The Ethics of Deliberate Extinction

基因组编辑为控制野生生物提供了新的工具——可能是通过抑制或消灭种群，甚至在原则上是通过使整个物种灭绝。候选物种包括新世界螺虫，它们吃包括人类在内的动物的活体；传播传染病如疟疾的蚊子；还有老鼠，它们在许多地方对受威胁和濒危物种构成公共健康和环境威胁。尽管如此，使用基因组编辑来消灭野生物种的前景对许多人来说本质上是令人不安的。本项目旨在引起人们对这种可能用途的注意，并就如何作出有关决定提出建议。因此，该项目将支持监管监督，并促进公众对基因组编辑的广泛审议。这项工作将通过开放获取的报告和出版物分享给专业和非专业观众。该项目还将在这些问题上建立奖学金，办法是征募一组学者参与编写报告，并向生态学或保护生物学的研究生提供价值导向研究方面的培训。该项目的学术重点是通过基因组编辑灭绝的想法引发的哲学和伦理问题。究竟为什么这种想法会令人不安？其中一些问题是关于物种的价值、生物多样性和人类与自然的关系，人类是否应该减少野生动物的痛苦，以及如何在公共卫生、农业、动物福利、保护、价值观和其他目标之间做出权衡。其他问题是关于基因组编辑的本质，以及它与其他控制物种的方式有何不同。然而，其他问题与公众应该如何参与有关。这项工作将有助于环境伦理学、保护生物学、科学和技术研究以及政治学。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Genome editing provides new tools for controlling wild organisms--maybe by suppressing or eradicating populations, and even in principle by driving entire species extinct. Candidate species include the new world screw worm, which eats the living flesh of animals including human beings; mosquitos that transmit infectious diseases such as malaria; and rats, which pose public health and environmental threats to threatened and endangered species in many places. Nonetheless, the prospect of using genome editing to extinguish a wild species is inherently troubling for many people. This project aims to bring attention to this possible use and propose recommendations for how decisions about it should be made. The project will thereby support regulatory oversight and promote broad public deliberation about genome editing. The work will be shared through an open-access report and publications for professional and nonprofessional audiences. The project will also build scholarship on these issues, by enlisting a group of scholars in the development of the report and by providing training in values-oriented research to a graduate student in ecology or conservation biology.The scholarly focus of the project is on philosophical and ethical questions raised by the idea of extinction via genome editing. Why, exactly, might that idea be troubling? Some of these questions are about the value of species, biodiversity, and the human relationship to nature generally, whether humans ought to reduce the suffering of wild animals, and how trade-offs should be made between public health, agricultural, animal welfare, conservation, values, and other goals. Other questions are about the nature of genome editing and how it differs from other ways of controlling species. Yet other questions have to do with how the public should be engaged. The work will contribute to environmental ethics, conservation biology, science and technology studies, and political science.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.