Desiree Niccoli
Technology is neither good nor bad. It is not neutral either. As a construct of global societies, technology does not choose sides or form opinions. It does not improve some communities and destroy others, but rather it is a tool people use to help and harm. When evaluating technology we should look at the people who are using it, what their intentions are, how it was created, and how it is used. There is a lot of concern about whether genetically engineered food is ethical or not. From the Buddhist perspective, as long as it does not cause dukkha “there is nothing in the five precepts that implies a scientist should not take a gene from one species and transfer it to another one” (Loy 119). But what about cloning? Will that ever be ok?
The current issue with cloning animals is that the offspring produced have severe birth defects and live their shortened life spans suffering from physical complications (ex: Dolly the sheep, http://www.animalresearch.info/en/medical/timeline/Dolly). One day cloning may become a successful science, but from a Buddhist perspective, is the process to get to that point condonable if it is beneficial in the future? Is any science or technology condonable for that matter? Take our understanding of human anatomy as another example. It came from dissecting human bodies, some obtained unethically. A common problem in 19th century England was that medical schools ran out of bodies for its students to dissect. It then became a lucrative business to dig up the graves of the newly dead or murder others in order to sell their bodies to med students and professors. Ignorance is dukkha. Is the pursuit of knowledge also dukkha?
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