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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Synthetic Biology
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1428832

Some Remarks on the Argument Appealing to Nature against Synthetic Biology

Provisionally accepted
Ruipeng Lei Ruipeng Lei 1*Yifan Peng Yifan Peng 2Yutian He Yutian He 3Jun Li Jun Li 4*
  • 1 School of Marxism, Center for Ethics and Governance of Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, chengdu, China
  • 2 School of Philosophy, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hebei Province, China
  • 3 School of Economics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
  • 4 Intellectual Property Development& Research Center China National Intellectual Property Administration, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This paper will focus on analyzing the argument with appealing to nature against synthetic biology and provide a counter-argument against it through demonstrating the ambiguity of the concept of nature, denying the existence of a morally significant line between natural and non/unnatural, and disproving the allegations against synthetic biology raised by the argument appealing to nature. The paper consists of two parts following a brief introduction. The first part will describe the argument appealing to nature against synthetic biology, and identify the deficiencies of the argument per se, e.g. the ambiguity of the concept 'nature'; and the problems in the morally significant line between the natural and the non/unnatural. The second part will discuss the allegations to synthetic biology stemming from this argument, e.g. committing metaphysical and ethical mistakes, and doing possible harms to the environment.

    Keywords: Synthetic Biology, nature, artifact, Life, Metaphysics, Ethics

    Received: 22 May 2024; Accepted: 11 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lei, Peng, He and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Ruipeng Lei, School of Marxism, Center for Ethics and Governance of Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, chengdu, China
    Jun Li, Intellectual Property Development& Research Center China National Intellectual Property Administration, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.