opencopy.org

- Bridgstock, Ch. 4 -

A. Introduction

Science is an activity that has been largely controlled by insiders. Typically, a young scientist learns the ethics of his/her job through an apprenticeship. Although there are some generally accepted ethical standards in science, the problem has been that the autonomy of the scientist to pursue truth has gotten in the way of establishing a code of ethics for the profession. While many other professions have created their own codes of acceptable behaviour in recent years, it is interesting to note that most of the ethical codes that apply to science have needed to be posed from outside the scientific community. The Nuremberg Code of 1949, for example, was a response to the horrific human experiments conducted by Nazi scientists during the second world war. Here, Dr. Joseph Mengele operated on Jewish children without any anesthetic.

The issue is whether society has the right to intrude into the behaviour of scientific communities on ethical grounds and, if so, to what extent. The case of Joseph Mengele’s use of human subjects is clearly offensive to most people’s moral sentiments. But what about other cases? What about the use of experimental drugs that are tested on humans but that could have potentially dangerous side effects? What about the widespread experimentations conducted on animals? Is it right to prevent scientists from engaging in these practices when such activities might lead to a cure that benefits all of humanity.

In the case of Nazi scientific experiments, even a seemingly clear-cut case of racism and shocking inhumanity can become problematic. Is it legitimate, for example, for today’s scientists today to use the research of Nazi scientists to provide evidence for their own studies, even though that information was obtained cruelly? Does the use of such information in some way legitimize the horrors that were perpetrated on Jews and other people that were considered to be inferior? How would you feel if your grandparents or relatives were among those who were slaughtered on the bench of Nazi science? Would you allow the information obtained through such suffering to be circulated in the scientific community?

Before the seventeenth-century, most people would not have regarded scientific truth in sufficiently high esteem to allow it the kind of freedom and self-policing that it obtained by the mid nineteenth-century. In earlier times, the morality of the community dominated all kinds of activity, particularly scientific activities. The scientist had the same ethical responsibility to observe social norms as any other citizen. In our own times, at least in the developed Western nations, we value individual freedom so much that a clear communal morality no longer exists except in extreme cases. Moreover, we value knowledge so much that we are often willing to bend ethics in the interest of information.

This belief in freedom and truth causes a real problem in the case of science, because scientists have considerable power in our society and their activities are largely insulated or hidden from the community. How can we even begin to discuss the rights and wrongs of science in a modern but meaningful way.

B. Ethical Theories

While there is no ethical consensus in the modern age, there are some tried and true ways of achieving moral judgments. The three approaches that are most often discussed and debated are:

• Deontological or Non-Consequential,
• Consequential or Utilitarian,
• Existential.

i. Deontology

Deontological means a belief that certain actions, and even motives, are good, while others are bad. When we talk about conscience being our guide, we are adopting a deontological perspectives. If we believe that killing, stealing and lying are wrong at all times and in all cultures, we are adopting a deontological perspective. If we believe that everyone has universal rights as a human being that should not be interfered with (i.e. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), we are talking in deontological terms.

Deontology is sometimes called non-consequentialism, because we are not so much concerned with the consequences of our behaviour as whether it is right or wrong. Thus, while we might consider a person so irritating that the world would be better off without him or her, that doesn’t mean that we should kill them. Or, while we might feel that someone is rich and well-insured, that doesn’t excuse stealing from them. Telling a lie is wrong and most of us feel guilty whenever we do so.

Deontological arguments are often based on human rights. If humans have a conscience or the capacity for morality, they also have free will and dignity. To infringe upon the free will and dignity of any human being is wrong, no matter what reasons one might offer. Deontological arguments also favour equality and justice because these are consistent with dignity and respect for other human beings.

Religious viewpoints are highly deontological in so far as they not only define right and wrong in the terms outlined above, but also argue that these norms are god given. Many modern writers on ethics, however, take exception to the tendency of some religious believers to take a dogmatic approach to ethics rather than to defend these positions on the basis of logic, common sense or human characteristics.

The good thing about deontology is that makes it clear what right and wrong is. Its weakness is that it tends to view a very gray modern world in terms that are black and white. Moreover, it is highly resistant to change. In a changing society or in extreme circumstances, sometimes rigid moral codes can be a problem. For example, one might believe that killing is wrong, but what does one do during wartime?

