Emerging biotechnologies: full report - Nuffield Council on Bioethics

E m e r g i n g b i o t e c h n o l o g i e s
valuing, argue that there is a need for a more sceptical and reflective approach to the framing of
decisions that shape their emergence. When we think about emerging <strong>biotechnologies</strong>, it is
important to think about how we think about them. The challenge of uncertainty and ambiguity
does not mean that there can never be a basis for distinguishing better options from worse. It is
not framing itself that is the problem, since it is indispensible, but how decisions are framed in
terms of the kinds of normative questions that are treated as most important. The framing of
decisions is especially important in emerging <strong>biotechnologies</strong> in light of the need to manage
high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity.
3.38 Economics and wider social science offer insights into specific mechanisms through which realworld
markets and institutions can readily end up favouring technological options that are
manifestly problematic and may even be economically suboptimal. More insidiously, the pursuit
of technical or economic standards may favour technologies that entrench and even widen
social divisions. It matters, therefore, that we recognise the uncertainties involved in governing
<strong>biotechnologies</strong>, and that we approach them not with a misplaced confidence in calculated risks
and benefits, but with caution and circumspection, and set within the broader context of social
values and objectives.
C H A P T E R 3
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