BT605 Handouts

BOETHICS, BIOSAFETY AND BIOSECURITY

Science, ethics and values

What is science? Professor John Ziman of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, one of the most influential writers on the practice of science points out that definitions given by professional scientists, historians of science, philosophers of science, and representatives of other related disciplines tend to emphasize different aspects of the subject, often with quite different policy implications. Science is derived from a Latin term “Scio” that means observation and theoretical form, observation and experiment. Science is an investigation of the universe by a set of methodologies. In science progress is made by scientific methods. This is a Step-wise, not a single activity, not a value free. Ethics is associated with science. Here issues arise from scientific research. Scientists are trying to solve ethical issues. Science has entered in to our daily lives. Proper resource allocation reflects what society at the time deems to be valuable.

Philosophers might emphasize the methodological aspects of science focusing on experimentation, observation and theorizing as elements of the means by which reliable information about the natural world is gleaned through the practice of science. Historians are prone to view science as the accumulation of knowledge, stressing its archival aspect as a significant historical process worthy of special study. Ziman concludes that: "...science is all these things and more. It is indeed the product of research; it does employ characteristic methods; it is an organized body of knowledge; it is a means of solving problems." Scientists have a large body of knowledge that they can use in making decisions. Yet much of this knowledge is not the product of scientific investigation, but instead involves value-laden judgements, personal desires, and even a researcher's personality and style. Debunked is the notion of a rigid Baconian scientific method by which scientists derive truth about the universe by making observations with no preconceptions about what they may discover. Instead the authors claim that: ...research is as varied as the approaches of individual researchers. Some scientists postulate many hypotheses and systematically set about trying to weed out the weaker ones. Others describe their work as asking questions of nature: " What would happen if ...? Why is it that...?" Some researchers gather a great deal of data with only a vague idea about the problem they might be trying to solve. Others develop a specific hypothesis or conjecture that they then try to verify or refute with carefully structured observations. Rather than following a single scientific method, scientists use a body of methods particular to their work.

The tendency of many scientists and teachers of science to portray science and scientists in an idealistic and unrealistic manner is often motivated by belief that this will result in a greater willingness on the part of students and the public to accept scientific, rational thought as a powerful tool for learning about, and understanding, the world and the universe. There is no evidence to support this view. On the contrary, when students are taught that scientists are mere mortals who are subject to the same social pressures and temptations, in their work as well as in their private lives, that influence all human endeavours, they are more likely to identify with scientists. The powerful methods that science offers for seeking knowledge about the universe then become personally accessible rather than a set of exotic tools available only to the members of an elite priesthood. Recent surveys have shown that despite a renewed interest in mysticism, and growing concern about the contribution of technological development to environmental degradation, public regard for science and technology remains very high. This is particularly true in the United States and other industrialized nations, but also in the developing world. While a high regard for science is certainly a desirable public attitude, it can be associated with an uncritical acceptance of any conclusion or opinion that is presented in the name of science. This is contrary to the essence of the scientific approach to knowledge, which seeks to engender a critical attitude and recognizes that all of the results of science are to be viewed as subject to further verification and revision.

Attitudes to science:

According to Wittgenstein “scientific terms are interpreted in social context”. This has greater contribution to the economy growth. Post modernism says that results are not experimentally built but socially constructed. Science and technology are as central as ever. Keep in mind science is not done by robots actually public define science, think about research and policies. Impact on the public/ explore as a subject or career. It is a duty of scientific institutions to maintain public confidence. Three-quarters (76%) think scientific research makes a direct contribution to economic growth in the UK, and nine-in-ten (91%) agree that young people’s interest in science is essential for our future prosperity. Many also value the contribution it has made to their own lives. Half (51%) think the science they learnt at school has been useful in their everyday lives, while three-quarters (76%) think this of the maths they learnt at school. Most people still find out about science most regularly from traditional media. Six-in-ten (59%) say TV is one of their most regular sources of information on science and a quarter (23%) say print newspapers are one of their most regular sources. By contrast, under two-in-ten (15%) say online newspapers or news websites are one of their two most regular sources. The online qualitative research found TV and newspapers to be particularly passive sources, through which participants found out about science even when they were not actively looking for science stories or information. On the other hand, the internet was, among these online participants, a far more common source when they were actively seeking out information on science issues. Within this, there was no pattern in how participants chose their online sources – some had specific websites that they trusted, and some would check multiple sources, but others would simply look at the higher-ranking pages on Google.

What is ethics?

Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong and also with my religious beliefs. Being ethical is doing what the law requires. Ethics consists of the standards of behaviour our society accepts. Ethics is a requirement for human life. It is our means of deciding a course of action. Without it, our actions would be random and aimless. There would be no way to work towards a goal because there would be no way to pick between a limitless numbers of goals. Even with an ethical standard, we may be unable to pursue our goals with the possibility of success. To the degree which a rational ethical standard is taken, we are able to correctly organize our goals and actions to accomplish our most important values. Any flaw in our ethics will reduce our ability to be successful in our endeavours. A proper foundation of ethics requires a standard of value to which all goals and actions can be compared to. This standard is our own lives, and the happiness which makes them liveable. This is our ultimate standard of value, the goal in which an ethical man must always aim. It is arrived at by an examination of man's nature, and recognizing his peculiar needs. A system of ethics must further consist of not only emergency situations, but the day to day choices we make constantly. It must include our relations to others, and recognize their importance not only to our physical survival, but to our well-being and happiness. It must recognize that our lives are an end in themselves, and that sacrifice is not only not necessary, but destructive.