A good example of a deontological approach to science would be the condemnation of any experiments on human beings that are conducted without the free consent of the individuals being tested.

ii. Consequentialism

Consequentialism is a very secular form of reasoning about ethics that was developed during the nineteenth-century. A consequentialist believes that the most important thing is to consider the ends of one’s actions. If the end or the consequence is good, then the means to achieve it is also good. Lying, or even killing, to achieve a good end may be permissible from a consequentialist perspective. The appropriate and difficult question for a consequentialist, however, is what is good and how can we measure it.

The utilitarians, originally followers of Jeremy Bentham during the nineteenth-century, answered this question by suggesting that the happiness of the rational individual is the greatest good possible. Thus, they began as advocates of as much freedom from government or communal norms as possible. The problem with such a standpoint, in its original formulation, was that it often happens that the happiness of one individual comes into conflict with the happiness of others. In order to make the theory work, Jeremy Bentham developed the principle of the greatest good of the greatest number.

Ironically, utilitarianism in its final articulation, can justify interfering with the happiness of the individual in order to achieve greater happiness in society. Ultimately, the individual counts for very little and society counts for a lot. Utilitarianism can justify stepping on the rights of the individual if this is demonstrably good for the greatest number.

An important variation on utilitarianism is rule utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is difficult to apply on a case by case basis. Is something good for the greatest number or isn’t it? Sometimes, it is difficult to say. Rule utilitarians believe in adopting a moral code that people generally agree achieves the greatest good of the greatest number overall.

A good example of a utilitarian approach to science might be to speed up the production and application of drugs or other products that have not been fully tested on the grounds that these will add a net benefit to society. Aids patients, for example, are demanding that new drugs be introduced more quickly despite the risks attached.

iii. Existential Ethics

Existential ethics is a twentieth-century approach to moral problems. The basic premise of existentialism is that human life has no intrinsic or absolute meaning. Human beings give meaning to their lives by acting with a moral purpose. But this is not something that the community can do; it is the responsibility of our individual selves. Each individual person must define morality for himself and herself. There are no absolute rules and no moral theories that are universally applicable.

What this translates into is an emphasis on three moral characteristics. First, the individual must take responsibility for their actions. Since every individual creates their moral universe, they are totally responsible for the morality of their actions. Second, the individual needs to act consistently and, especially, with integrity. Otherwise, their life will have no meaning. Third, individuals must demonstrate authenticity in their actions. If actions are inauthentic, or characterized by the deception of the self or others, their moral significance is continually undermined.

When we allow for a diversity of opinions on what is right and wrong, we inhabit an existential universe. When we expect people to be consistent in their moral beliefs, and take responsibility for their actions, we are adopting existential ethics. When we want people to stand up and be counted for these beliefs, we are espousing existential ethics.

A good example of the existential approach to science is the demand that scientists take greater personal responsibility for their investigations. Existential ethicists are also inclined to attack scientists for hiding behind such clichés as the search for truth or other forms of what they would term self-deceit. Existentialists look at scientists as human beings first and scientists second.

iv. Blended Approaches

In modern practice, when evaluating actions, we usually use more than one theory. Some theories apply better than others to different situations. Ethicists, therefore, sometimes advocate a blended approach. When using a blended approach, it is useful to use the specific approaches in a certain order:

First, adopting a deontological perspective, we should examine whether or not our actions infringe upon the rights and dignity of others. Human beings have considerable power to harm others by their actions, so it is only right that we begin by protecting the rights of individuals, even if we don’t consider those rights inalienable. In science, this translates into taking special care to affirm the essential humanity of people whenever we do testing.

Second, we should take into account the effects of our actions. It is not enough that our intentions are good; we need to take pains to ensure that whatever it is that we do will not result in bad consequences. In science, this translates into looking more closely at what the implications or applications of our research will be. We cannot live in a vacuum and pretend that our work is neutral. We must take into account the consequences.

Third, we must accept responsibility for our actions, by trying always to act consistently and with integrity. This means thinking more deeply about the significance of what we are doing and being willing to take the blame as well as the credit for our actions. In science, this translates into accepting moral responsibility for all of our activities. Sometimes, it may mean whistle blowing or standing up and saying when scientific activities pose a danger.

