Your complimentary articles

You’ve read one of your four complimentary articles for this month.

You can read four articles free per month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Moral Issues

De-Extinction: Bringing Back Beasts or Playing God?

John Kennedy Philip revives the ethical debate around resurrecting species.

Imagine the chilling howl of a dire wolf – a sound swallowed by time over ten thousand years ago – echoing through a modern forest. Sounds like fantasy – maybe something straight out of Game of Thrones? But this isn’t fantasy anymore. Welcome to the world of de-extinction, the cutting edge (or perhaps the unnerving edge?) of science resurrecting vanished species using powerful gene-editing tools. With well-preserved DNA from fossils giving us a clear blueprint, the dire wolf is a star candidate. Yet, as scientists inch closer to making species resurrection real, a massive question hangs heavy: Is this incredible progress, or are we getting dangerously close to playing God?

CRISPR: The Science Behind the Second Coming

How does this whole species resurrection thing actually work on a technical level? Well, the key is CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) – a gene-editing technology that’s been making waves. Think of it as an incredibly precise biological ‘find and replace’ tool that’s based on a natural defense system found in bacteria that allows scientists to target specific DNA sequences with remarkable accuracy. It means they can essentially cut DNA at a chosen spot, then either take out a slice and let it repair itself, or insert a new piece of code. For de-extinction projects, as with the dire wolf, this means taking the DNA of its closest living relative, the gray wolf, and painstakingly editing it. Geneticists identify key genes responsible for specific dire wolf traits, and use CRISPR to introduce those sequences. It’s incredibly complex work, obviously; but it moves the idea from pure speculation into the realm of tangible, though challenging, scientific goals.

This kind of deliberate technological intervention in biological processes aiming to overcome fundamental limits (like extinction itself) also represents a core project within the transhumanist worldview. We’ll consider this more later.

For more art by Cameron Gray, please visit parablevisions.com and facebook.com/camerongraytheartist

Making Dire Wolves (Almost) Real Again

It’s not just theory. Companies like Colossal Biosciences are already deep in the game. They’re aiming to reconstruct the genomes of extinct animals using living relatives as a starting point. In the case of the dire wolf (Canis dirus), this means editing gray wolf DNA to mimic the dire wolf’s heftier build and powerful jaws. They even announced the birth of genetically tweaked gray wolf pups in late 2024 and early 2025, giving them loaded names like Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi (a Game of Thrones queen). And they’re not stopping there. Colossal is famously chasing the woolly mammoth, hoping for a calf by 2028, and has even started work on bringing back the dodo, including partnering with wildlife groups in Mauritius for its eventual rewilding.

You can see the appeal. Bringing back a top predator like the dire wolf could theoretically help restore balance to ecosystems where big predators are missing, helping control prey populations and boosting biodiversity. Plus, imagine what we could learn studying a live creature we’ve only known from fossils. But, these potential wins come tangled up in a web of ethical knots that we need to untangle.

The Ethical Minefield: Progress or Pure Hubris?

The idea of bringing back extinct species forces us to ask uncomfortable questions about our place in the natural world. This is where things start to get messy.

First off, ecology. The world the dire wolf knew is long gone, and today’s ecosystems are already stressed by climate change and human activity. Can they handle a resurrected apex predator? Dropping one in could be like throwing a wrench into a machine – destabilizing food chains, potentially harming species already struggling, maybe even creating a new invasive species nightmare. We’ve seen that movie before – with rabbits in Australia, for example.

Then there’s the welfare of the animals themselves. These creatures wouldn’t be perfect copies; they’d be genetic patchworks, born via surrogates. What kind of life would they have? Might they not suffer from unforeseen health problems, genetic defects, or simply be unable to cope in a world they aren’t adapted for? Is it fair to create life that might endure chronic pain or confusion just for our scientific curiosity, or, our amusement? And looming over everything is the ‘playing God’ accusation: Is resurrecting species an act of responsible stewardship, or just monumental hubris? Critics also rightly point out that de-extinction sucks up time, money, and brainpower that could be spent saving the thousands of species currently teetering on the brink of extinction. The IUCN says that over 40,000 species are threatened right now. Shouldn’t saving them be the priority – rather than chasing ghosts?

On the other hand, some argue that we owe resurrection to species we helped push into oblivion. Humans have caused countless extinctions, through hunting, habitat destruction, and changing the climate. Maybe bringing back the dire wolf and other species is a way to atone – to fix a piece of the world we broke. The idea also taps into the human drive to push boundaries, to see ourselves as creators capable of overcoming limits. But who gets the golden ticket back from extinction, and who chooses? The dire wolf and mammoth faded at least partly due to natural changes, while the dodo was wiped out directly by human actions. So should we prioritize correcting our mistakes (ecological justice for the dodo?), or satisfying scientific curiosity (remaking the mammoth)? Giving ourselves the authority to make these calls – deciding who comes back and who stays gone – feels like a profound, perhaps terrifying, level of power.

The Transhumanist Dream: Building a Better (?) Nature

The ambition for de-extinction resonates with transhumanism – a movement that champions using technology to enhance human, and maybe ecosystem, capabilities. Many transhumanists see de-extinction as just another step in overcoming biological limits through science.