The three major areas of study within ethics are:

1. Meta ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values can be determined
2. Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action
3. Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated or permitted to do in a specific situation or a particular domain of action

The development of ethics:

Terence Irwin describes “a selective historical and critical study in the Socratic tradition, with special attention to Aristotelian naturalism, its formation, elaboration, criticism, and defence”. ‘Socratic’ refers to Irwin’s method: not merely describing “a collective Socratic inquiry” historically but also evaluating it and taking part in it. Unlike Alasdair MacIntyre and J. B. Schneewind, who think that “a moral theory cannot be assessed timelessly, and there are no timelessly appropriate questions that different moral theories try to answer,” Irwin declares that history reveals substantial agreement on the main principles of ethics. The historian’s task is to discover them. Small wonder, then, that Development does so little to illuminate how ethics changed over time. When an author seeks unity among moral philosophers of the past, or at least all the good ones, he can hardly be expected to highlight significantly new issues or approaches, let alone differences in historical context.

Irwin’s focus on “Aristotelian naturalism” and also on Thomas Aquinas as its finest exponent. Neo-Platonists, “pagan” Roman philosophers, Jews, Muslims, Church Fathers other than Augustine, and Aristotle commentators in medieval faculties of arts views on the development of ethics are also there. This strangely Kantian but nowfashionable reading of pre-modern ethics belongs to a pattern prominent in Development as a whole, though controversial even among specialists in ancient philosophy. According to Irwin, Aristotle teaches that all virtues aim at “the fine” (kalon), and it is characteristic of the virtuous person to choose virtuous actions because they are fine. The Stoics’ ethical theory does not depend on their idea of a divine intelligence that orders everything for the good of the universe, nor does their claim that virtue is identical to happiness represent a major departure from Aristotle’s ethics. The later Christian claim that “the virtuous person does the right actions because they are right” represents no major departure, either, for “that motive is central both to the Aristotelian and to the Stoic account of the virtues”. Might one at least see a major departure in Aquinas’s demotion of naturally acquired moral virtues to “virtues” only in a relative sense, and especially in his argument that all moral virtues simpliciter are gifts of grace, infused by God together with the theological virtue of charity? While Irwin grants that Aquinas “introduces a Christian element” by treating charity as “an appropriate directing principle,” he emphasizes that “the directive role of moral virtue is Aristotelian.”

The growth of bioethics:

Ethical questions in medicine and the life sciences are the subject of not one but two relatively new academic fields: “bioethics” and “health and human rights”. Although moral questions about the ethics of medicine and related areas have been asked for as long as people have asked questions about ethics, it is only within the last few decades that new fields devoted specifically to such questions have arisen. The growth of these fields has stimulated further attention to important moral questions in medicine and biology. Although this is to be welcomed, there is also much to be regretted about the route bioethics has taken and about the very emergence of health and human rights as a distinct academic field. More specifically, bioethics suffers from some serious quality control problems, while health and human rights seems to be in violation of a disciplinary version of Occam's razor, which proscribes the proliferation of disciplines or fields beyond necessity. In other words, health and human rights, as an academic field, does not seem to do anything that cannot be done either by bioethics, if the rights in question are moral rights or by the law if the rights are legal rather than moral. Moreover, it is characterised by weaknesses that, unlike those of bioethics, cannot be overcome.

“Bioethics” can be understood in a broader or narrower way. Following the broader construal, bioethics includes not only philosophical study of the ethics of medicine, but also such areas as medical law, medical anthropology, medical sociology, health politics, health economics and even some areas of medicine itself. On the narrower construal, bioethics, although it may draw on these other disciplines, is itself only an area of philosophical inquiry. More specifically, bioethics is one branch of practical or applied ethics, which is one branch of ethics, which in turn is one branch of philosophy. Although the first of these views of bioethics is the dominant one, it is the latter view that is preferable. A number of reasons can be advanced in support of this. Firstly, given that law and anthropology, for example, are not part of ethics, there is no reason to think that medical law and medical anthropology should be part of bioethics. Secondly, the broader view of bioethics fosters some unfortunate mistakes that many are already prone to make. For example, taking medical law to be part of bioethics encourages the common confusion between law and ethics, terms that are neither synonymous nor coextensive. Viewing such areas as medical anthropology or medical sociology as part of bioethics encourages the mistake of confusing descriptions with prescriptions. Social scientific study of the ethics of medicine is aimed at describing what the case is. For example, anthropologists tell us what a particular culture's ethical view of some medical practice is. This is not to deny that anthropologists, lawyers, psychologists, or economists engage in complicated ways of reasoning. It is to say that they reason and argue about the way things are—what some culture thinks, or what the law is, for example. By contrast, practical ethics involves advancing and examining arguments about what ought, morally, to be done and not done—about what is right and wrong.

To say that bioethics should be construed in the narrow way is not to deny the importance of the sciences, social sciences, and law to bioethics. These disciplines are clearly indispensable to practical ethics. One cannot reach an informed conclusion about what should be done in some practical case if one does not have all the relevant information about the way things are. Indeed, there are even circumstances where moral disagreement is entirely eliminated once the relevant facts are established. Disciplines other than moral philosophy therefore play a crucial role. However, a problem arises when scientists, social scientists, and lawyers slip from doing what they are trained to do into doing moral philosophy. Although some do a reasonable job with the latter, very many do not. There is a parallel problem for philosophers who work in the area of practical ethics. Because this area requires knowledge of science, social science, and sometimes law, practical philosophers have to familiarise