The Promise of Life: Spiritual Traditions and Biotechnological Futures

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In the dominant approach to ethical deliberation around advances in science and technology, religion has tended to be treated merely as one category of stakeholder views among others. Religious perspectives, if taken into account at all, are often represented as stylized responses to specific technologies: for instance, “the Catholic position” on human embryonic stem cells, or “Orthodox Judaism’s stance” on in vitro fertilization. This presents religions as monolithic thought systems limited to reacting to developments at the frontiers of science and technology –at best lagging behind, and at worst resisting and inhibiting social acceptance of technological innovation. Furthermore, because science tends to frame ethical questions in narrow and often instrumentalist terms—e.g. focusing on physical health and wellbeing, on effects on individuals rather than collectives, and on the economics of access and intervention— religious discourse that does not fit within these framings tends to be constrained in public deliberation, even to the point of exclusion.    

 

Yet the world’s religious traditions offer some of the most sophisticated bodies of thought on fundamental questions at stake in debates around the life sciences and biotechnology: What does it mean to be human? What is the purpose of human life? What are the meanings of suffering and mortality? What are the limits of human autonomy? Religions contend with metaphysical questions of mind, body and spirit without reducing them to mere materiality. Nonetheless, engagement with such questions, particularly when informed by religious thought, often gets characterized as vague, insufficiently reasoned, or traditionalist thought—irrationally asserting that scientists are “playing God”—rather than as serious openers to conversations about the moral limits of technological intervention. Restricting or dismissing the place of religious voices in ethical debates with such arguments is symptomatic of a more general tendency to privilege scientific developments and presumptively secular ethical framings, thereby constricting reflection on how such developments serve human values in the name of universal values. 

 

This convening seeks to reevaluate this tendency by approaching religious and spiritual traditions as fonts of moral understanding on questions fundamental to human life. It reverses the conventional script: rather than foregrounding specific biotechnologies as sites of ethical evaluation, we place fundamental questions of the meaning of being human front and center. We ask: how have religious traditions understood the integrity and purpose of human life, and how have they defined limits of technology? How can religious thought inform critical reflection on the meaning of scientific and technological ambitions and developments? What configures or constrains the potential contributions of religion to collective reasoning and public ethical deliberation on new technologies? And how should religious traditions figure in the development of deliberative capacity oriented to a cosmopolitan ethics? 

 

 

Session 1: Promises of Life

Biotechnology is increasingly in the business of promising to improve life– indeed, to secure, enhance or transform life–but without systematic reflection on life’s meaning and integrity, or on the significance of promises to make life better. How is the significance of achieving good or virtuous life, broadly conceived, understood doctrinally in varied religious traditions? Where in texts and/or practices does one find the promise of life and its meaning most clearly articulated? What do these traditions teach us about orientations to good forms of life in the context of the modern world, particularly in relation to science and technology’s promises to secure, enhance or transform life? 

 

  • Moderator: Benjamin Hurlbut (Arizona State University)
  • Yonatan Brafman (Tufts University)
  • Charles Goodman (Binghamton University)
  • James Keenan (Boston College)
  • Deepak Sarma (Case Western Reserve University)
  • Devan Stahl (Baylor University)
  • Wenqing Zhao (City University of New York)

 

Session 2: Ordering Modernity: Religion and Science

It is a basic assumption of Enlightenment modernity that science is secular and a producer of objective, public knowledge whereas religion is private and subjective, and deals not in knowledge but in values and belief. How do (and should) we understand the relations between religion and science, particularly where science is seen as the foundation of secularity? Where, if at all, do you see science and/or technology and religion and/or spiritual values coming into conflict? In what ways? What in your view accounts for these tensions or conflicts? How should these tensions (or lack thereof) be factored into the modes of ethical deliberation and governance that societies adopt to set limits on science and technology seen as capable of transforming the nature and meaning of life? 

