Animal Enhancement

The use of animals for human purposes, such as for nutrition, as working animals, or for sports, has a long tradition in human civilization. In order to help man utilize animals as effectively as possible for these purposes, techniques — such as for breeding and keeping animals — were developed early in human history. Although genetic engineering and molecular biology have already enabled profound steps to be taken toward even further reaching interventions in the nature of farm animals, it appears that nanotechnology will enable man to take additional steps to increase his influence over animals. The term “animal enhancement” is increasingly used in this field. However, its meaning needs to be clarified. This chapter first describes some of the directions of research that are currently in progress in this field (Section 8.1). It then inquires about the semantics of animal enhancement (Section 8.2), in part in preparation for considerations of “human enhancement” (Chapter 9). Against the backdrop of the existing normative framework, the ethical challenges are identified (Section 8.3) and lead beyond the level of applied ethics to issues from hermeneutics and the theory of science that are related to the relationship between man, animal, and technology (Section 8.4). In conclusion, I present some thoughts about issues of responsibility (Section 8.5). This chapter is based on a study prepared for the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee

In the scope of the “converging technologies” (Roco and Bainbridge, 2002), nanotechnology, biological and genetic technology, information and communications technology, and cognitive science and brain research are said to be converging. This convergence is supposed to open up radical new opportunities, the focus of which in the report named above is on “improving human performance” (Chapter 9). As the science of dealing technologically with matter at the level of the smallest particles, including atoms and molecules, nanotechnology provides key competence required for this convergence. Convergence tendencies that will also be employed in the animal realm can be recognized, such as the enrichment of research and technology in molecular biology from the utilization of methods from neurophysiology and the linking of information and communications technology with genetic procedures. Existing “enhancement” techniques are being further developed with the assistance of procedures and know-how from nanotechnology. Animal enhancement builds on known technologies in order to (even) further improve the usefulness of animals for human purposes. The utilization of animals by humans takes different forms, such as experimental animals in science, working and farm animals in agriculture, in the military, as pets, in sports, and in zoos and for entertainment purposes. In the following I will name — as examples — several fields of research in which nanotechnology is beginning to play a role in man’s interventions in animals in order to better enable him to pursue his own interests. Agricultural research focuses on improvements in animals — in the sense of maximizing their performance as working animals — primarily for economic reasons. The production and utilization of transgenic farm animals is based on the desire for a — with regard to human interests — perfect design of animals. Animal utility dominates the perception of what constitutes the enhancement2of a farm animal. In this area, animal enhancement dovetails with the perspective of the classical forms of “enhancing” farm animals. 2 The word “enhancement” will as a matter of principle be placed in quotation marks in the following. This is to indicate that it is important to note the substantial con-

The specific purpose of cloning farm animals, for example, is to reproduce animals that have already been optimized by breeding, in order to further improve their utility. This combination of classical approaches with new (nano)technological means also includes visions regarding nanotechnology, such as the use of intelligent biosensors in farm animals (Roco and Bainbridge, 2002, pp. 5f.) that can check the state of an animal’s health. The principal goal is the integration of different technological systems for diagnosis and drug delivery. In this connection, according to the idea of converging technologies, nanoelectronics joins nanobiotechnology and bioinformatics in playing a central role since extremely small instruments have to be produced that can activate and regulate themselves (Scott, 2005). Increasing animals’ competitiveness is the goal of the use of doping medication and of cloning sport animals for breeding. Cloned horses are used as suppliers of valuable reproductive material, such as sperm. The direct doping of animals, in contrast, is forbidden by the regulations of sporting associations, but has been reported, especially with regard to racehorses. Conditions such as strong competition, insufficient regulation, and economic interests can lead to illegal enhancement by doping, just as in doping in human sports. However, it is not well known how widespread such practices are. New technology also makes enhancements possible in animals kept as pets in response to new desires and needs of humans. Cosmetic surgery is used to modify animals to meet the respective aesthetic desires of humans. The goal might be to make the animals more successful in animal beauty pageants — which would be something analogous to doping — or to make them simply more attractive to their owners. Even though it might be advantageous for a dog to be more attractive if it were therefore treated more endearingly, this does change anything about the fact that the operation takes place according to human criteria. Such interventions have been criticized as “unnecessary” medical actions on the basis of a veterinarian’s ethos (Neumann, 2008). Fish provide examples of the dedicated enhancement of pets. The fluorescent zebra fish Night Pearl from the Taiwanese company Taikong has been on the market in Asia since mid 2003. This is a genetically modified fish, in whose genome a gene for a fluorescent protein has been inserted. The production and sale of these fish met with objections in Europe (Whitehouse, 2003). The trade with

