Recombinant genetics and biosafety law: the making of pre-human and non-human subjects

Led by Aécio Amaral

This project approaches the question of the juridical and philosophical statuses of both pre-human and non-human bodies within contemporary political debates and decision making on stem cell research and OGMs. By means of an internationally comparative study, it focuses upon the juridical status of GMOs (as non-human bodies) and embrios (as pre-human bodies) within Brazil, USA and Germany biosafety laws.

In  parallel with this, the project discusses the way in which the debates on genomics and reproductive technologies impinge upon philosophical understandings of both science's purposiveness and finality, and the limits of the "ethics of discourse" within the Humanities. The conjugation of science, logos and the political is at the core of this debate, insofar as genomics and biotechnologies are said to promote a shift in the pairs voice/logos and voice/language into the making of knowledge. By drawing on social theorists and philosophers who studied the influence of contemporary technoscience upon the conjugation of science, logos and the political such as Bruno Latour, Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, the project works out a twofold contribution to this debate:

• 1. An analysis of empirical situations in which scientists, religious, and politicians give voice to non-human and pre-human bodies;
• 2. By approaching the crisis of the "ethics of discourse" before genomics and reproductive technologies, it entertains the kind of alternative "listenings" that are directed toward both non-human and pre-human subjects as a counterpart to anthropocentric conceptions of the play of voice/logos and voice/language.