  • Moderator: Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard Kennedy School)
    • Brian Brock (University of Aberdeen)
    • John Evans (UC San Diego)
    • Jeff Hardin (University of Wisconsin – Madison)
    • John Paul Kimes (University of Notre Dame Law School)
    • Mathias Risse (Harvard Kennedy School)

 

Session 3: Biotechnology and the Human Future

Recent advances in biotechnology raise basic questions about life’s nature and meaning, such as where life begins and what lives are worth living. Where do you see contemporary biotechnologies touching upon conceptual and ethical territories that intersect with religious teachings or principles and spiritual concerns? What key questions does biotechnology raise for religion? Conversely, what questions do religions raise for biotechnology, (where biotechnology is understood both as novel technological products and the project of developing them)? How do you think those points of intersection should be confronted and queried, both by religious communities and in wider public deliberation? How do you think religious thought can and should figure (or not) in structuring ethical deliberation and governance of research and innovation?

  • Moderator: Kris Saha (UW-Madison)
    • Aasim Padela (Medical College of Wisconsin) 
    • Carter Snead (University of Notre Dame Law School)
    • Andrea Vicini (Boston College)
    • Carrie Wolinetz (Lewis-Burke Associates, Former Senior Advisor at NIH)

Participant Biographies

Session 1: Promises of Life

Yonatan Brafman

Yonatan Brafman is an assistant professor of Modern Judaism in the Department of Religion and a member of the Program in Judaic Studies at Tufts University. He previously served as the director of the Handel Center for Ethics and Justice at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He holds a PhD in Philosophy of Religion and Jewish Thought from the Department of Religion at Columbia University, where he also received his BA, MA, and MPhil. His research focuses on the intersection of Jewish thought, Jewish law, and contemporary moral, legal, and political philosophy, as well as the implications of religious ritual for critical social theory and praxis. 

 

Charles Goodman

Charles Goodman is a Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Department of Asian and Asian-American Studies at Binghamton University. He holds a BA in Physics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research has explored the works of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophers, as well as the insights of Buddhist thought on modern philosophy. Charles’ publications on Buddhism focus on ethical theory, conceptions of well-being, free will, and personal identity.

 

James Keenan, S.J.

James Keenan is the Canisius Professor of Theology and Director of the Jesuit Institute, as well as the Vice Provost for Global Engagement at Boston College. Keenen has held visiting professorships at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram in Bangalore, Gregorian University in Rome, and Ateneo de Manila University. He has edited or written over 25 books and published over 400 essays, articles, and reviews worldwide exploring issues relating to theological ethics and bioethics. In 2003, he founded Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC), an international network of ethicists. In 2019, he received the John Courtney Murray Lifetime Achievement Award from the Catholic Theological Society of America and from 2020-2021, he was President of the Society of Christian Ethics. 

 

Deepak Sarma (they/them)

Deepak Sarma is a Professor of Indian Religions and Philosophy and Professor of Bioethics and Inaugural Distinguished Scholar in the Public Humanities ​​at Case Western Reserve University. Sarma holds a BA in religion from Reed College and a PhD in the philosophy of religions from the University of Chicago Divinity School. They have published writings on a range of subjects including contemporary Hinduism, Madhva Vedanta, bioethics, cultural and post-colonial studies, and museology.
 

Devan Stahl

Devan Stahl is an Associate Professor of Bioethics and Religion at Baylor University and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Education, Innovation, and Technology at the Baylor College of Medicine. She holds a Ph.D. in Health Care Ethics from St. Louis University and received her M.Div. from Vanderbilt University. Her research specializes in disability theology, bioethics, and the visual arts within medicine. She has authored and edited several volumes on the intersections of disability, bioenhancement, and theology, including the book Disability’s Challenge to Theology: Genes, Eugenics, and the Metaphysics of Modern Medicine. 
 

Wenqing Zhao

Wenqing Zhao is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the City University of New York (CUNY), Baruch College. Dr. Zhao received her PhD from the City University of Hong Kong in 2016 and served as the Associate Director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at Duke University from 2016-2018. Her academic work lies at the intersection of Chinese philosophy, normative theory, bioethics, as well as political philosophy and feminism in cross-cultural contexts. 


