This disruption of virtue, as Shelley called it, is what might be considered to be at fault for the harm brought by Frankenstein's monstrous creation:

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During the summer when Victor created the 'monster', he was "engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit," making his eyes "insensible to the charms of nature," and caused him to "forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom [he] had not seen for so long time." The act of corresponding with another person, as portrayed in the novel, is an act of being involved in a community, and what Victor did on that summer according to his father and which can be inferred from the epistolary exchange, was to withdraw from the moral constrains of his community.

Victor Frankenstein is egotistical and he does not allow himself to respond to the needs and bonds of people around him.

While the election of Frankenstein as our cautionary tale may be seen as the most commonly used cliché to describe the work genetic engineers and synthetic biologists do, in this particular occasion we are focusing not on the unnamed monster and the analogy between our disciplines and the creation of new life, but on the doctor himself, his context and the results of his actions.