Changing the Context of Questions About Transgenic Animals
Anne Marie Dalton
Leiden
Brill
The ethics of transgenic animals should be understood within the context of the social imaginary which we have constructed in the modern West. Charles Taylor has described a social imaginary as the interweave of meanings and practices that constitute a particular society. It is how we imagine our lives together. The modern West has imagined a society in which animals are instruments of human well being. The article argues that the very notion of transgenic animals is continuous with factory farming and use of animals in experimentation. A re-imagining of animals as beings with whom humans commune calls for a change in the social imaginary and a more effective basis on which to consider the ethics of transgenics. The ethics of transgenic animals should be understood within the context of the social imaginary which we have constructed in the modern West. Charles Taylor has described a social imaginary as the interweave of meanings and practices that constitute a particular society. It is how we imagine our lives together. The modern West has imagined a society in which animals are instruments of human well being. The article argues that the very notion of transgenic animals is continuous with factory farming and use of animals in experimentation. A re-imagining of animals as beings with whom humans commune calls for a change in the social imaginary and a more effective basis on which to consider the ethics of transgenics.
2010
57-67
Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology