It is Morally Permiss ible to Manipulate the Genome of Domest ic Hogs

CHARLES V. BLATZ

Department of Philosophy 1231 Southwest Academic Center University of Toledo Toledo, OH 43606 USA

Genetic engineering is permit ted in the case of hogs, at least to the point of giving us a reasonable model of production feasibility and impact, as long as doing so is part of the properly sustainable pursuit of a defensible ethical project. It is not per- mitted when undertaken frivolously or aimlessly, or even in the mere pursuit of aca- demic tenure or satisfaction of our curiosity. But when is an ethical project defen- sible and when is its pursuit sustainable?

Background: To Feast Only Within One's Own Community

One of the all-time great stories of the genetic manipulation of hogs is found in the tale of the travels and travails of Odysseus (Homer, 1937). At one of Odysseus' many stops along the way home from the Trojan wars, he sent half his men out to scout the Isle of the Winds. All but one of these men encountered Circe the sorceress. He saw Circe turn the rest of the patrol into swine, leaving their human thought pat- terns and emotions intact, as an apparent overlay and accompaniment to the swine patterns they were given, while rendering them fundamentally incapable of acting on their human reason. An innocent reader can only marvel at the horrible feat of turning men into swine and cheer at the victory of Odysseus in having them turned back again-with rejuvenation for their trouble. We have no hesitation, presumably, in saying the first was a terrible wrong to commit and the latter a just and right rep- aration for that wrong.

We can all agree with this much of the assessment of the sailors' fate, but it is not quite so easy to put our finger on just what had gone so terribly wrong. Odys- seus' sailors had been put into a state of profound misery. They had, as I shall de- scribe it, been "immiserated" by the magic of Circe. But in what does this misery con- sist? There are several possibilities.

(1) First we should consider the possibility of sheer physical misery, a state of continued and severe pain rendering the person incapable of functioning fully. Such is the tragic outcome of some accidents or diseases to which humans fall prey. However, this does not seem to be the problem facing Odysseus' men. We can hardly

Journa l of Agricul tural and Environmental Ethics 1991 0893/4282/91 $3.00 + .00

Animal Rights 167

imagine a person in a pig's body being comfortable, but the story does not por t ray the t ransformat ion of Odysseus ' men as pu t t ing them into a state of agony.

(2) But surely, they were thrown into a s ta te of confusion followed by great f rus t ra t ion and self-revulsion when they found their human will and human stand- ards of propr ie ty both thwar ted and overwhelmed by their new porcine bodies and the needs of those bodies? Yes, this was a loss tha t the men suffered by becoming someth ing different from men, as if they were t rapped in their body by some para- lysing accident or wound and made able only to watch as functions in some sense their own, but not of their doing, go on within and about them. Yes, this was a loss and a source of psychic misery to the sailors, we can imagine. But even that is not the worst of it, not the kind of profound loss to which I want to apply the te rm "ira- miserat ion."

(3) What had "immiserated" the sailors was the fundamental generic change they had suffered in thei r t ransformat ion. They were rendered congenitally unable to form the resolve of will and physical control to act as human agents and were put into a s ta te in which they acted as pigs instead, though all the while they were aware tha t they were human and tha t they should be act ing in very different ways towards very different ends. As a par t of this harm they had lost their capacity to function as ethical agents, to recognize or to construct the right, to inform thei r will by tha t recognit ion or construction, and to under take steps to pursue tha t right.

Odysseus recognized this as the profound loss and wrong suffered by his men. He refused to feast wi thout the company of his crew. And in this refusal he seemed to see h imself d iminished as an agent since he had lost, with the loss of these crew members , a communi ty of agents. It is this community which mainta ins the mutual expectat ions and inst i tu t ions which provide for each person the recognition of his most impor tan t status; namely, tha t of an ethical agent. With the loss of ethical agency among his men, Odysseus was lessened as an ethical agent, and indeed it was incumbent upon him to do something about these losses both in his own case and tha t of his men.

Ethically, this loss of agency is surely the most profound for all concerned. It is something which no ethic could tolerate, regardless of its project, that is its u l t imate normat ive goal, for it would amount to condoning actions which would really under- mine the ethic. The same cannot be said for the physical and psychic misery at s take in the story.

