You said:
> The date is let's say 1859, you could have written the
> following with the same conviction you have for GMOs today.
Someone else said:
> "Rebecca's and your comments reflect a _belief_ that slavery
> are bad and that selling people is, therefore, immoral.
> That viewpoint hasn't been proven to be true and has not been
> sanctified by laws and regulations yet; until such time as it
> is, condemning slave owners for serving their best interrests
> -- and trying to make money, too -- doesn't make sense to me."
Perhaps Bob said that, and IMO, he was treading on thin ice in an ethical
sense. If I thought that plant breeding (including molecular methods) were
immoral or harmful I would condemn the practice, regardless the legality.
Legality is secondary, and I'll bet Bob would agree. I suspect that what
Bob meant was that you can't blame farmers or seed dealers for using
ethically suspect technology when the only thing they have for a reference
is public consensus expressed in law and policy.
The comparison with slavery is not appropriate. Slavery was not a technical
issue. All the ethical cards were on the table. In the case of transgenic
organisms, the ethics depend on certain technical issues. There is
widespread, honest disagreement about the technical issues, but there is
consensus about the underlying ethical issues. No one wants to hurt the
earth or wild nature.
I agree, there IS an ethical issue pertaining to agriculture in general and
the use of the earth to achieve human ends. This is the matter of ethical
considerability of non-human nature, the deep ecology versus regular
environmentalist schism.
Dale
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