Public deliberation is typically considered useful and appropriate for addressing policy problems that involve high levels of value conflict and for which technical expertise is insufficient or where the institutions charged with making decisions are not trusted.31
Proposals to genetically modify wild populations of organisms might therefore be well suited to public deliberation, and indeed, some of the most prominent commentary on genetic technologies that might be used to alter the shared environment calls expressly for deliberative forms of public engagement.
There is good reason to create opportunities for deliberation in the context of decision-making about genetic technologies for modifying populations of wild organisms. For example, when members of the public chant, “Hell no, GMO!” in response to proposals to introduce genetically modified organisms into the environment, their reaction may reflect uninformed fear of this technology, or a preference for preserving natural phenomena, or a special disvalue attached to risk and uncertainty.
All people who may be affected by the decision ought to be represented in the discussion, and in some cases, groups who are not immediately affected but have historically been excluded from collective decisions should be represented as well. But representation alone may not be enough.
“Empowering Indigenous Knowledge in Deliberations on Gene Editing in the Wild,” by Riley Taitingfong and Anika Ullah, argues that “direct confrontation with the historic and ongoing power imbalances that are relevant to genetic engineering and with how those may be reified in deliberative spaces” is necessary at every stage in the deliberative process.60
Good use of technologies to genetically modify populations of wild organisms depends on mechanisms for incorporating society’s values about what may and should be done to the shared environment. Use and even ongoing research into these technologies may depend on politically legitimate and trustworthy decision-making processes.