Ethics mus t to lera te the possibil i ty of ext reme and debi l i ta t ing physical pain, since any systematic a t t empt to prevent accidents and other occasions which lead to it would require measures repressive beyond anything consistent with the free- dom suitable to ethical agents. 1 Indeed, ethics may have to allow or even call for that which will resul t in such pain in pursui t of the jus t dis t r ibut ion of scarce resources. Consider t r iage on the batt lefield and in famine relief.

Of course, a plausible ethic is not going to condone the gra tui tous infliction of grea t physical pain. A plausible ethic would not say that Circe might inflict all the pain the goddess wished for the men. Still, it seems that it is not the pain i tself tha t is the controll ing ethical concern, for if it were, then the ethic would urge us to min- imize physical pain even at the expense of the freedom necessary for the responsi-

168 Charles V. Blatz

bility central to ethical agency. And it is just that which seems beyond the reach of a plausible ethic.

Ethics must tolerate the possibility of extreme psychical pain for the same rea- sons. In some cases, to do otherwise would be so paternalistic as to deny the person the freedom of an ethical agent or would fail to make the best of a bad situation in the distribution of scarce resources. We need only think of the anguish involved in making hard decisions about the health care of a child with birth defects or termi- nal custodial t reatment of our children and elders; or again we need only think about the devastating psychological pressures generated by distributing employment and related life opportunities on a competitive basis, to see that it is not psychic pain and frustration in and of itself that strikes us as intolerable ethically. Rather, what is of unqualified and abiding concern is the impact of that pain and frustration on an individual's ability to lead a life under her or his own control.

For an ethic to tolerate the transformation of its agents into something else is a very different matter, however. This kind of tolerance would spell the end of the ethic on at least two counts.

In the first place, the permissibility of rendering ethical agents chronically in- competent is the permissibility of undermining an ethic's authority, for (by implica- tion) it allows the erasure of the entire scope of individuals and community subject to the ethic's guidance. And yet no defensible ethic will allow the undermining of its authori ty in this way. After all, every ethic urges on us a project which is undated; in that what it tells us to do is to be done throughout an unspecified time, not just today. (I will return to this below in rehearsing an argument linking ethics and sus- tainability.) It is not social welfare today and vicious individualism next week, non- maleficence today, murder and mayhem a year from now. But if this is the case, then every ethic also urges on us a set of obligations of conscientiousness, requiring us to take care that we are able and have the opportunity to pursue the ethic's project to- morrow as well as today. One derivative of this requirement of conscientiousness is a requirement to keep ourselves ready, as ethical agents, to participate in the pur- suit of the ethical project. This requirement flies in the face of the imagined permis- sibility of t ransforming individuals out of a state of being ethical agents.

Such permission would also undermine an ethic in a second way; namely by ren- dering it normatively inconsistent with respect to the intrinsic value of its ethical agents. To say that it is permissible to render ethical agents something else, is to say that being an ethical agent is not itself a status of any (final) ethical significance, and yet clearly, this status is of first and overriding ethical importance.

I would contend that being an ethical agent is what gives individuals ethical standing. That is, being ethical agents is what gives individuals importance in and of themselves as beings whose interests or aims are justifiably pursued, other things being equal or conflicts aside, regardless of the objects of those aims and interests.

If this is so, then one part of the normative content of any ethic should be that ethical agents are to be treated as having the intrinsic value accorded those with ethical standing. Alternatively, and as Kant put it, those who are ethical agents are to be treated as beings with dignity due to their having something of unconditional intrinsic worth. And if this is so, any ethic which allows in its normative content the

Animal Rights 169

t ransformat ion of an individual out of the s ta tus of an ethical agent would be nor- matively inconsistent. Thus, no ethic which is plausible, at least to the extent of being consis tent in its normat ive guidance, can condone the render ing of its agents into something else. That will always under any conditions be wrong and (if the ethic 's conflict resolut ion procedure is not to give way to inconsistency) it will al- ways be overridingly wrong.