Transhumanist thinkers like Nick Bostrom argue that we shouldn’t just accept the ‘status quo that nature has handed us’ (In defence of posthuman dignity, 2005). From this angle, de-extinction is a tool to actively reshape ecosystems, fix past errors, and maybe even make things better. And Max More talks about our supposed responsibility to expand order and complexity – essentially, to create and improve the world, not just preserve it. Bringing back the dire wolf fits right in there.

But even within this future-focused crowd there are cautionary voices. David Pearce, known for his focus on reducing suffering, would warn us that any intervention must prioritize the well-being of the creatures involved. A resurrected dire wolf struggling in an alien world, or suffering from genetic flaws, would fly in the face of this ethics. Clever science isn’t enough if it creates misery.

Species Authenticity vs Species Simulation

Let’s now dig into something a bit weirder: what is this thing we’re supposedly ‘bringing back’? When scientists talk about resurrecting a dire wolf, are we getting the genuine article, or something more like a sophisticated forgery – a best guess stitched together from ancient genetic scraps and mapped onto its living cousin?

The promise of CRISPR is precision gene-editing, even in principle the possibility that we could perfectly recreate a genetic blueprint. But even if the new dire wolf’s genes match up pretty well with the old, the resulting animal is fundamentally disconnected from its origins: it didn’t face the Ice Age, hunt prehistoric bison, or evolve under those specific pressures. Rather, it will be born in a lab, raised by a different species, and destined for a world utterly changed. It feels less like a restoration, and more like… something else. A reinterpretation, maybe?

This brings to mind the classic Ship of Theseus thought experiment: if you gradually replace every part of a ship, bit by bit, is it still the same ship? Similarly, if we rebuild a dire wolf from its genetic code, grow it in a modern wolf, and release it now, does it carry the identity of the species that died out thousands of years ago or is it fundamentally a new creation wearing an old name? You could even argue, as the philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) did about media representation, that these creatures might become substitutes for the real thing rather than examples of it. They might even be ‘hyperreal’ (Baudrillard’s term) – products more of our tech labs and imaginations that are thought better than the products of natural evolution. So we need to be honest with ourselves: are we patching holes in biodiversity with pre-extant species, or are we creating a new kind of life form – thus blurring the line between ‘natural’ and ‘man-made’? The answer probably isn’t simple, but it definitely changes how we should think about the ethics and the consequences of playing Dr Frankenstein with extinct species.

Transhuman Ecology

This whole de-extinction thing, with its science fiction science and heavy ethical weight, forces us to ask: What even is ‘nature’? In a world where we’ve touched and affected practically everything, can we still pretend nature is separate from us? Or have we stepped into a new reality where we’re not just living in the natural world but actively writing its future chapters? This question feels especially real when we hear talk about the anthropocene – the idea that we’re now in an era where humans are the main force driving changes on Earth, from climate to the fate of species. If you look at it that way, trying to bring back extinct animals isn’t just some bizarre detour, it’s another sign of how deeply entangled we’ve become with the workings of nature itself.

Remember when conservation was all about protecting those ‘pristine’ places untouched by humans? That feels almost like a fairy tale now. De-extinction suggests something different is now happening. Maybe we’re not just saving or restoring nature anymore; maybe we’re starting to actively remake it based on our own ideas, our technology, and what we want the future to look like.

The French philosopher, anthropologist, and sociologist Bruno Latour (1947-2022) had an interesting take here. He basically said, forget trying to draw a neat line between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. Instead, he talked about ‘nature-culture hybrids’ – things like GMO crops or controlled ecosystems. These resurrected animals would fit right in. That CRISPR-edited dire wolf, born in a lab, maybe living in some managed wilderness: it’s not purely wild, not purely artificial, it’s a mash-up, a product of this messily interconnected world we’ve built.

If we’re already living in a kind of transhuman world, then, maybe the question isn’t if we should meddle with nature – we already are, constantly – maybe the real questions are, How we do interact with nature thoughtfully and responsibly? What kind of world are we actually trying to build here? And what kind of people do we become when we start wielding this kind of power over life itself?

Standing at the Crossroads

The possibility of de-extinction leaves us standing at a fork in the road. Down one path lies the potential to heal ecological wounds, showcasing humanity’s power to reverse loss. This is a future in which science seems almost magical. Down the other path lurks the risk of succumbing to our own arrogance, causing further animal suffering, and possibly unleashing ecological chaos.

It’s a hell of a tightrope to walk. So do we grab our godlike tools and start rewriting nature’s story? Or is the wiser path humility, and focusing our energy on protecting the natural wonders we still have left? As we wrestle with this, the dire wolf’s howl, once silenced, potentially returning, lingers in our minds. Whether it signifies progress or peril depends entirely on how carefully we tread. The choice seems to be ours for now. But the stakes couldn’t be higher.

John Kennedy Philip, a postgraduate in philosophy, specializes in ethics, cosmology, and the philosophy of technology. His intellectual pursuits dive into the intricate relationships between human values, the cosmos, and technological philosophy.