Emerging Technologies: From Hindsight to Foresight.

Alan Belk is a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy Department at the
University of Guelph.

I teach ethics. The hardest question to deal with, when an ethical position has been analyzed and the right action determined, is “So what?” I shrug my shoulders: Nothing can compel you to do the right thing. Our use of new and emerging technology raises many ethical questions. Sometimes the law sanctions ethical acts; is our regulatory structure adequate for emerging technologies? Is it right to patent a life form such as Oncomouse? Should we breed blind chickens for meat and eggs because they have a less stressful existence? What should be the balance between individual profit and public benefit? Should we prohibit embryonic stem cell research because it uses embryos in a way that is at odds with ideas of basic human dignity? Here is the elephant in the room, and although there’s only one chapter about it, it is placed at the centre of the book. It’s a particularly difficult elephant to deal with in Canada because of our multicultural, pluralistic society: not everyone accepts the idea that an embryo is human, or the idea that humans possess inherent dignity. This isn’t an ethics text; it’s a collection of papers written by academics, but nevertheless readable, which explore our use of new technologies in a Canadian-focused global context. The author has unified the collection with her thoughtful introduction and conclusion, and if you want a quick introduction to the state of and the issues raised by bio- and nanotechnologies you would do well to read this book.