ABSTRACT
Genetic engineering can be applied to animals in various ways, and not all of them involve the animals suffering from the operation. Many people feel, though, that even when a certain application of genetic engineering brings about no suffering, it can still be wrong. We have tried to tie such intrinsic concerns to the notion of integrity. However, some philosophers do not consider these concerns to be moral concerns at all. Instead, intrinsic objections against the genetic modification of animals are believed to be merely ‘aesthetic’. So we need to see whether the distinction between purely aesthetic concerns and purely moral concerns is really sound in the context in which it is applied. I shall argue that those concerns regarded as proper moral concerns are in truth not less ‘aesthetic’ than the allegedly aesthetic ones, while what is thought to be merely aesthetic is in fact as moral as can be.
