Stempsey William E
Department of Philosophy, College of the Holy Cross, One College Street, Worcester, MA 01610-2395, USA.
Med Health Care Philos. 2006;9(2):193-200. doi: 10.1007/s11019-005-5292-7.
"Geneticization" is a term used to describe the ways in which the science of genetics is influencing society at large and medicine in particular; it has important implications for the process of diagnostics. Because genetic diagnostics produces knowledge about genetic disease and predisposition to disease, it is essentially influenced by these innovations in the disease concept. In this paper, I argue that genetic diagnostics presents new ethical challenges not because the diagnostic process or method in genetic diagnostics is ethically different in kind from traditional medical diagnostics, but because it relies on a neo-ontological concept of disease in a context of genetic reductionism. Geneticization has not produced a radically new concept of disease, however, but has introduced innovations into the classical ontological concept of disease. When this new concept of disease is held in tandem with genetic reductionism, we are led to the absurd conclusion that disease is the very essence of the human being. I argue that neither the neo-ontological concept of disease nor genetic reductionism is necessary for a proper understanding of genetic diagnostics.
“基因化”是一个用于描述遗传学科学影响整个社会尤其是医学的方式的术语；它对诊断过程具有重要意义。由于基因诊断产生有关遗传疾病和疾病易感性的知识，它本质上受到疾病概念这些创新的影响。在本文中，我认为基因诊断带来了新的伦理挑战，并非因为基因诊断中的诊断过程或方法在伦理性质上与传统医学诊断不同，而是因为它在基因还原论的背景下依赖于一种新本体论的疾病概念。然而，基因化并没有产生一个全新的疾病概念，而是将创新引入了经典的疾病本体论概念。当这种新的疾病概念与基因还原论结合时，我们会得出荒谬的结论，即疾病是人类的本质。我认为，无论是新本体论的疾病概念还是基因还原论，对于正确理解基因诊断都不是必要的。
