Veritatis Gaudium: Multidisciplinary Journal of Postgraduate Studies

Genetic modification has intensified a longstanding metaphysical question: what makes a human being the kind of being that he or she is? The question becomes especially important when genetic constitution is treated as the basis of human essence. This paper critically examines that assumption through Saul Kripke’s essentialism. It postulates that Kripke’s distinction between essential and contingent properties does not entail that human genetic constitution is immutable. Biological significance, causal influence and metaphysical necessity are distinct claims and should not be treated as equivalent. Using analytical, hermeneutical and normative methods, the paper brings Kripke’s essentialism into dialogue with Aristotelian hylomorphism, African relational ontology and hermeneutic ontology. The study finds that genetic modification can produce significant biological change without necessarily producing a change in human essence or individual identity. In particular, therapeutic genetic engineering can correct pathological genetic conditions without altering the individual’s originating history or substantial continuity. Hence, the paper proposes a qualified essentialist position: human essence is real, but it cannot be reduced to an immutable genome. Genetic modification should consequently be understood as a possible alteration within human nature rather than, in itself, a transformation of human nature.

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