004. “Mapping Systems and Moral Order: Constituting Property in Genome Laboratories.” In States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and Social Order, edited by JasanoffSheila, 131–41. Cambridge: MIT Press.
12.
HindmarshRichardPrainsackBarbara. 2010. Genetic Suspects: Global Governance of Forensic DNA Profiling and Databasing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
13.
HinterbergerAmy. 2020. “Regulating Estrangement: Human—Animal Chimeras in Postgenomic Biology.” Science, Technology, & Human Values45(6): 1065–86.
14.
HuberPeter W.1991. Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom. New York: Basic Books.
15.
HurlbutJ. Benjamin. 2015a. “Religion and Public Reason in the Politics of Biotechnology.” Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy29(2): 423–52.
16.
HurlbutJ. Benjamin. 2015b. “Remembering the Future: Science, Law, and the Legacy of Asilomar.” In Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power, edited by JasanoffS.KimS.-H., 126–51. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
17.
HurlbutJ. Benjamin. 2017. Experiments in Democracy: Human Embryo Research and the Politics of Bioethics. New York: Columbia University Press.
18.
HurlbutJ. Benjamin. 2020. “Imperatives of Governance: Human Genome Editing and the Problem of Progress.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine63(1): 177–194.
19.
HurlbutJ. BenjaminMetzlerIngridMarelliLucaJasanoffSheila. 2020. “Bioconstitutional Imaginaries and the Comparative Politics of Genetic Self-knowledge.” Science, Technology, & Human Values45(6): 1087–118.
20.
JasanoffSheila. 1995. Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and Technology in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
21.
JasanoffSheila. 2004. States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and Social Order. New York: Routledge.
22.
JasanoffSheila. 2005a. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
23.
JasanoffSheila. 2005b. “In the Democracies of DNA: Ontological Uncertainty and Political Order in Three States.” New Genetics & Society24 (2): 139–56.
24.
JasanoffSheila, ed. 2011. Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
25.
JasanoffSheila. 2012a. “Taking Life: Private Rights in Public Nature.” In Lively Capital: Biotechnologies, Ethics, and Governance in Global Markets, edited by RajanK. S., 155–83. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books.
26.
JasanoffSheila. 2012b. Science and Public Reason. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge-Earthscan.
27.
JasanoffSheila. 2019. Can Science Make Sense of Life?Cambridge, MA: Polity.
28.
JasanoffSheilaBenjamin HurlbutJ.SahaKrishanu. 2015. “CRISPR Democracy: Gene Editing and the Need for Inclusive Deliberation | Issues in Science and Technology.” Issues in Science and Technology32 (1): 25–32.
29.
JasanoffSheilaBenjamin HurlbutJ.SahaKrishanu. 2019. “Democratic Governance of Human Germline Genome Editing.” The CRISPR Journal2 (5): 266–71.
30.
JasanoffSheilaMetzlerIngrid. 2020. “Borderlands of Life: IVF Embryos and the Law in Britain, Germany, and the US.” Science, Technology and Human Values45(6): 1001–37.
31.
JasanoffSheilaKimSang-Hyun, eds. 2015. Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
32.
NRC (National Research Council). 2009. A New Biology for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
33.
Nuffield Council on Bioethics. 2012. Emerging Biotechnologies: Technology, Choice and the Public Good. London, UK: Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
34.
ParthasarathyShobita. 2011. “Whose Knowledge? What Values? The Comparative Politics of Patenting Life Forms in the United States and Europe.” Policy Sciences44 (3): 267–88.
35.
ParthasarathyShobita. 2017. Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36.
SmithRogerWynneBrian. 1989. Expert Evidence: Interpreting Science in the Law. New York: Routledge.
37.
WadmanM.1998. “…as US Office Claims Right to Rule on Morality.” Nature393 (6682): 200.
