Verantwoordelikheid en die nuwe genetiese tegnologiee : filosofiese perspektiewe op die relevansie van 'n etiek van verantwoordelikheid vir morele besinning oor kloning en stamselnavorsing

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2008.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: New genetic technologies (e.g. stem-cell research, gene-therapies and cloning) raise some of the most enigmatic moral problems in the field of bioethics. My aim in this thesis is to explore the philosophical and ethical significance of the idea of an “ethics of responsibility” (as, particularly, developed in the work of Hans Jonas, Zygmunt Bauman and Emmanuel Levinas) for moral reflection on these problems. “Ethics of responsibility” is a new approach to ethics that represents an alternative to both rule morality (where moral action is identified with the application of rules) and utilitarianism (where moral action is identified with establishing the best consequences for the most people). Rule morality has the serious shortcoming of being unable to deal with real and actual moral dilemmas, and of being unclear as to which rule applies in which situation. Utilitarianism has the serious shortcoming of often being way too counter-intuitive: deeds that we normally find morally abhorrent, such a lying, stealing and even torturing can, within the utilitarian calculus, sometimes be justified. The notion of an ethics of responsibility has been promoted by the mentioned authors both to counter the simplistic idea that a rule exists in terms of which every moral action can be determined, but also to counter the crassness of the utilitarian calculus. It represents an approach to ethics in which the interests of the other are taken as seriously as possible within the confines of the situation in which action is called for. My aim is to explore this approach critically, and to invesitgate its desirability, applicability and efficacy with particular reference to the moral problems raised by the new genetic technologies.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Nuwe genetiese tegnologieë bv stamselnavorsing en kloning, opper enigmatiese morele probleme binne die veld van bio-etiek. Die doel van hierdie tesis is om die filosofiese en etiese belang van die idee van “ ‘n etiek van verantwoordelikheid” (soos dit in die werk van Hans Jonas, Zygmunt Bauman en Emmaneul Levinas ontwikkel is) vir morele refleksie van hierdie probleme te ondersoek. ‘n Etiek van verantwoordelikheid is ‘n nuwe benadering binne etiek wat ‘n alternatief daarstel vir onderskeidelik utilitarisme (waar ‘n moreel korrekte aksie dié aksie is wat die beste gevolge vir die meeste mense tot stand bring) en deontologie of reël-moraliteit (waar ‘n moreel korrekte aksie dié aksie is wat die morele reëls gehoorsaam). Albei hierdie tradisionele etiese teorie beskik oor tekortkominge. Utilitarisme voer byvoorbeeld aan dat ‘n aksie wat gewoonlik as kontraintuitief beskou word, moreel korrek is. Aksies soos steel, die vertel van leuens en marteling kan volgens die utilitaristiese beskouing moreel regverdig word. Deontologie slaag weer nie daarin om sinvol met werklike en aktuele morele probleme om te gaan nie, en dit is dikwels onduidelik watter morele reël voorkeur moet kry wanneer dit op ‘n morele dilemma toegepas word. ‘n Etiek van verantwoordelikheid wat deur bogenoemde outeurs voorgestaan word, bied ‘n alternatief vir die simplisitese idee dat vaste morele reël bestaan wat op ‘n universele wyse kan bepaal wanneer ‘n aksie moreel reg of verkeerd is. ‘n Etiek van verantwoordelikheid beweeg ook weg van die kras benadering van utilitarisme, en bied ‘n maak ruimte vir ‘n meer komplekse, genuanseerde benadering tot die etiese problematiek. Dit verskaf ‘n benadering tot etiek waar die belange van die ander binne die etiese besluitnemingsproses, ernstig opgeneem word. Die doel van hierdie tesis is om die tradisionele etiese teorie krities te benader, waarna die toepasbaarheid en effektiwiteit van ‘n etiek van verantwoordelikheid, ondersoek sal word

Introduction: Scholarly engagement and decolonisation:Views from South Africa, The Netherlands and the United States

