Abstract
This chapter drills down on where ethics and patents intersect. Technologies have utility in virtue of their physical form or attributes. It assumes its social position depending upon the interpretation we assign to its function. In this context, the word “utility” is a general word that relates to form and further links how well something meets its intended function or virtue, and as such if the invention meets the subject matter test, it may be allowed patent protection. We discuss arguments as to why this test is insufficient as a measure of patentability, given the present state of germline editing.
[I]t takes a human being to generate a human being.—Aristotle
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Perhaps the most salient example of a change in form are genetically engineered changes in anyone of the 46 chromosome complement.
- 2.
Aristotle’s eudaimonia as a final cause or telos, the ultimate purpose or good that we seek.
- 3.
The idea of for growing human organs inside pigs or sheep for human transplant is not theoretical. In 2015, the National Institutes of Health placed a moratorium on federal funding of this area, but nine months later announced its intention to lift the ban—Stanford University, put in motion plans to produce human organs—by taking pluripotent stem cells generated from a person’s skin or blood cells and implanting them into pre-embryos of pigs and sheep. If it doesn’t integrate well into a pig’s innards, causing discomfort, is it ethical to turn pigs into organ factories, for human purposes? Chen, I. (2018). “How Far Should Science Go to Create Lifesaving Replacement Organs?” Undark-Truth, Beauty, Science. https://undark.org/article/dilemma-science-ethics-organ-farming/.
- 4.
“By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing), or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if the party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community: if the particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.” Bentham, J. An Introduction to the Principles of Moral and Legislation (ed. J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart); Chapter 1, §3, p. 12.
- 5.
For a discussion on the extent to which profiting from patents attract questions on the moral right to use the patented invention, see, Jeremy Waldron, From Authors to Copiers: Individual Rights and social Values in Intellectual Property, 68 Chi.-Kent l. Rev. 841 (1993).
- 6.
In its more modern incarnation Mill’s brand of utilitarianism (act-utilitarianism) has been invoked to judge the utility of broader social policies rather than particular actions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Carvalko Jr., J.R. (2020). Runaway Utility. In: Conserving Humanity at the Dawn of Posthuman Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_55
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_55
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-26406-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-26407-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)