| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation is concerned with the use of genome editing technologies on animals, and more specifically with the ethical aspects of using such technologies on farmed salmon. Two research questions are treated: 1) Can it be morally acceptable to use CRISPR on farmed salmon, and if so, which conditions have to be in place? 2) How should a normative analysis of this question proceed?
The dissertation is a philosophical study with interdisciplinary elements, combining empirical and normative methods, and is a contribution to the field of empirical ethics. The theoretical framework departs from Cora Diamond’s notion of animals as our fellow creatures. The dissertation argues that this approach is a suitable alternative to moral individualism and moral relationalism. Methodologically, the dissertation proceeds from another concept in Diamond, namely «reflective empiricism». On my account of this method, data gathered to qualitative research interviews and focus groups are interpreted as «things to think with» and form a basis for normative reflection.
The dissertation consists of four articles, an introduction and a conclusion. Article 1, «Fish as fellow creatures – A matter of moral attention», defends Diamond’s approach to animal ethics as an alternative to capacity-based theories and show how an understanding of animals as fellow creatures can also encompass fish, a group of animals that are often not taken into moral consideration in the same way as other animals. Article 2, «Reflective empiricism and empirical animal ethics», departs from the methodological discussions about the gap between is and ought in empirical bioethics and show how Iris Murdoch’s discussion of the separation between facts and values raises a still relevant critique of the common metaphysical outlook of this field. The article lays out and develops Diamond’s concept of reflective empiricism and argues that her point that literature can constitute a basis we can think with in ethics also encompasses data collected through qualitative methods. Article 3, «A social and ethical game-changer? An empirical ethics study of CRISPR in the salmon farming industry», examines the claim that CRISPR constitutes and ethical game-changer compared to older genetic modification technologies, and finds that crossing of species boundaries, which is often pointed to as a relevant difference, is not decisive for ethical acceptance. Instead, moral reflections about the potential usefulness of such technologies can be pointed to as more important. Article 4, «Artifishial – Naturalness and the CRISPR salmon», examines the concept of «naturalness» in the genome editing debate, and argues that objections about unnaturalness can be understood as an expression of what kind of attitudes we should demonstrate when facing the otherness of nature. The dissertation concludes that we should approach questions about use of CRISPR with humility and temperance. Even though some potential applications of CRISPR in the salmon farming industry can contrite to reducing environmental harm and increase salmon welfare, all potential uses of CRISPR should be weighed up against other alternatives. It is morally wrong to change animals so that they fit our production facilities better instead of asking how the production facilities can be changed to fit the animal and the surrounding environment. Even though the salmon farming industry as it is today is morally inacceptable in itself, a genetic change of salmon to increase production and efficiency is even less consistent with treating these animals as our fellow creatures. | en_US |
