Biotechnology and the Humanities

Image credit: João Condé, 2015. Artificial microRNA scaffold. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Wellcome Collection.

Recent developments in areas such as artificial intelligence and genome editing have sparked discussion over technological progress. However, that is not new: human societies have long debated medical innovation and other advancements related to healing and enhancement.

Today, emerging biotechnologies offer imminent and potential powers to transform fundamental aspects of human nature and human relationships. Examples include human-animal chimeras and hybrids, germline genome editing, brain organoids, brain-computer interfaces, AI, and efforts aimed at life extension. 

The Biotechnology and the Humanities Project draws and builds upon scholarship in the humanities, such as history, philosophy, theology, and ethics, to better understand biotechnologies and their relationship with human society, and to foster interdisciplinary and open discussion of emerging biotechnologies.

With a focus on the theme of human identity, and informed by expertise from scientific disciplines, the project will take up questions such as:   

• How are conceptions of human identity shaped by technologies, and how do conceptions of human identity shape engagement with technologies?  
• What are the defining characteristics of a human being within various past and present cultures and philosophical approaches? Relatedly, what are the key differences between humans, animals, and machines?
• What are the perceived opportunities, limits, and risks of human enhancement, now and historically? And how have technologies been assessed as either serving or hindering existential conceptions of living well?
• What metaphysical beliefs undergird assessments of technologies?
• Finally, what aspects of our shared humanity and communal life do different cultures (past and present) and philosophical approaches consider worth preserving in the face of potentially transformational changes brought about by technologies? 

In its foregrounding of the humanities, the Biotechnology and the Humanities Project Project will support research and discussion on the ethically appropriate, culturally situated, and historically informed uses of emerging biotechnologies in our present day; and encourage broader societal involvement in those debates. 

This project researches how various philosophical approaches and cultures, past and present, have assessed the desirability of potentially transformational technologies or capabilities—and the relevance of those assessments to contemporary debates and discussions. Some of the technologies that will be taken under consideration include:

1. 1. 1. Brain-computer interfaces & other means of uniting the human with machines/artificial Intelligence
      2. Efforts aimed at life extension
      3. Human-animal chimeras and hybrids
      4. Brain organoids
      5. Germline genome editing

Fields such as philosophy, history, and theology have long debated and discussed the differences between animals, machines, and humans; what characteristics should be used in such definitions; and the opportunities, limits, and risks of human enhancement. Drawing on such scholarship, we will analyse biotechnologies in the context of the human, while also examining the ways in which emergent biotechnologies help to reveal metaphysical frameworks and beliefs of what it means to be human through controversies and deliberations.  At the same time, by making use of history, philosophy, literature, theology, and other humanities disciplines, our research will encourage and enable public discussion of biotechnologies and their responsible use. In particular, the project draws on a wide breadth of philosophical and cultural approaches and religious beliefs, including conceptions of the human in philosophical traditions, and philosophy of technology both in its contemporary and historical versions.

An annual conference will bring together scholars from across the humanities, as well as scientists, medical researchers, and community leaders (including religion leaders), to discuss project themes, as well as more broadly the place and role of the various humanities disciplines within contemporary debates.

Prior and upcoming conferences (co-sponsored by the Uehiro Institute and TORCH Medical Humanities) include:

• “(Bio)technologies and Human Identity”
• “History, Eugenics, and Human Enhancement”

Journal articles, opinion pieces, and special journal issues will be part of the project’s outputs, based on its academic conferences. A special issue from a prior conference will be released in 2025 (Bioethics: New (Bio)technologies and Human Identity, co-edited by Alberto Giubilini and Andrew Moeller).

Alongside, the project hosts a university-wide reading group supported by TORCH Medical Humanities that brings together scholars from across the sciences and humanities. 

Drawing upon readings in the humanities (including philosophy, history, theology, art, and literature) and the sciences, the reading group bridges the existential and empirical study of human identity—and within that context, asks if and how such reflections might help chart a path forward in relation to the appropriate uses of new and potent technologies. Each session of the group focuses on one particular technology and its applications.

We will launch further groups that focus on particular and narrow domains that may address more specific research interests (such as a group dedicated solely to germline genome editing.) We also plan to expand the reading groups across university campuses in the United Kingdom and the United States. 

As well as research and discussion within the university, our project works with local community leaders to both learn from them and assist them in engaging their respective communities on the meaning, benefits, and possible ethical implications of emerging biotechnologies. Given the importance of religion to such debates, the project engages with religious teachings and religious leaders (locally and outside of Oxfordshire) from across a wide variety of faith traditions.

This engagement will be supported by podcasts and other forms of media that trace the history of various biotechnologies up to the present day, and in doing so also engage and invite discussion with persons of all manner of ethical persuasions as it relates to determining the appropriate uses of those technologies. One aim is to demonstrate how the starting point of our shared human identity can foster fruitful discussions across value divides. 

Finally, an annual debate on the appropriate uses of emerging biotechnologies will be streamed and distributed online, aimed at popular audiences. Speakers will be asked to foreground their own beliefs relating to human identity as a starting point for the debates.