Now it may be admitted that there is nothing inconceivably difficult with this plan; that animals may be mechanized as well as rocks and trees. But is it good?
Good Luck with That
Understand that I use the word "good" in a somewhat-inflated sense. I mean, not merely what is "morally" good. Indeed, to the modern mind, "good" in this sense must seem to represent everything that is essentially arbitrary and authoritarian — "good because I said so" and all that. What I have in mind is something rather different.
I use "good" to indicate what is "true" — or, in other words, what is "truthful" or "true to the reality of itself". A tree that fulfills its "tree-ness" is a "good" tree; a "very-cowlike" cow is a "good" cow. So far as we can tell, Man alone experiences difficulty in being "humane" — but that is another post. Suffice to say that, insofar as anything succeeds in "living up to" its nature, then it is truly itself; then we say it is "good".
In the Eye of the Beholder
Of course, when a thing truly is itself, when it is "good", it is also "beautiful". A person who does something well, does it beautifully: a hunter drawing a bow, or an artist drawing a landscape. So, too, anything which is "good" is simultaneously beautiful.
Now notice the consequence: that what is "true" is also "good", and is also "beautiful". See how these three qualities are actually only different sides of one — call it "fitting-ness". And this inherent coherence, between truth, goodness, and beauty, is essential to what I now have to say.
A Good Fit
Earlier I observed that there were two ways of adjusting a clock: first, by cooperating with its nature; second, by dominating its nature. The first is always more difficult, more roundabout, more subtle; the second, more direct, more practical, more visible. Yet the first is the "right" way — that is, it is the way to adjust the clock while keeping the clock intact. You are dealing with the clock by seeking to preserve the clock's "truth" or essence while attaining your own end.
So, too, is the best way to deal with living things: by manipulation, not domination. We must act so that the things we use remain themselves while giving us what we want. We take milk from a cow; we do not cut off the cow's udders and use them independently — nor, even, treat the cow as nothing but a pair of udders with a cow attached. Manipulation may be unpleasant; domination is always ugly.
So what does any of this have to do with Genetically-Modified Organisms?
Nothing specifically; but that is due more to my own ignorance of genetic-engineering techniques. I know that these techniques all harness the natural powers of the organism to manipulate its DNA. I cannot say whether they do it by manipulation or by domination, by "nudging" or by "forcing".
Let me say that I am inclined to suspect the former: that GMOs are not the product of the "domination" of grain, maize, or rice — although this is, perhaps, more a consequence of powerlessness and a lack of understanding than of definite choice.
Humanity is still so little acquainted with the marvelous intricacies of even the most "basic" cellular life. Perhaps the cell is ultimately safe from that sort of "breaking", by virtue of its own complexity and the maddening interdependence of its components. I certainly don't know.
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