NEVER LET ME GO - ASPECTS OF HUMAN INSTRUMENTALISATION IN BIOTECHNOLOGICAL PRACTICES

• Published in: PHILOSOPHICA International Journal of Social and Human Sciences 2023, Vol.10 (19-20), p.78-82
• Main Author: Popova, Gergana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anthropology; Ethics / Practical Philosophy; Sociology
• ISSN: 1857-9272; 2671-3020

The article examines Jürgen Habermas’s text: The Future of Human Nature, focused on the implications of the development of biotechnological practices such as preimplantation genetic diagnostics and the possibilities of embryo modeling. Habermas’ thesis that the uncontrolled use of the mentioned practices creates a danger of possible instrumentalisation of man and the creation of relations of dependence between different groups of people is analyzed. In such a perspective, the report centers around Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go as an illustration of a possible future in which technology will allow the creation of human clones used as a source of spare parts. Various examples of such instrumentalisation of the human body in the last two decades are also given - surrogate motherhood, the egg market and even the case in which parents created a child to save the life of his/ sister through a bone marrow transplant. These already available instances of instrumentalisation of the human are pointed out in order to question the anthropological consequences of the advancement of biotechnology and its almost unchallenged imposition as a form of scientific progress that will lead to the improvement of the humankind but perhaps it will rather mark its end.