A Fish By Any Other Name Would Taste as Sweet: Applied Ethics of Transgenic Fish Commercialization

Modern aquaculture has grown into a vital industry over the past half-century, such that it now supplies half of all the fish we consume. Nevertheless, it has been found to cause significant economic, environmental, and health problems, while commercial fishing has led to the decline in wild fish stocks. In response to this dilemma and the growing demand, AquaBounty Technologies has created a genetically modified “AquAdvantage” Atlantic salmon using foreign genetic elements from the ocean pout and Chinook Pacific salmon, in hopes to improve their fish farming efficiency. These modifications allow the AquAdvantage salmon to grow twice as fast as their domesticated counterparts and four times as fast as their wild brethren, The recent approval for commercialization of the AquAdvantage Salmon as the first genetically modified animal by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US market has sparked substantial controversy, with no small number of people urging for a moratorium or ban on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) altogether. The significance of this approval cannot be overstated, as it sets a regulatory precedent for other pending commercializations of genetically engineered animals and future axioms of molecular and synthetic biology. In this article, I identify and evaluate some of the leading arguments for and against the adoption of GM salmon on store shelves, and this product’s position in terms of deep ecology, the precautionary principle, virtue ethics, and non-anthropocentrism. I rely on this pluralistic presentation to ensure that the key aspects are recognized, and that possible consequences are assessed from a plurality of positions to avoid a one-eyed perception of the topic and allow judgements to be made on a rational and informed basis, all ethical concerns considered