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posed by the opinonbox do not use any terms concerning genetic engineering. Results will be
confronted with a second phase in which specific references are included.1
The evaluation of the first phase of the visitor survey shows that most of the respondents had
rarely (30%) or never (30%) dealt with the questions asked. That means: chance acquaintance.
A good two thirds of respondents stated that the opinion box had encouraged them to think and
discuss. Approximately on third of the respondents (30%) indicated that they were primarily
guided by their "feeling" / "intuition" when it came to answering the questions. Their personal
"relationship to nature" (22%), as well as their "experiences" (15%) also played a role in
answering the questions.
Let us confront those findings with those gained at the public event (knowing that they are
empirically little comparable). What we see here is that while for the first question the relative
share for the second answer is obvious, the other two are different. The assessment that it is
right to kill mosquitoes, however, diverges enormously. Even clearer is the difference in the
question of the mosquitoes that ZIKA transmits. While the majority of those attending both the
opinion box and the evening event voted in favor of the third question, the other two answers
differ here.
Such figures are not very reliable due to their lack of comparability. But let us think about them
as indicators to better understand how the debate works. What we see on the surface are
different assessments of what we should do, measured by the degree of affectedness. From this
different conceptions of nature can be derived, in which we intervene. And we notice a clash of
meanings of this “nature”. Here we see furthermore a relation to nature which is the base to
judge political decisions and technical solutions etc. as positive or negative. How to deal with
the opening of new play areas here?
Hartmut Rosa recently proposed "nature" as a resonance sphere (Rosa 2016). He argues that
through technical possibilities the assumption of modernity, we experience who we are,
becomes confused, as if we could increasingly decide for ourselves what our abilities and
inclinations are. Nature no longer appears as given, but as made. This is the classic critique of
objectification as we know it from Heidegger to critical theory (Heidegger 1967, Honneth 2015).
It is the background on which the above-mentioned strong normative concept of nature is woven
into the debates about genome editing and gene drives: Nature as the unavailable, as a sphere
of self-legality, as the other of our technological access. Rosa, however, does not stop at the
front position of nature's control and nature as an end in itself, but assumes a resonance
relationship against the background of an idea of successful life. Understanding nature as such
a multi-layered sphere of resonance - without neither instrumentalizing nor romanticizing - can
complement the discourse on genome editing to the extent that it is no longer a question of
asking: What may we do? What are we risking? It is about generating vibrations via the path of
everyday experiences, which in turn are in the best sense part of a deliberative process.
Conclusion
Taking up the same question in different formats allows us to think about narrative structures and
allows opening the discourse beyond the classical categories (e.g. benefit or risk). We argue
that we need to think about bioethics as a broad term that encompasses different levels of
1 The second phase has now been completed. The results are currently being evaluated.
96
Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies
Conference Proceedings of the 17th STS Conference Graz 2018
- Titel
- Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies
- Untertitel
- Conference Proceedings of the 17th STS Conference Graz 2018
- Herausgeber
- Technische Universität Graz
- Verlag
- Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz
- Ort
- Graz
- Datum
- 2018
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-85125-625-3
- Abmessungen
- 21.6 x 27.9 cm
- Seiten
- 214
- Schlagwörter
- Kritik, TU, Graz, TU Graz, Technologie, Wissenschaft
- Kategorien
- International
- Tagungsbände
- Technik