Thus, if I am right, allowing the t ransformat ion of its ethical agents undermines an ethic by erasing its author i ty and rendering it normatively inconsistent. For these reasons, at least, no plausible ethic could do anything but condemn and call for the correction of Circe's work. The same cannot be said about Circe causing the sailors pain, whether physical or psychic. That is to be condemned as impermissible in the circumstances of the story, but it is not, like her changing the sailors from ethical agents, impermiss ible in all circumstances, that is, unconditionally. Thus, I would contend tha t the real source of"immiserat ion," the profound ethical wrong done to the sailors, consists in thei r being deprived of thei r ethical agency.

Needless to say, par t of this argument , in par t icular the contention that all ethi- cal agents, ipso facto, have ethical s tanding and thus are impor tant in themselves, are beings whose aims and interests are always justif iably protected (conflicts aside), is not a contention endorsed by all. Since this contention will loom large in apply- ing the lesson of Odysseus ' story to the case of t ransgenic swine, I need to rehearse my reasons for accepting it (Blatz, 1985).

What has ethical s tanding in an ethic is whatever the ethic counts as the reposi- tory of u l t imate ethical worth; it is those strivings and interests which the ethic counts as impor tan t in themselves, conflicts aside. Thus to find, for all ethics, what has standing, we first should find what strivings and interests are ul t imate ethical considerations, or impor tan t in themselves. Thus, to find what or who has s tanding we must first ask what is an ul t imate consideration for any ethic.

How do we determine what are the u l t imate ethical considerations of just if iable conduct? We can do so in a nonarb i t ra ry way only by a rational construction of the u l t imate norms, s tandards or other bases of justification of our ethic. 2 The construc- t ion i tself must be nonarbi t rary , of course. So what are we to do in order to avoid arb i t ra r iness in construct ing the foundations of ethics? To construct such founda- tions ra t ional ly means adopt ing norms and s tandards which are appropriate means to our ends. But what are those ends? If we are to avoid arbi t rar i ly favouring one ethical project over another , one set of u l t imate values or one set of u l t imate obliga- t ions over all the others we might endorse, we must choose our basic over-arching values and obligations in a way tha t fits aims shared by all the contending parties.

The only th ing common to all the aims of the contending p a r t i e s - those repre- sent ing different specific ethical projects or different sets of u l t imate values and ob- l i g a t i o n s - i s tha t they are the aims of ethical agents, that is tha t they are the aims of individuals t ry ing to guide their actions by reasons for and against the real life choices and options they face. Without being arbi t rary, all we can say about a con- s i d e r a t i o n - in so far as it is an ul t imate ethical c o n s i d e r a t i o n - i s that it is an aim of a creature t rying to direct her or his action by reason in a context in which others are t ry ing to do the same. Generally, then, u l t imate considerations in ethics are the

170 Charles V. Blatz

aims of reason-guided agents .3 One implication of this argument is the pivotal contention about ethical stand-

ing. If someone is an ethical agent trying to direct her or his actions by appropriate reasons, then the aims of that person are ultimate ethical considerations and so the person is one who manifests the beginning points of justification in ethics and whose presence, sustenance and pursuits can be justified (conflicts aside) without refer- ence to anything besides that manifestation. In short, such beings will have ethical standing and the unconditional ethical importance which goes with that. 4

A second implication is worth drawing here as well. Note that beings with stand- ing are those which manifest the ultimate ethical considerations. Therefore, it is not only true that if a being is an ethical agent then it has standing, but also that if a being has standing then it is an ethical agent. The reason is that ifa being has stand- ing, then it can manifest the ultimate considerations of the ethic. Those considera- tions are the aims of individuals trying to direct their conduct by reason. If a being can manifest these considerations, then it is an ethical agent. Therefore, if a being has standing, then it is an ethical agent, in any plausible ethic. But just as clearly, non-human animals do no seem to qualify as having standing since they are not ethi- cal agents; they cannot (we all agree) manifest those ultimate considerations.

If this is right, then non-humans might have, at most, derivative importance in any plausible ethic. They might not have standing or ethical considerability in their own right; indeed, unlike humans, they do not have rights just by virtue of the fact that, being the sorts of creatures they are, they have ethical standing. Consequently, it might not be unconditionally, or always, impermissible to act upon them in a way that profoundly changes their nature. This is unconditionally impermissible in the case of transforming ethical agents. But for non-humans which are not and cannot be ethical agents, transforming their nature might be, at most, conditionally per- missible or impermissible.

