Basl John, Sandler Ronald
Bowling Green State University, United States.
Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2013 Dec;44(4 Pt B):697-705. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2013.05.017. Epub 2013 Jun 19.
Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are no grounds for excluding synthetic organisms from having a good also grounded in their teleological organization. However, this comes at a cost; traditional artifacts will also be seen as having a good of their own. We defend this as the best solution to the puzzle about what to say about the good of synthetic organisms.
合成生物体既是生物体又是人工制品。在本文中，我们旨在确定这样的实体是否有其自身的利益，从而是否有可能成为直接具有道德重要性的对象。我们认为，无感知能力的生物体的利益基于一种目的论的病因学解释，根据这种解释，无感知能力的生物体可以基于其自然选择的病因学而在目的论上被组织起来。在捍卫了这种目的论解释之后，我们认为没有理由将合成生物体排除在也基于其目的论组织而具有利益之外。然而，这是有代价的；传统的人工制品也将被视为有其自身的利益。我们将此作为关于如何看待合成生物体利益这一难题的最佳解决方案进行辩护。
