The artificial and the natural in the bioethical discussion

Abstract

The problem of the correct way of using the artificial has been presented several times in bioethics debates and has often had to face a principle that has always been considered fundamental in ethics and adopted as a criterion to assess the moral rectitude of actions. human, that is, the fact of being in conformity with nature. According to this approach, the artificial is potentially bad, while the natural is always good. The tension between these two poles is found, for example, in the debates about medically assisted procreation but it also emerges in discussions about environmental ethics, of roboethics, or in debates about transhumanism. The purpose of this article is not limited to trying to mitigate the conflict between the natural and the artificial, but it is intended to affirm that the artificial is a legitimate part of the natural as it is a specific expression of human nature. As an example of the application of this thesis, the issue of medically assisted procreation is discussed, demonstrating that the elimination of the objection of artificiality does not solve other bioethical problems in this field, but it does analyze them more clearly. Aspects such as «supernumerary embryos» or those related to the legitimacy of using them in a «heterologous» context, are certainly not insignificant and very often have come to attract the attention of academics; however, they refer rather to the «conditions» or «consequences» of the use of medically assisted reproduction techniques and such ethical dilemmas seem to occupy a subordinate position with respect to the «preliminary» problem that we propose to analyze. It is clear that, if the artificial would intrinsically damage the moral legitimacy of the aforementioned practices, it would not be enough to redeem them considering their conditions or consequences.