Mapping ethics, imagination, and practice: A comparative study of brain organoids in Germany and the USA

I compare two large research projects in a new generation of biotechnology, first MCELS (Multicellular Engineered Living Systems) in the USA and second REBIRTH (From REgenerative BIology to Reconstructive THerapy) based in Germany. Observing how the same concepts function with respect to different conceptual frameworks, practices, and promises of organoid research, following a co-productionist understanding at an early phase, a focus on “new entities in the making” following a line of inquiry requires engagement with ongoing conversations at the intersection of STS and philosophy of science in practice. Researchers may have a high degree of uncertainty about the future of their program and its feasibility, but nonetheless be expected to express outward confidence in their predictions of societal benefit [1]. Hilgartner describes this feature of practice as the performance of “vanguard visions”, in which specific technoscientific programs must be made intelligible and legitimate by tying them to high-level collective values [2]. Although the approaches of many scholars have been criticized as too internalistic to capture these phenomena [3], there are philosophers of science who have done externalized analysis for larger frameworks such as Lewontin [4]. Macintyre too, in his account of practices, observes that a practice is a coherent social activity oriented towards certain shared goods, either “internal” or “external” in character [5]. Connection between concept use, knowledge practices, and societal needs has been elaborated more recently by Elliott and McKaughan [6] and Brigandt [7]. From a disciplinary perspective, this means understanding what language and its use in epistemic practice means for philosophy [8]