Most of this I have argued before (Blatz, 1985). However, the extension of the point to our present concerns suggests that non-human animals are subject to neither the same sort of"immiseration," nor, perhaps, to the same sorts of protec- tion against transgenic modification, as Odysseus' crew. It was their change of sta- tus as ethical agents which was the intolerable loss in the sailors' case. And this was an intolerable loss because it involved the loss of standing. The same can never be said for non-humans. Thus, at least with regard to considerations of standing, it will not be unconditionally impermissible to act upon non-humans in a way that pro- foundly changes their nature. Consequently, should transgenic swine go through changes parallel at points to those suffered by Odysseus' men, since their loss can- not be as grave as that of the sailors, the genetic engineering of swine might be tol- erable and the transgenic work that produced such swine might, under certain con- ditions, be permissible. Let me turn to this possibility using details of possible porcine parallels to the story of Circe and the sailors.

B i o t e c h n o l o g y and the I m m i s e r a t i o n of S w i n e

We can imagine three possible parallels between Odysseus' sailors and transgenic

Animal Rights 171

swine. One of these, turning swine into pigmen, is no more than a bit of philosophi- cal science fiction and so need not be considered here. The other two are real tech- nological possibilities, and are the cases of interest here. These are the possibilities of: (1) modifying swine by introducing some changes in their growth rates, or other production performance factors but leaving them otherwise just as before, and (2) changing swine into something incapable of flourishing in the ways of their former life, while still leaving them with the physical, mental, and instinctual dimensions of their former life. Would either of these be "immiserating" or otherwise uncondi- tionally impermissible as was Circe's treatment of the sailors? I want to argue that the answer is "no!"

Consider first the case in which we engineer transgenic swine whose life func- tions are as before with only small exceptions bearing on production interests. These transgenic swine might have different diets, growth rates, tolerance of confinement, and other features making them more desirable to producers and consumers, but otherwise they are the same as before. Also, we are to imagine that they are not put in a state of constant pain or frustration because of the genetic changes induced in them. What about this case? Do we have here something which would parallel (in terms of ethical harm) the case of Odysseus' sailors and render the genetic changes imagined impermissible? It would seem not, for not only is there no psychic or physi- cal pain induced, but there is no loss of the pigs' former life either. Ex hypothesi, the swine ethology would be the same as before, and so there seems to be nothing new to complain about.

Consider a second case, however. Here the genetic changes do render the animals incapable of leading the life they lived before. Because of disease, sterility or physi- cal handicap, the transgenic swine are not able to move, eat, breathe, reproduce, so- cialize or otherwise function in some vital way ihat their untransformed cousins are. Here we would have gone some of the way to making other-reliant flesh factories of the animals, without changing their mental life. We would have severed the evolved co-adaptation of the animals' bodies and their repertoire of standard behavioural and emotional responses. We would have changed the animals into "pigfacts" (facti- tious swine) without turning off their pig instincts and responses.

Would this treatment of the animals be permitted? If we recognize that this is not at all a science fiction case, but indeed the outcome of work already done on transgenic swine, I believe that we would want to respond that making pigs into "pigfacts" is not permitted.

Recent work at the Agricultural Experiment Station at Beltsville, Maryland, in- volved microinjecting human growth hormone into fertilized swine eggs. This has had just the sorts of outcomes mentioned. That the record is one of failure is clear from the following report by Gary Comstock:

Nineteen transgenic swine lived through birth and into maturity. Several expressed elevated levels of the growth gene, but none grew more quickly or to a greater size than their counterparts in a control group. However, many suffered f rom. . , medical problems not afflicting the controls. Those animals developed abnormally and exhibited

172 Charles V, Blatz

deformed bodies and skulls; some had swollen legs, others had ulcers, crossed eyes, renal disease, or arthritis. Many seemed to suffer from decreased immune function and were susceptible to pneumonia. All were sterile (Comstock, 1991: 2).

The Beltsville pigs suffered a variety of maladies while, for all we can tell, remain- ing as much pigs as they would have been if they had not been the product of genetic engineering.

