Stephen Kearns

The moral status of synthetic organisms: grounding enactive biocentrism in a Kantian framework

The generation of synthetic organisms blurs the boundary between organism and artefact. This creates a distinct problem for biocentrist individualism for we either have to widen the scope of moral status to include artefacts in general or we exclude synthetic organisms entailing there are living things that are not considered morally relevant. My research will look at solving this problem by using autopoietic enactivism to identify those things that are good-for an organism. Then I intend to ask whether individual biocentrism once supported by autopoietic enactivism can be incorporated into a Kantian ethical framework.

Supervisors

Professor Simon Hailwood & Professor Michael Hauskeller

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