"Dr. Jean Buttigieg provides a welcome contribution to an issue that concerns the make-up of humanity, namely the human genome. His philosophical analysis shows the need to provide a metaphysical foundation to scientific research on the human genome so as to challenge the idea that such research belongs to the private and therefore commercially motivated sector. On the contrary, the benefits derived from it belong to all of humanity given that the human genome is part of what Pardo, from whom he draws his inspiration, would have called 'the common heritage of mankind'. In an era when the differences between humans are emphasized, Buttigieg's work recuperates the idea that there are some features that are identical to all of humanity."-Prof. Claude Mangion, Head of Department, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta "The collaborative Human Genome Project (HGP) yielded several important scientific findings and raised a myriad of questions cutting across disciplinary boundaries. The Human Genome as Common Heritage of Mankind spans the range from patent rights, international law, and the relationship between metaphysics and biology to the Heideggerian view of technology and the ideas of thinkers such as Jonas, Gadamer, and Habermas. Jean Buttigieg's critique of political slogans, economic profiteering, and technological reductionism paves the way for a convincing argument for the need to extend the international legal principle of the common heritage of humankind, and its concomitant models of governance, to the human genome."-Dr Jean Paul De Lucca, Director, Centre for the Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Malta
Jean Buttigieg, Ph.D., lectures in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Malta. He lectures in Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Information Technology, Philosophy and the Internet, Ethics, Technology and Cyberethics, Bioethics and the Human Genome.