Considering that one of the core tasks of academia is to provide social critique and reflection, universities have an undeniable role to formulate the contours of a more inclusive academia in contrast to visible and normalised structures of exclusion. Translating such ambitions into transformative practices seems to be easier said than done. Academics need mutual inspiration and exchange of thoughts and practices to reflect on their actions and their own knowledge productions. The authors in this book mirror the challenges and achievements of academics and practitioners in three national contexts, which could serve as a foundation for academia to move towards dismantling elitist and privileged-based assumptions, and formulating new forms of knowledge production and institutional policies, inside and outside academia. The book aims to help create a more inclusive society in which academics, students and practitioners can engage, learn and transform structures of inequality, exclusion and disconnection where it seems to have the biggest impact

Policy engagement as ‘empowered representation’: democratic mediation through a participatory research project on climate resilience

Background: The article analyses the policy engagement component of a research project on climate resilience in vulnerable communities that took place in Cape Town, South Africa. Conducted in 2022, the engagement included community and stakeholder events in three research sites, and a cross-cutting policy event with municipal officials, held at the end of the project. Importantly, this policy engagement process occurred in a context of political marginalisation, that is, one characterised by low trust, and little meaningful representation or even communication between these vulnerable communities and the city. Aims and objectives: This article examines the impact of policy engagement on political relations between local government and vulnerable communities. Methods: The overall methodology of the article is qualitative, using an illustrative case-study research design to unpack the subjective experiences of both government officials and residents of vulnerable communities. Primary data included many primary documents, direct observation of the engagements and post-event interviews. Findings: First, the engagement process created new ‘invented’ spaces for the representation of community perspectives to the city, and also the city’s perspective to the community. Second, the engagement facilitated community self-representation through educating community members to advocate for their own ideas in these new invented spaces. Thirdly, this engagement tended to be more constructive and deliberative than polarising and confrontational. Discussion and conclusions: Drawing on the theoretical framework of ‘political mediation’, the policy engagement process is characterised as a positive instance of democratic mediation through ‘empowered representation’, with some specified limitations

Living the life of floods: place-based learning in an Anthropocene harmscape

This article explores how place-based learning and the development of landscape literacies unfold in a place suffused with a complex set of risks resulting from inter-operating and intersecting sociohistorical, political and environmental factors. By analysing assemblages of images and accompanying texts produced through a photovoice process undertaken by co-researchers in an informal settlement in South Africa’s Cape Flats, we show that residents are embedded in an ongoing process of embodied place-connectedness that has extensive pedagogical impact. We suggest that the learning that takes place in this harmscape may enable residents’ survival at the cost of allowing for either hope or the possibility of transformative change

Understanding resilience capitals, agency and habitus in household experiences of water scarcity, floods and fire in marginalized settlements in the Cape Flats, South Africa

A significant percentage of the urban population in most low- and middle-income countries live in informal settlements. Due to poor quality housing, dense settlement patterns and lack of risk reducing infrastructure, informal settlements are least prepared and at higher risk for climate change issues. Marginalized communities in settlements in the Cape Flats region of South Africa face a range of environmental hazards and risks including recurrent large-scale fires, localised flooding and inconsistent access to water. This paper presents findings from a household survey with 600 participants from three economically marginalised settlements in this region. The paper explores how different forms of capital come into play in the shaping of these experiences and responses and uses these to consider power structures and the creation of particular types of habitus amongst settlement residents. Results show that cultural (knowledge) capital is one of the most important capitals enabling resilience and adaptive capacities across all three sites. Findings show the complex interplay of forms of capital and the importance of recognizing ownership, control and power structures. Our findings also illustrate how repeated exposure to risk can shape a habitus of risk acceptance and a focus on coping rather than change. Insights from this study further enhance knowledge of community resilience that could potentially inform policy development and institutional disaster risk reduction strategies for climate change resilience of cities in low- and middle-income countries

‘It Means We are Not Safe’: Understanding and Learning from Household Experiences of Water Scarcity, Flood and Fire in Marginalized Settlements in the Cape Flats, South Africa

