The Moral Status of Artificial Life

Abstract

Recently at the J. Craig Venter Institute, a microorganism has been created through synthetic biology. In the future, more complex living beings will very probably be produced. In our natural environment, we live amongst a whole variety of beings. Some of them have moral status - they have a moral importance and we cannot treat them in just any way we please -; some do not. When it becomes possible to create artificially living beings who naturally possess moral status, will this artificiality modify their status? Many people contend that it will, but I am not of the same mind and will develop three arguments against it.