C. Ethical Cases

Now let’s look at some cases of rights and wrongs in science to determine whether or not certain scientific activities are ethical, on the understanding that some topics are more difficult to assess than others.

i. Nazi Science

Nazi science clearly breaks the basic ethical guidelines of all three approaches. First, it contradicts fundamental deontological ethics by failing to respect the inherent dignity and universal rights of individuals, presumably because they come from inferior races. Second, it fails to meet the requirements of utilitarianism because it inflicts great unhappiness on a significant part of the population without a clear rationale that this will lead to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Third, Nazi scientists fail to meet existential criteria because they routinely denied responsibility for their actions, typically claiming that they were obeying the instructions of their superiors.

ii. Tuskegee Project

The Tuskegee project (using blacks with syphilis as an experimental control group) runs into a number of problems with respect to the basic ethical guidelines. It also contradicts the deontological approach because it fails to respect the dignity of those being tested by failing to inform them of the nature of the study. Once a treatment for syphilis in the form of penicillin was discovered, and not provided to this control group, this investigation transgressed the right of the test group to equal treatment and constituted an act of violence towards a minority group. In terms of utilitarianism, the scientific study runs into serious problems as well. Not only did the study in its later stages cause great suffering for the test group, but it also endangered the larger population by allowing syphilitic individuals to unknowingly infect the larger community. Any potential benefits from the study needed to be measured against the significant unhappiness that it engendered. Finally, the Tuskegee project shows that many of the scientists involved were not acting with integrity because they remained silent about the questionable aspects of their work. An open discussion clearly would have drawn attention to the inadequacy and poor science of the project; but scientists and medical investigators continued to protect one another.

iii. National Women’s Hospital

The case of the National Women’s Hospital is more complex. One could argue that Professor Herbert Green was acting responsibly and with integrity because he actually believed that a pre-emptive treatment for cervical cancer was doing harm to women by surgically invading their bodies unnecessarily. Green published these views in scholarly journals. The majority of medical men treating the same disease disagreed with Green’s iconoclastic views and also published their disagreement in the scholarly journals. The major ethical problem, therefore, centers around the activities of the scientific community with respect to their patients. In deontological terms, Green and other scientists routinely failed to inform their patients about the risks associated with different forms of treatment. This equates with treating them as objects rather than as persons with free will. In utilitarian terms, Green and his associates allowed a potentially dangerous form of non-treatment to be practiced without any public debate. While the motives of the scientific community may have been pure, the critics of Green especially can be criticized for not informing the general public about these activities in a language and a forum that they could understand. It took two feminist journalists to expose the situation and they ran into severe obstacles from the professional scientific community who failed to appreciate their social responsibility.

iv. Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments

What about a case where providing patients with information would defeat the entire purpose of the experiment? Stanley Milgram had his subjects inflict pain (in the form of electrical shocks) on others. These others were only pretending to receive shocks. The intention of the experiment was to demonstrate how people responded to authority. The experiment proved that normal people were willing to engage in highly questionable activities when they were told to do so by others who appeared to have authority. In effect, the experiment gave us useful information on the need to help individuals maintain their integrity and responsibility in situations where others had authority over them. This is no doubt valuable information. In a strictly utilitarian sense, the experiment was worthwhile. The only drawback was that the individuals inflicting the shocks went through some acute psychological tension during the process. Afterwards, however, most of them found the study valuable and were happy that they had taken part in it.

In utilitarian terms, it makes ethical sense to give a few people a little bit of psychological pain in order to obtain information that could conceivably prevent a great deal of suffering in society. For example, if we know why people acted the way they did during the Holocaust, perhaps we can take measures to prevent such terrible behaviour in the future.

In existential terms, Milgram could consider himself to have acted with integrity and responsibility. The deceit was temporary and had a significant purpose. Millgram debriefed his subjects and assured them that they had caused no suffering. Further follow ups over several months showed that the majority thought that the experiment was important and that further experiments of a similar kind should be conducted.

However, in deontological terms, the experiment was unethical because it deceived individuals and did not obtain their informed consent to the real experiment that was being conducted. It also caused individuals (those inflicting the shocks) with unnecessary, albeit temporary, forms of suffering.

