Synthetic Life: Organisms, Machines, and the Nature of Synthetic Biology Products

Abstract

A brief overview of the ways synthetic biology is discussed in contemporary philosophical debate seems to justify the following hypothesis: this debate is initially motivated by moral questions. While these approaches are obviously valuable in our understanding of ethical issues involved in these techno-scientific practices, it is also true that this bias has obscured other important aspects, specifically those related to a strict ontological discussion of what is really new about these entities produced by synthetic biology. In other words, the hidden question is whether these synthetic products are genuinely different, in ontological terms, from other products of previous modes of domestication or intervention in natural dynamics. In view of this, this paper intends to examine some ontological implications of synthetic biology, especially those related to the way it affects traditional dichotomies, such as natural/artificial and organism/machine.