It is hard to imagine how this unproductive work might be justified. And indeed, as we think about the suffering of these animals, we want to say that if this is the best we could do, then we should have done nothing at all. But if this is so, is it be- cause, like the deed done to Odysseus' men, such transgenic work is uncondition- ally impermissible? Did the Beltsville work involve the "immiseration" of the trans- genic swine in the same sense as Circe's work "immiserated" Odysseus' crew? If not, then what has gone wrong, and what does that teach us about the permissibility of the genetic engineering of swine?

Although the cases are parallel in certain regards, the parallel is not complete, and the transgenic swine research in question is not to be faulted for "immiserat- ing" the pigs. To repeat, nonhuman animals (or at least many, certainly including swine) are not ethical agents, and so the genetic research in question did not "im- miserate" the animals by rendering them no longer ethical agents. The animals can- not lose what they never had.

Wherein, then, lies the harm to the Beltsville pigs? Would their physical and psy- chic pain be sufficient to render the treatment leading to it unconditionally imper- missible? I do not think so. We saw, above, that causing physical and psychic pain, even to humans, is to be permitted in some circumstances. And, if causing pain and psychic stress to animals is sufficient to make treatment unconditionally impermis- sible, then we should not be involved in producing meat at all. We should all be ve- gans. Yet we do not seem to accept that conclusion. Such a diet is arguably not healthy for some humans. 5 But then, the standing of humans, when compared to the lack of standing of nonhumans, would lead us to say that, in at least some cir- cumstances where the well-being of humans is at stake, the consumption of meat and the animal pain and stress which go with that practice are justifiable (Blatz, 1985). At most, then, the pain and stress involved in producing and consuming meat products are conditionally wrong and so not permitted in those circumstances where there is no overriding reason for them. They are not unconditionally impermissible as is the "immiseration" of humans. And yet common intuition suggests that some- thing has gone badly wrong at Beltsville.

Were the Beltsville swine changed in a way that is unconditionally impermissible by having their genome manipulated at all? If so, then traditional selective breed- ing practices for food production must be condemned, as should the imagined successful transgenic work discussed in our first scenario above. But surely this seems excessive. Swine are an important, if not irreplaceable source of human food in many cultures and economic circumstances. Also, breeding hogs as hemoglobin factories with no ill side-effects to the animals will provide an irreplaceable and safe

Animal Rights 173

source of life to innocent human victims. Both of these cases (and the above-men- tioned points about standing) argue strongly that changing the swine genome is at most conditionally impermissible or permissible. What, then, went wrong at Belts- ville?

Is the problem just that nothing seems to have gone right? The Beltsville research seems to be no more than a case of animal suffering gratuitously induced for the sake of climbing a scientific cliff just because it is there. The research seems to have no redeeming qualities, because it is not cast as part of a defensible ethical project. It is not clearly incumbent upon the workers and funding agencies to engage in this research, nor is it clearly incumbent upon the interested and swine-sympathetic pub- lic to tolerate it. Perhaps all we need is for the story to be told in full for us to see the overriding merit of the research, even if it did lead only to "pigfacts". Perhaps, for example, the research is part of a set of basic research projects which promise to pay off eventually in human health benefits, or in terms of greater justice in the dis- tribution of employment opportunities in agriculture. Perhaps, but I think not.

We could expect to hear some justification of this research, except for one telling

fact. We presently have so little control over the results of microinjection transgenic research that any benefits would be at best accidental, not something we could claim as our intended outcome. In such circumstances, it seems we should not pursue the research. The reason I would offer for not doing the research can be stated as the following general principle of Ethically Conscientious Conduct: When the best we

can say about an endeavour is that accidentally it might pay of f in an ethically com- pel l ing way, while at the same time that endeavour is expected (for good reasons) to involve costs which we should avoid (other things being equal), then we should not

engage in that endeavour. As applied to scientific research, this principle opposes the Beltsville research because it runs counter to what I will call "The Principle of Speculative Scientific Research" (PSSR).

If engaging in a research project or program might have some unpredictable out- come which could make it part of a defensible ethical project, then we should be al- lowed to, or indeed, should count ourselves as under an obligation to engage in that research endeavour.