 

Session 2: Ordering Modernity: Religion and Science

Brian Brock 

Brian Brock holds a personal Chair in Moral and Practical Theology at the School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom. He joined the University of Aberdeen in 2004, following postdoctoral studies at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nurnberg and a doctorate in Christian ethics at King’s College London. Brian’s research focuses on the fundamental questions of moral and practical theology, the relation between the Bible and Christian ethics, and the meaning of faith in practical life. 

 

John Evans

John Evans is the Tata Chancellor’s Chair in Social Sciences; Associate Dean of Social Sciences; Co-director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at the University of California at San Diego. He has been a visiting member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University and has held visiting professorial fellowships or honorary professorships at the Universities of Edinburgh, Muenster, Ben Gurion, and Queensland. He is the author of seven books and 65 articles and book chapters and has been elected as a Fellow of the Hastings Center, a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion, and a member of the Sociological Research Association.

 

Fr. John Paul Kimes

Father John Paul Kimes is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Notre Dame Law School and the Raymond of Peñafort Fellow in Canon Law at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. He was ordained in 2000 as a priest of the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles after having completed his first course of studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Before joining the Notre Dame Law School, Kimes served for 11 years as a canon lawyer at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

 

Mathias Risse

Mathias Risse is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs and Philosophy and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. He also serves as Director of the Program on the Ethics of Emerging Technologies at the Edmond J Safra Center for Ethics. Mathias’ academic work has focused on questions of global justice ranging from human rights, inequality, as well as the philosophy and politics of technology. He has published extensively on these topics, including a recent book, Political Theory of the Digital Age: Where Artificial Intelligence Might Take Us, published in 2023.


 

Session 3: Biotechnology and the Human Future

Aasim I. Padela

Aasim Padela is a Professor with Tenure of Emergency Medicine, Bioethics and the Medical Humanities at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). At MCW, he holds numerous research appointments including the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities within the Institute for Health and Equity, at the Center for Advancing Population Science and the Cancer Center. He holds an MD with Honors in Research from Weill Cornell Medical College and a MSc in Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan. He has also held visiting fellowships at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and the International Institute for Islamic Thought. As an internationally renowned clinician-researcher with scholarly foci at the intersections of healthcare, bioethics, and religion, he provides public health and bioethics consultation to international organizations, legislative bodies, and in court. 

 

O. Carter Snead

Carter Snead is Charles E. Rice Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, and director of the Notre Dame de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. An expert on public bioethics, Professor Snead’s research explores issues relating to neuroethics, human enhancement, human embryo research, assisted reproduction, abortion, and end-of-life decision-making. He is author of What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics, which the Wall Street Journal listed as one of the top 10 books of 2020. He was general counsel for the United States President’s Council on Bioethics, served on the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, is a member of the principal bioethics advisory body to Pope Francis, and testified before Congress earlier this year on the legal landscape following the Supreme Court Dobbs ruling.

 

Andrea Vicini, S.J. 

Andrea Vicini is an Affiliate Member of Ecclesiastical Faculty, Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics and Professor Ordinarius, and Chairperson of the Boston College Theology Department. Vicini holds an M.D. from the University of Bologna, an S.T.D. from the Pontifical Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy in Napoli, and a Ph.D. from Boston College. He also serves as co-chair of the international network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, as well as lecturer and member of several associations of moral theologians and bioethicists in Italy, Europe, and the U.S.

 

Carrie Wolinetz

Carrie Wolinetz is an internationally recognized science and health policy expert and is currently a Principal Member at Lewis-Burke Associates. Prior to joining Lewis-Burke, Carrie spent nearly a decade in public service, leading the inaugural Health and Life Sciences division in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, heading the Office of Science Policy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as NIH’s Associate Director for Science Policy, and serving as Chief of Staff to NIH Director, Dr. Francis Collins. She has decades working with and advocating for university and scientific communities, covering biomedical and agricultural policy issues for the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), as well as serving as President of United for Medical Research. Wolinetz is a trained scientist, with degrees in Animal Science and a research focus in reproductive physiology.