genetically modified fish has been forbidden in Europe, Canada, and Australia. Further fluorescent fish products have in the meantime reached the market (Robischon, 2007). The most frequent technological applications in the area of animal enhancement are animal models for dedicated experiments.3In biomedicine, animal models for human diseases or their symptoms are frequently produced in order to test therapies or medications prior to clinical trials. Enhancement of the experimental animals serves to improve the conclusiveness and applicability of the subsequent results for humans. Examples are xenotransplantation, in which animals serve as the source of organs, tissues, and cells for humans, and the use of mouse models for investigating cause-effect chains and possible therapies of diseases such as Alzheimer’s. To facilitate this, animals are “enhanced” in different ways. For example, pigs are modified so that they elicit a milder rejection response in primates, or primates are treated pharmacologically so that they accept the porcine organs or tissues more readily. Animals are also used in research in human enhancement (Chapter 9) for testing enhancement medication or implants. A well-known example, which in a certain sense has led to an increase in animals’ abilities, is the mouse model known as fearless mouse. In this mouse model, the gene encoding stathmin was knocked out (Shumyatsky et al., 2005). Stathmin inhibits the formation of microtubules, which are responsible for the delivery of information about learned and innate fear to the amygdala, a central area of the brain important for memory. Such mice have a reduced memory of fearful experiences. They cannot recognize dangerous situations because they lack the congenital mechanisms. Transgenic mice have also been created whose olfactory system has been modified so that they possess none of the congenital mechanisms for recognizing bad or dangerous scents. A video is available in the Internet that shows such a mouse approaching a cat and even snuggling with it (Kobayakawa et al., 2007). It is obvious that knocking out fear does not at all constitute a form of positive improvement from the imagined perspective of animals since under normal conditions the mechanisms of fear are decisive for survival. 3 The term “animal models” does not refer to models of animals, but to real animals that are considered to be models for certain functional relationships and that there-

Researchers expect these models to produce new knowledge for treating human mental disorders such as panic attacks or the post-traumatic stress syndrome as well as new insights into the mechanisms of fear. Among other enhancements are cases in which new abilities have been implanted in animals, such as a resistance to illness that is not present naturally. In such cases, it must be determined to which extent there may be advantages for the animals and, possibly, whether additional animal experiments appear to be justified. This also points to a general issue. An ethical judgment must, entirely analogous to the life cycle approach to determining the sustainability of technology (Grunwald, 2006b), take the entire process into consideration, including the research and the animal experiments that must take place on route to creating an enhanced animal. It is not sufficient to observe the properties of an enhanced animal — its well-being, integrity, and similar features — and the related ethical aspects. The route to the goal must also be taken into account (Section 8.4). Animal experiments are also taking place in the research and development for novel brain-machine interfaces. For rodents and apes it has already been demonstrated numerous times that implanted electrodes make new means possible for the animals to control machines. Following appropriate training, apes with implanted electrodes are able to control robot arms sufficiently that they can grasp objects and feed themselves (Velliste, 2008). Apes whose arms had been temporarily paralyzed have been successfully trained to move their own temporarily paralyzed arm in a targeted manner, using a brain-computer interface (Moritz et al., 2008). Technology has also been successfully developed to remotely control animals. Brains of rats, for example, have been stimulated in such a manner that it was possible to precisely control their movements (Talwar et al., 2002). The remote control of external objects by means of brain activity is thus reality in animal models (Hatsopoulos and Donoghue, 2009). Nonetheless, it is only possible to speak of animal enhancements to a very limited degree. In some cases, animals were previously paralyzed or injured in order to simulate the special situation of human patients, or they were even created as disease models. Examples include rat models of traumatic injuries to the spinal cord (Truin et al., 2009) and of paralysis following stroke

(Pedrono et al., 2010), Parkinson’s disease (Fuentes et al., 2009), and Huntington’s disease (Kraft et al., 2009). In a certain sense, the primary objective is improved communication between mammals and computer technology. Animal experiments are also taking place in work on extending the human life span, which is a significant topic in human enhancement (Section 9.1). Of particular interest are mice that have been the object of various types of interventions. While it is true that animal life spans have been extended, it is very difficult to interpret the results or to transfer them to humans (Ferrari et al., 2010) since it is unclear what is being compared. 8.2 The Semantics of Animal Enhancement The meaning of animal enhancement needs to be clarified since it has not yet become a commonly used phrase. The starting point is the fact that the term enhancement is used very generally as a synonym for improvement, while it on the other hand also serves as a symbol for a debate about the goals and limits of modern medicine, specifically with regard to possible “technical enhancements” of humans (see, e.g., Schöne-Seifert et al., 2009). The new, emerging use of the phrase animal enhancement cannot ignore this ongoing debate, but must clarify whether and which elements of the previous use of the term can be transferred to the enhancement of animals. 8.2.1 The Semantics of EnhancementThe term “enhance” has fundamentally positive connotations in everyday language as the opposite of “worsen.” The word enhancement and its use are, however, much richer and more complex than often assumed and must therefore be examined carefully. Enhancement is not a one-place predicate, but can only be determined relative to certain criteria. Caution must be used to avoid running into the rhetorical trap suggested by everyday language in regarding an enhancement to be intrinsically positive. One must, rather, basically enquire as to the criteria according to which a simple change is evaluated as an enhancement. Enhancement represents an activity or action by which an object is changed in a particular direction: there are actors (the subjects of enhancement), who enhance something (the object of enhancement)

according to criteria. In accordance with this, enhancement necessarily includes three semantic dimensions: . A starting point for enhancement. An enhancement is only plausible as an enhancement if the starting point of the change is given. 2. A criterion of enhancement. A normative criterion, relative to which the enhancement takes place, must be given. A criterion consists of the declaration of a parameter (quantitative or

qualitative) and the direction in which the parameter will be altered to constitute an enhancement. The direction of change in which something is seen as enhancement depends on the target of the enhancing. 3. A measure of enhancement. Measuring the size of an

enhancement is primarily significant in weighting processes, such as if the enhancement in one place is offset by deterioration in another, and balancing is necessary.