eprintid: 1336396
rev_number: 23
eprint_status: archive
userid: 608
dir: disk0/01/33/63/96
datestamp: 2012-01-25 20:14:02
lastmod: 2020-02-13 02:23:03
status_changed: 2012-01-25 20:14:02
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
item_issues_count: 0
creators_name: Davies, G
title: The sacred and the profane: biotechnology, rationality, and public debate
ispublished: pub
divisions: UCL
keywords: ORGAN-TRANSPLANTATION, MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY, BRAIN-DEATH, XENOTRANSPLANTATION, ATTITUDES, SCIENCE, DECISIONS, DONATION, POLITICS, BELIEFS
abstract: This paper explores the forms of argumentation employed by participants in a recent public engagement process in the United Kingdom around new technologies for organ transplantation, with specific reference to xenotransplantation and stem-cell research. Two forms of reasoning recur throughout participants' deliberations which challenge specialist framing of this issue. First, an often scatological humour and sense of the profane are evident in the ways in which participants discuss the bodily transformations that such technologies demand. Second, a sense of the sacred in which new biotechnologies are viewed as against nature or in which commercial companies are 'playing god' is a repetitive and well-recognised concern. Such forms of reasoning are frequently dismissed by policy-makers as 'uninformed gut reactions'. Yet they also form a significant part of the repertoire of scientists themselves as they proclaim the hope of new medical breakthroughs, or seek to reconstruct ideas of the body to facilitate new biotechnological transformations. Through questioning of assumptions in Habermas's notion of discourse ethics, and exploring the importance of hybridity and corporeality as concepts in ethical thinking, the author suggests that, far from being ill-formed opinions, such reasonings perform an important function for thinking through the ontological significance of the corporealisation of these proposed new forms of human and animal bodies.
date: 2006-03
publisher: PION LTD
official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a37387
vfaculties: VSHS
oa_status: green
full_text_type: other
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_source: Web of Science
elements_id: 139246
doi: 10.1068/a37387
lyricists_name: Davies, Gail
lyricists_id: GDAVI27
full_text_status: public
publication: Environment and Planning A
volume: 38
number: 3
pagerange: 423 - 443
event_title: 100th Annual Meeting of the Association-of-American-Geographers
event_location: Philadelphia, PA
event_dates: 2004-03-14 - 2004-03-19
issn: 0308-518X
book_title: Environment and Planning A
citation:        Davies, G;      (2006)    The sacred and the profane: biotechnology, rationality, and public debate.                   Environment and Planning A , 38  (3)   423 - 443.    10.1068/a37387 <https://doi.org/10.1068/a37387>.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1336396/1/10967.pdf