Gary L. Comstock

Gary L. Comstock is ASC Fellow of the National Humanities Center, 2007-09. Professor of philosophy at NC State, Comstock conducts research on ethical questions in the biological sciences. One critic pronounced his book Vexing Nature? a watershed in the discussion of genetically modified foods. Another declared its nuanced treatment of the issue "virtually unprecedented in applied philosophy."

Comstock is Editor-in-chief of On the Human at the National Humanities Center, and of the OpenSeminar in Research Ethics. He edited Life Science Ethics (2002, 2nd ed. forthcoming) and Is There a Moral Obligation to Save the Family Farm? (1987).

Prior to his current position, Comstock directed NC State's research and professional ethics program, and was assistant, associate, and professor of religious studies at Iowa State University. There he produced the popular textbook, Religious Autobiographies (1994, 2003), won his College's Award for Excellence in Outreach, and helped to establish the Bioethics Institute, a faculty development workshop that assisted five hundred scientists in integrating discussions of ethics into their courses.

Comstock's current project explores the central dogma of the humanities, that humans are singular among and superior to other life forms, a belief recent developments in the life and information sciences seem to call into question. In a manuscript provisionally titled "Singularity" he discusses comparative cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, and ethology--areas now attesting to apparent quasi-human emotional and cognitive capacities in some mammals. If we may no longer consider ourselves morally superior to all nonhuman animals, there is reason to wonder, too, whether cyborgs might one day be morally considerable. Work in nanotechnology, computer "self-programming," and robotics presents the possibility that future learning machines might exhibit behaviors analagous to what we experience as emotion, cognition, and planning.