The Principle of Speculative Scientific Research must be resisted. In its stead we must harken to a Principle of Ethically Conscientious Research that demands: We

are not to act when we have good reason to believe that our aims outstrip our ability to control the outcome o f our actions and so outstrip our ability to sustainably pursue

and so to protect, through that research, an on going defensible ethical project. Only in this way will we act in animal research with a proper respect for nature. 6

The Failure o f Transgenic Swine, To Date

The record of the Beltsville microinjection research seems clearly to be a record of conforming to the PSSR, not to a Principle of Ethically Conscientious Research. It seems that all concerned should have anticipated this. The results, reported above by Comstock (1991), should be no surprise for, as is widely known, even if we could control the outcome of pertinent genetic engineering activities, transPlantation of

174 Charles V. Blatz

the human growth hormone might not induce the desired effects of increasing the size, leanness and rapidity of growth in transgenic swine�9 It is widely recognized that the techniques involved are crude beyond the limits of our controlling their out- come. Microinjection has been compared to using a shotgun, and the only alterna- tive, the use of retroviruses, has known dangers of intolerable accidental infection.

Steve Olson (1986) speaking for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, reminded us in 1986 of the follow- ing: 7

� 9 researchers are still not certain whether elevated levels of growth hormone would have harmful side effects or whether such levels would even produce the increased growth expected�9 Swine are already bred for maximal growth, and it is not clear whether insertion of a growth hormone gene would further increase their size (Olson, 1986: 40).

Olson continued by pointing out that even if the desired end were in the offing, it is not within our control�9

As in the genetic engineering of plants, an even more fundamental problem involves the regulation of the genes inserted into animal cells. The expression of an inserted gene can be influenced both by the regulatory sequences associated with the gene and by where the gene is inserted in the DNA of its host. At present, there is no way to control where a gene is inserted into the chromosome of either an animal or a plant cell. Yet this position of insertion can affect not only the expression of the inserted gene but also the regui,L~on of the host cell's DNA (p. 41-42).

Conc lus ions

(1) Research into the genetic engineering of animals, and in particular swine, is not unconditionally impermissible like the work of Circe on Odysseus' sailors�9 It does not produce transgenic animals which are no longer ethical agents, nor does it de- prive the engineered animals of their ethical standing�9 It does not "immiserate" the animals. Furthermore, neither the pain nor the change of the genome involved in such research makes it unconditionally impermissible, for if that were so then even selective breeding for food production and medical research should stop. The ethi- cal standing of (most) humans and the importance of animal consumption and medi- cal research speak against such a conclusion�9 Therefore there might be circum- stances in which it would be permitted or even circumstances in which it might be called for.

(2) At the same time, and ethically speaking, such research is not something we are perfectly free to do if we wish. We have seen (in the case of the Beltsville re- search) that transgenic research can produce animals which suffer greatly with physical and psychic pain. In addition, we are aware of the tremendously high cost

Animal Rights 175

of s u c h r e s e a r c h in a t i m e of g r e a t social a n d p e r s o n a l needs a m o n g h u m a n s . T h e s e

p o i n t s t h e m s e l v e s s h o u l d m a k e us p a u s e a n d move us to be su re t h a t t r a n s g e n i c re-

s e a r c h is p a r t of a de fens ib l e e th i ca l p ro jec t before we c o u n t i t as pe rmis s ib l e . As

well , t h e y s h o u l d lead us to m a k e su re t h a t r e s e a r c h is n o n - s p e c u l a t i v e a n d is p a r t

of a n e th ica l p ro jec t of o v e r r i d i n g i m por t ance , before we view it as s o m e t h i n g incum-

b e n t u p o n us. 8

A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s

T h e a u t h o r is g r a t e f u l to G a r y C o m s t o c k for s ign i f i can t ed i to r ia l service.

N o t e s

1. This is a common point, of course. Perhaps the classic source is John Stuart Mill (1859). 2. While this is a familiar position. See, for example, Hume (1751) and Rawls (1980). I argue

the view, for my part, in Blatz (1991a). 3. This is an oversimplification since not all aims will qualify as the ultimate considerations

in ethics. However, additional details would only complicate the argument, not strengthen it. Restricting standing to those entertaining a subset of reason- guided aims will only re- strict it fur ther within the group of humans and away from the reach of non-humans.

