Epigenetics: ethics, politics, biosociality

Abstract

Background: Epigenetics is a burgeoning field of contemporary biosciences, which has attracted a lot of interest both in biomedical and in social sciences.

Sources of data: Unsystematic literature analysis and retrospective mapping of highly cited work (source: Web of Science core collection) in the social sciences and humanities engaging with epigenetics.

Areas of agreement: Epigenetics poses no new ethical issue over and above those discussed in relation to genetics.

Areas of controversy: However, it encourages a different framing and reflexivity on some of the commonly held categories in the moral uptake of scientific discoveries.

Growing points: Epigenetics presents us with normative questions that touch upon privacy, responsibility for individual health and for the well-being of future generations, as well as matters of health justice and equality of opportunities.

Areas timely for developing research: Epigenetic thinking could help us adjust and refine the problem frames and categories that inform our ethical and political questions with a complex biosocial description of situations, of persons or actions.