Biology and freedom: An emergent stakeholder imperative

Abstract

This article offers a critical assessment of a recent report by the U.S. “Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (2010)”. The critique particularly notes that the principles, recommendations, language and scope of the report are all in profound tension with investor capitalism and hypercompetitive global business strategy. They are, however, quite consistent with an alternative stakeholder “model” of management and governance. Several implications of this political point are developed. These include the near-total overlap of business ethics, politics and economics, as well as the (classically) pragmatic notion that the products of the synthetic biology industry will eventually co-create their own ethics, or future-ethics. The commission's report also recommended urgent “ethics education”, essentially the deployment of a program based upon top-down ethical principles and moral theories. An alternative view, however, sees that the main focus of any such education should be upon the science and practice of DNA sequencing and synthesis in the wider context of human co-evolution with technology.