Bioengineering, Science Fiction, and Medical Ethics: How Goes the Flow?

Abstract

Because of their ability to foresee the future, artists and writers have famously been called "the antennae of the race" by 20th-century poet Ezra Pound. Whether writers, especially those described as science-fiction (SF) writers, inspire bioengineers with their depictions of imaginary futures or whether bioengineers with their inventions inspire SF writers may not always be clear. However goes the flow of ideas, the efforts of SF writers often point to new and challenging issues in medical ethics before others have identified them. In this short presentation, I will give examples of ways in which SF writers see the future concerns and ethical dilemmas that will be created by breakthrough cybernetic technologies such as cardiac pacemakers, artificial replacement organs, and implanted computer chips. The triumphs of bioengineering can lead from relatively straightforward ethical questions, such as whether bioengineered devices should be turned off or removed and, if so, in what circumstances, to profound philosophical questions about what it means to be human and how much human body can be mechanically altered without ushering in transhumanist and posthumanist futures. In concluding, I will consider how SF stories might best be used in the education of bioengineers to help alert them to the far-reaching philosophical and ethical dimensions of their work.