Science and Public Responsibility
The Need for a Science Code of Conduct?
These evolving materials are provided to encourage continuing and new thought about
science and its role in culture and, in particular, about the possible need of both
scientists and others to clarify the ethical responsibilities inherent in scientific
research. Your thoughts are welcome in the on-line forum area below.
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Had I stood firm the scientists could have
developed something like the
doctor's Hippocratic Oath, a vow to use their knowledge
exclusively for
mankind's benefit.
As things are, the best that can be hoped for is
a race of inventive
dwarfs who can be hired for any purpose
.... Bertold Brecht, Galileo, Scene 14 |
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Is science made up of "a race of inventive dwarfs who can be hired for any purpose"?
Should scientists pay more attention to and accept more responsibility for the impacts of their work? Should scientists and others more clearly distinguish among work done for the sake of knowledge, work done for the benefit of humanity, and work done for commercial gain? Should there be some kind of ethical code of conduct for science? |
"Perhaps the oldest and most persistently problematic
ethical ambiguity in contemporary views of science relates to the question of the
degree of responsibility that scientists have for the social consequences of their
activities. Conceiving of science as the pursuit of "Truth", or of short-term human
well-being, permits scientists a posture either of moral and ethical "neutrality" or
of assumed virtue neither carefully thought through nor genuinely earned."
A Vision of Science (and Science Education) in the 21st Century |
Resources (to come)
- On the use of animals in research - Senior Seminar in Neural and Behavioral Science, 18 March 2008
First posted by Rebecca Pisciotta and Paul Grobstein, 21 March 2008
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