B. A. Lustig & B.A. Brody 
Altering Nature 
Volume II: Religion, Biotechnology, and Public Policy

B. Andrew Lustig, Baruch A. Brody, and Gerald P. Mc Kenny In this second volume of the “Altering Nature” project, we situate specific religious and policy discussions of four broad areas of biotechnology within the context of our interdisciplinary research on concepts of nature and the natural in the first volume (Altering Nature, Concepts of Nature and the Natural in Biotechnology Debates). In the first volume, we invited five groups of scholars to explore the diverse conc- tions of nature and the natural that shape moral judgments about human alterations of nature, as especially exemplified by recent developments in biotechnology. A careful reading of such developments reveals that assessments of them—whether positive or negative—are often informed by different conceptual interpretations of nature and the natural, with differing implications for judgments about the app- priateness of particular alterations of nature. These varying interpretations of nature and the natural often result from the distinctive perspectives that characterize va- ous scholarly disciplines. Therefore, in an effort to explore the variety of meanings that attend discussions of the concepts of nature and the natural, the contributors to the first volume of Altering Nature addressed those concepts from five different disciplinary vantages. A first group of scholars analyzed a range of religious and spiritual perspectives on concepts of nature and the natural. Their research highlighted the thematic, h- torical, and methodological touchstones in those traditions that shape their persp- tives on nature.

Table of Content

Compatible Contradictions: Religion and the Naturalization of Assisted Reproduction.- Religion, Conceptions of Nature, and Assisted Reproductive Technology Policy.- Religious Traditions and Genetic Enhancement.- How Bioethics Can Inform Policy Decisions About Genetic Enhancement.- The Machine in the Body: Ethical and Religious Issues in the Bodily Incorporation of Mechanical Devices.- Medical Devices Policy and the Humanities: Examining Implantable Cardiac Devices.- Biodiversity and Biotechnology.- Swimming Upstream: Regulating Genetically Modified Salmon.