Gli organismi geneticamente modificati: la lettura bioetica personalista
Published: February 28, 2005
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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.
Authors
Ricercatrice, Istituto di Bioetica, Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia "A.Gemelli", Università
Cattolica S. Cuore, Roma, Italy.
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The reading keys of bioethics about the creation and the utilization of GMO that are adopted in contemporary cultural and philosophical debate are: the philosophy of experimental sciences/ethics relationship and the philosophy of man/nature/economy relationship. The experimental sciences/ethics relationship could be read following two perspectives: the scientistic-progressist perspective and the precautionary perspective. The scientistic-progressist perspective, getting involved in the scientific and naturalistic fallacy, sustains that GMO are ethically acceptable because up to now they do not prove to be harmful. On the contrary, the precautionary perspective, supported by a substantially antiscientific prejudice, affirms that science does not offer elements of certainty about the absence of damage and that thus it is up to the right to establish the criteria of ethical acceptability of biotechnologies. The personalist approach dissociates itself from both perspectives, affirming the following points of view: experimental sciences, because of their epistemic statute, can not offer elements of absolute certainty about GMO harmlessness, so it is necessary to increase research, case by case experimentation and long-term follow-up; experimental data acquired up to now offer probative elements for establishing their character of harmlessness and that are considered as irrenounceable for a moral judgement which in any case must take into account extra-scientific elements of evaluation. The other philosophical support of reference, the man/nature/economy relationship, is based on sustainability, a concept having an economical matrix. The criteria of weak and of strong sustainability reflect respectively the prevailing of economic growth over nature or the priority of absolute preservation of nature over development. The different meanings of sustainability derive from radically different ideas of nature: nature as a resource, nature as intangible good. The personalist approach allows to overcome the dichotomy between the increase of development and the protection of nature through a radical change of perspective, a development which is no more unbridled and autonomous, which becomes wise administration and a nature which is no more an end in itself but becomes a gift. The idea of administration of the gift is rooted in the Book of Genesis, where it is written that God created man and put him in the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. The imperative of dressing it urges man to use his intelligence and freedom to make the garden fructify, with the advise of never forgetting that it derives from a "God's prior and original gift". The imperative of keeping it involves man's responsibility in keeping the being, the being of things and the being of man that from creation are inseparably connected. It is precisely this original connection that imposes on bioethics the following question as a basic ethical question: through our relationship with nature, what we lose or acquire of ourselves, what kind of men we become? Finally, the true development we are called to realize does not concern economy and thus having more, but the fullness of an authentic humanity, that is to say being more by acting virtuously: acting prudently, temperately and, last but not least, rightly.
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