4. This passage contains the same innocuous oversimplification spoken of in the previous note. The general line is Kantian, of course. (See Kant, 1785).

5. One major danger is osteoporosis. The point is one I heard argued recently by Kathryn P. George and Harry Kunkel in reply to a paper in favour of veganism by Gary Varner of Texas A&M University entitled "Why Dairy Products are Immoral." For more details, see George (1990).

6. Elsewhere I have explored in some detail the meaning and ethical desirability of various modes of sustainability (Blatz, 1991b). In the end, only regenerative and self-maintaining modes of the sustainable use of resources are justifiable parts of the pursuit of an ethical project. Only these can be undertaken with some assurance that we really can proceed and stay within the limits of our control to the extent called for by the demands of conscien- tiousness. Only these ensure that we can act and leave the resource available for further use in the future pursuits of our ethical project, regardless of natural impacts and other contingencies beyond our powers of prediction and control. In thinking about the trans- genic development of production animals, of course, we are not thinking about regenera- tive uses of the resource, but rather self-maintaining ones. What this means in practice is tha t through ethically appropriate research, we will not weaken the breed, since whatever ethical end we are pursuing with animal production, we make ourselves less able to pursue that end when we weaken the stock below self-maintaining status. More generally, in ethi- cal production research we will act sustainably and so conscientiously, t reat ing soil, water or animals in regenerative or self-maintaining ways. We will act with respect for nature, making sure not to change it in ways which destroy it or make it not self-maintaining.

7. Compare with Hammer et al. (1985). 8. Because of page limitations, significant portions of the original manuscript have had to be

deleted. My larger t reatment of the issue is available in manuscript form.

R e f e r e n c e s

Blatz , C h a r l e s V. 1985. W h y (Most) H u m a n s Are More I m p o r t a n t T h a n O t h e r Ani- ma l s : Ref lec t ions O n T h e F o u n d a t i o n s Of Ethics . Between The Species I: 8-16, 24.

176 Charles V. Blatz

- - . 1991a. Ethics, Ecology and Development: Styles of Ethics and Styles of Agri- culture. Forthcoming.

�9 1991b. The Very Idea of Sustainability. Forthcoming in Agriculture and Human Values.

Comstock, Gary. 1991. Should We Genetically Engineer Hogs? In manuscript. George, Kathryn P. 1990. So Animal a H u m a n . . . , or the Moral Relevance of Being

an Omnivore. Journal of Agricultural Ethics 3(1): 172-185. Hammer, Robert E., Vernon G. Pursel, Caird E. Rexroad Jr., Robert J. Wall, Dou-

glas J. Bolt, Karl M. Ebert, Richard D. Palmiter, and Ralph L. Brinster. 1985. Production of Transgenic Rabbits, Sheep and Pigs by Microinjection. Nature 315: 680-683.

Homer. 1937. The Odyssey. Trans. by W.H.D. Rouse. New York: Mentor Books. Hume, David. 1751. Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Kant, Immanuel. 1785. The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Mill, John Stuart. 1859. On Liberty. Olson, Steve. 1986. Biotechnology: an industry comes of age. Washington, DC:

National Academy Press. Rawls, John. 1980. Dewey Lectures. The Journal of Philosophy. LXXVII.

C o n f e r e n c e A n n o u n c e m e n t s

International Conference Sustainability of Egyptian Agriculture in the 1990s and Beyond

Meeting the Challenges of a Changing World

The Conference will be held in Alexandria, Egypt from May 15 to 19, 1992. It will focus, with particular reference to Egypt, on the environmental, economic, socio-cultural and political aspects of sustainable agriculture with implications for technology, natural and human resources. Several internationally renowned personalities will deliver lectures, followed by specialized sessions in which in- vited papers will be presented and discussed. The Conference proceedings will be in English.

Please contact Dr. M.A. Faris, Secretariat Alexandria International Conference, CEMARP Office, Macdonald Campus, 21,111 Lakeshore Road, Ste-Anne-de- Bellevue, Quebec, Canada H9X 1C0. Tel: (514) 398-7772 or Fax- (514) 457-4030.