Ethics of Synthetic Life: A Jaina Perspective*

Many Western philosophers, from Aristotle through Descartes and even Collingwood and Whitehead, have regarded the material world to be largely inert and subject to human intervention. The modern period has yielded more nuanced definitions of nature, seeing the process of life as self-generating and...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Key Chapple, Christopher (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Brill 2013
Dans: Worldviews
Année: 2013, Volume: 17, Numéro: 1, Pages: 77-88
Sujets non-standardisés:B synthetic life Jainism soul sentience nature
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Résumé:Many Western philosophers, from Aristotle through Descartes and even Collingwood and Whitehead, have regarded the material world to be largely inert and subject to human intervention. The modern period has yielded more nuanced definitions of nature, seeing the process of life as self-generating and self-sustaining. The Jaina worldview, dating from the first several centuries before the common era, has developed an elaborate biological schematic that attributes sentience and hence soul to even the elements of earth, water, fire, and air. They also developed a sophisticated ethical response to the “livingness” of things. The Jaina attitudes toward synthetic life are explored at the end of the paper, suggesting that even engineered cells would nonetheless possess the qualities of life that must be valued and protected.
ISSN:1568-5357
Contient:In: Worldviews
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685357-01701007