Ethical Examinations On The Application Of Transgenic Technology

The 21st century has been dubbed the biotechnology century. Transgenic technology, as the core of biotechnology, has been playing more and more important roles in solving such problems that are bothering people in modern world as poverty, hungry, energy crisis, diseases, pollution, ecosystem destruction and species extinction etc. Applications of transgenic technology have exhibited huge attractions in high-tech industries and would be developed into one of the most promising supporting industries in the national economy. However, transgenic technology, like many other technologies, shows "double-edged sword" and dual nature characteristics in that on the one hand it could bring huge economic and social benefit to human society, but on the other hand, it might also cause potential risks, or even lead to a series of social and ethical issues. Of which, the environmental and security issues are the most prominent. These issues were analyzed from the angle of ethics in this paper.The major content consist of,three parts in this paper. In Chapter I, the history and application status of transgenic technology were introduced, of which the issue on security of transgenic technology was discussed with emphasis. Issue of security is closely related with morals, in that securities and risks elicit consequentially ethical issues such as the duty, obligation and justice of the duty subject. Chapter II is the focus of the whole thesis, where we mainly analyzed seriatim on the issues that have taken place or will possibly happen in application of transgenic technology, i.e. issues on the influence of dual nature of application of technology. These elicit the ethical controversies on transgenic technology, including the ethical examinations on the nature of transgenic technology, ethical issues on application of plant transgenic technology, issues on security of animal transgenic technology, issues on the labeling of genetic modified foods and consumer's informed choice. Chapter III is concerned with ethical principles and strategies in the application of transgenic technology. It was discussed that how the government and public should deal with such ethical issues occurred in the application of transgenic technology, and what strategies we should adopt to make transgenic technology indeed beneficial to the mankind.The development and application of transgenic technology, like that of any other high-tech in history, are always accompanied with scientific and ethical controversies. It's necessary that scientists and ethicists get together to lead the public coping with the application of transgenic technology with rational attitude. Transgenic technology should be utilized to serve for the benefit of the people, but should not violate principles of ethics. To respect the reality of application of transgenic technology, but be aware of preventing transgenic technology from harming the existence and development of mankind. In a word, we should pursue harmony and unification of economic development and environmental protection to realize sustainable development of economy and environment.