Abstract
While CRISPR/Cas9 has become a lightning rod for fears about humanity’s increasing capacity to engineer biological life, the mainstream of Anglo-American bioethics struggles to discern much wrong with genome editing of human beings in vitro. In this paper, we analyze the notion of biopolitics and consider what contribution it may make to debates on genome editing. We disambiguate the different senses of two key terms: ‘biopolitics’, and ‘life’, and try to show how particular authors in the biopolitics literature draw on and emphasize different versions of these concepts. In the final section of the paper, we venture some suggestions as to the contribution that a number of these approaches might make to moving beyond a focus on risk and individual liberty to address the urgent bioethical questions surrounding the use of CRISPR/Cas9 to edit the human genome.
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Notes
Gene silencing, somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning, genetic modification via viral vectors or electroporation, and various technologies for artificially inducing mutations were all developed in the hope of shaping organisms to human designs. Mitochondrial transfer, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, in vitro fertilization, and artificial insemination via donor aim to achieve a similar control over the biology of future human beings. Other new methods for editing genomes include TALENS and zinc finger nucleases. For a useful overview of these technologies and their potential, see (Regalado 2015).
Although Anglo-American bioethics struggles to credit arguments against the genetic modification of human beings, we do not wish to imply that it is impossible to make such arguments within this tradition. Indeed, one of the authors (Sparrow) has spent the better part of his academic career developing such objections, he hopes not completely without success (see, for instance, Sparrow 2011a, b, 2012, 2015, 2019a). Nor is he alone in undertaking this project. Notable critics within this tradition include (Sandel 2007; McKibben 2003; Annas 2005). Nevertheless, we believe that it is fair to say that the mainstream of the Anglo-American tradition of bioethics and applied ethics is yet to be convinced that there is anything especially wrong with the idea of enhancing human beings via genetic means and that, moreover, this fact is not unrelated to the deepest intellectual commitments of this tradition (Sparrow 2010).
We focus on contemporary discussions of biopolitics that have arisen in the wake of Foucault’s History of Sexuality vol. 1 and associated lectures. For a summary of other historical uses of the term, see Lemke (2008).
Our thanks to Mark Howard for discussions on this point.
Though the restriction of the scope of Agamben’s claims to “Western” societies is somewhat puzzling given that various states in the “East”, including Japan, Korea and China, wielded a power over the lives of their citizens that was as total as any European state.
Note that a closely related concept also appears in the literature, which identifies biopolitics as a particular type of regulation of biological materials. Thus, for instance, one might distinguish “biopolitics” from “kinship relations” or “animism” (both of which have served to regulate biological materials in particular societies) and claim that biological materials are only characterized by biopolitics at particular historical moments or in particular institutions. However, in so far as any framework for regulating biological materials will be characterized by the existence of relationships of power, we believe that it is more appropriate to understand these as different forms of biopolitics rather than an alternative to it.
Agamben does address the division between human and animal life in The Open (Agamben 2004), but for the most part his discussions of biopolitics only make sense in regards to human life.
A distinction between positive and negative eugenics is standard in the literature on eugenics and on new reproductive technologies (Paul 1998; Kevles 1995). “Positive eugenics” involves the pursuit of desired traits either via selective breeding or by “selecting in” embryos via Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). “Negative eugenics” involves the elimination of unwanted traits, via murder, selective abortion, forced sterilisation, selective breeding, selective terminations, or “selecting out” embryos via PGD (Comfort 2014, p. 10). For discussions of contemporary reproductive technologies, biopolitics and eugenics, see Mills (2016) and Mills (2017).
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project DP170100919). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council. An early version of this paper was presented at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the authors would like to thank Professors Derrick Au and Hon Li for the opportunity to benefit from the discussions on that occasion. Thanks are also due to Mark Howard, who assisted with preparing the paper for publication.
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Sparrow, R., Mills, C. Genome editing: From bioethics to biopolitics. BioSocieties 17, 485–505 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-021-00229-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-021-00229-5