As climate change-related extreme weather events such as flooding and droughts increase in frequency and severity in most cities worldwide, there is a need to deepen understanding of disaster risks and adaptive capacities. A significant percentage of the urban population in most low- and middle-income countries live in informal settlements. Due to poor quality housing, dense settlement patterns and lack of risk reducing infrastructure e.g., drainage systems, informal settlements have been identified as being least prepared and at higher risk for climate change issues and therefore serve as important sites for understanding these risks and capacities. Marginalized communities in settlements in the Cape Flats region of South Africa face a range of environmental hazards including recurrent large-scale fires, localised flooding and water supply shortages. This paper presents findings from a household survey with 600 participants from three economically marginalised township settlements in this region. The aim of the survey was to understand the lived experiences, coping mechanisms and resilience attributes of the residents faced with localised flooding, fires and water shortages – locally salient environmental risks and hazards. The paper explores how different forms of capital come into play in the shaping of these experiences and responses and uses these to consider power structures and the creation of particular types of habitus amongst settlement residents. Insights from this study further enhance knowledge of community resilience that could potentially inform policy development and institutional disaster risk reduction strategies for climate change resilience of cities in low- and middle-income countries

On the verge of a nervous breakthrough: Neoliberal subjectivities and precarious resistance in the contemporary South African university

Academics today labour under conditions of neoliberalism, and universities increasingly operate like businesses where value is determined almost solely in terms of profitability and productivity. “This reduction of the human condition to human capital” (Valero, Mølbjerg Jørgensen, & Brunila, 2019: 144) is an important aspect of both Judith Butler's (2004, 2015) analysis of precarious life, as well as Isabel Lorey's (2016) understanding of precarity and precarization as dimensions of neoliberal governmentality. For Butler in particular, precariousness refers to the vulnerability and interrelatedness of bodies; humans are interdependent and interrelated due to our bodily needs and vulnerabilities. Our bodies are exposed to the possibility of violence, death and pain, and life is not sustainable without security, care and love (Taylor & Underwood, 2019). Some bodies, though, are rendered more precarious and vulnerable than others through processes of social hierarchization, which fuels social inequality. In the neoliberal university context, precarity manifests in managerial regimes, characterized by a paradoxical style of governance “resulting in the government of the social through both material and subjective insecurity” (Pérez & Montoya, 2018: 11). If we frame the university context as a space where bodies are always already precarious, subject to precarity and neoliberal governmentality, it is important to ask what subjectivities are created at contemporary South African universities? A working environment characterized by affects of insufficiency, non-relationality, competitiveness, individualism, isolation and very often anxiety, results in a process of affective subjectivation suitable for neoliberal managerialism to function optimally. The neoliberal machine hence operates with and through precarity (Pérez & Montoya, 2018), creating non-relational subjectivities always on the verge of a collective nervous-breakdown. Against this background we argue that the task of critical theory today is to think beyond diagnostic terms, towards possible forms of resistance that don’t only exist outside of the neoliberal context, but that are made possible by the neoliberal ethos itself. In the words of Tsing (2015: 3): To live with precarity requires more than railing at those who put us here (although that seems useful too, and I’m not against it). We might look around to notice this strange new world, and we might stretch our imaginations to grasp its contours. This paper takes the form of a dialogue located in the authors’ experiences at two South African university campuses. Thinking with rather than just against precarity, we experiment performatively, exploring the everyday contradictions and fault lines from where resistant forms of subjectivity might emerge, or from where an undoing of neoliberal governmentality might be imagined. Even if just as the slightly nervous breakthrough

Scholarly engagement and decolonisation: Views from South Africa, The Netherlands and the United States

Considering that one of the core tasks of academia is to provide social critique and reflection, universities have an undeniable role to formulate the contours of a more inclusive academia in contrast to visible and normalised structures of exclusion. Translating such ambitions into transformative practices seems to be easier said than done. Academics need mutual inspiration and exchange of thoughts and practices to reflect on their actions and their own knowledge productions. The authors in this book mirror the challenges and achievements of academics and practitioners in three national contexts, which could serve as a foundation for academia to move towards dismantling elitist and privileged-based assumptions, and formulating new forms of knowledge production and institutional policies, inside and outside academia. The book aims to help create a more inclusive society in which academics, students and practitioners can engage, learn and transform structures of inequality, exclusion and disconnection where it seems to have the biggest impact