The Issue of Science Without Ethics as Shown Through Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake Kimber Rae Andress College

In the emerging technical age the idea of science without ethics has turned into a center stage issue. Throughout Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake, science without ethics is explored through two dystopian worlds engineered by Atwood all from the eyes of the protagonist Jimmy, or Snowman—as he is known after humanity was demolished by a devastating plague. The world Jimmy has constant flashbacks to throughout the novel depicts a time in the arguably not so near future where science and technology seem to develop faster than ethics and human responsibility. The second world Atwood manufactures is a post-human world where “Crakers,” creatures similar to humans but without human flaws are among the last living things on the planet, in addition to overrun genetically engineered animals such as rakhunks, wolvogs, and pigoons. Jimmy’s twisted and morally questionable childhood friend Crake is behind the collapse of humanity and overall is a symbol of all of the negative possibilities that can result from scientific thinking detached from ethics.

Throughout the novel, Atwood toys with the idea of anthropocentricism, the idea that in the world humans are the dominant and the most morally significant animals. Through Crake and his...