Avoid cooperation in evil

All sorts of wickedness goes on in our society, and we finance it through our taxes, elect leaders who allow it and fail to do much to change things. More immediately, almost anything we do can be an occasion, opportunity or means for someone else to do something wrong. To avoid all cooperation in evil would require that we abandon almost all arenas of human activity – such as family, workplace, government, health system, Church – and could well constitute a sin of omission.


Cooperation in evil: understanding the issues, Anthony Fisher OP
in Helen Watt (ed), Cooperation, Complicity and Conscience: Moral Problems in
Healthcare, Science, Law and Public Policy (London: Linacre Centre, 2005), 27-64


Nanotechnology and Ethics

In terms of religious literature on nanotechnology, of which there is little, I see three genres. First is a modest body of articles by religious writers in denominational magazines and other religious venues that introduce the reader to nanotechnology, and then speculate in very general terms about the issues that will arise. Even though these articles appear in sectarian publications, their tone is educational, not religious. As such, these articles are equivalent to the secular ethical statements.

A second genre is transhumanism, a body of beliefs about how technology will save us from illness, aging, death and other problems. The transhumanist writer most relevant to religious issues is William Sims Bainbridge. He speaks in a secular voice but his writing is a kind of religious literature: a crusade against traditional religion that is tantamount to calling for a new religion that will deliver eternal life and ultimate meaning.

"True human freedom," he writes, is found in transhumanism, which "seeks to empower each individual to become whatever he or she wishes". According to Bainbridge, "transhumanists believe that we have reached the point in history at which fundamental changes in our very natures have become both possible and desirable".

Chris Toumey, Atom and Eve, Nature Nanotechnology 3

Roco, M. & Bainbridge, W. S. (eds) Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2003)

Bainbridge, W. S. J. Evolution Technol. 14, 91–100 (2005).