What do you think?

v. Animal Testing

Obviously, a key issue in the analysis of the rights and wrongs of science is the need to always have the dignity and free will of humans in the forefront. The scientific search for truth must always dovetail with our belief that humans are autonomous moral agents that need the information and the freedom to act correctly. Once the scientific search for truth interferes with the operations of the moral community, it is on shaky ethical grounds. That does not mean that there are no times or no conditions when obtaining scientific information takes precedence over the dignity of the individual. You might argue that the Milgram experiments should be permitted on these grounds.

But a problem emerges when one extends this kind of moral reasoning beyond human nature. Humans have rights and should not be made to suffer. Should animals have the same rights? Should they be protected from suffering? This is a huge problem for scientists who routinely use animals for dissection or to test drugs or the ability to withstand conditions. The first astronaut, for example, was a dog who died in outer space to make rocket travel safer for humans.

This is a difficult problem. Deontology, utilitarianism and existentialism all revolve around human beings, and are human-centered ways of looking at the world. But intelligence and suffering are not confined to humans, and many mammals have a high degree of intelligence and capacity to feel pain? Where do we draw the line, especially if we consider that human beings might simply be part of an evolutionary chain of life? And, if you decide that you want to prevent unnecessary suffering among animals, where do you stop? Some people think that plants feel pain.

Unfortunately, Western ethics was never constructed to deal with these issues. In order to examine the issue of animal or natural rights, we need to expand upon the available paradigms. Some religious paradigms - such as Buddhism - provide a rationale for treating all life as sacred, especially since we might be reincarnated as something other than a human. Some ethical theorists place the emphasis on the effect of our treatment of animals and the planet. If we treat animals inhumanely, for example, do we lose touch with our own humanity. Some animals are so like us that our brutality to them is likely to translate to our brutality towards others.

A good argument could be made that scientists and medical investigators have been rendered ethically numb because they treat animals, and sometimes humans, as objects rather than as subjects.

D. Professional Ethics

We have been concerned primarily with the ethical behaviour of scientists as members of the human community and attempting to show how their activities need to be part and parcel of the general moral discussion of behaviour. They are not excluded from the general ethical concerns of society by their search for truth.

At the same time, there are some particular ethical issues that are of extreme importance to the vitality of the profession of doing science. In order to discover truth about human or physical nature, several conditions need to be met. These professional ethical standards are not always met by scientists and, indeed, there is considerable pressure on scientists to act unethically.

Because scientists are promoted for making major discoveries, there is always a temptation to commit fraud - that is to invent or manipulate data in order to support one’s theories.

Because scientists need to publish or perish, there is always a temptation to plagiarize the work of others. For many scientists and other academics, plagiarism is a serious ethical breach because it draws into question the entire enterprise. That is why academics require authors to footnote and acknowledge all information that they get from other researchers.

Because modern science relies on significant research funding for laboratory equipment and students, there is always a tendency to fudge or exaggerate the importance of one’s findings. This tendency is much more pronounced in commercial science where it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring a new drug to market. In these situations, researchers feel pressure to obscure or hide any potentially harmful effects of the new drug.

A gray area involves grantsmanship for scientific research. Continuing installments of grants are based on maintaining progress in the investigations. Many scientists and academics feel that it is acceptable to report results in such a way as to demonstrate continued progress. Thus, for example, I once wrote up a grant for work on a project that had already been partially concluded. That way, when the time came, I was able to produce results. By the time that those results had been reported, I was well on the way to completing the next stage of the process. My justification was that the granting agency got exactly what it wanted and I was able to work on my own timetable without undue pressure.

E. Conclusion

Obviously, it is difficult to know what is going on in the scientific community because it is such a closed entity. The language and communal sanctions of science are such that outsiders rarely understand what is going on. But, when we realize that even professional ethics are a problem in science, we should realize that it is important to scrutinize scientific behaviour. The question is - how can a layperson discover what is going on? Here, we need to encourage the scientific community to be more open in reporting issues, conflicts and problems. And, since that may be unrealistic, we need especially to encourage those scientists with a strong sense of social responsibility to keep the public informed about the rights and wrongs of science.

Being an ethical critic of a complex and integrated organization does not make a person popular. That is why we need to find ways to insulate such whistleblowers from punishment from their institutions, businesses or even their peers. Scientific activities are so specialized and hard to comprehend that, unless some scientists take greater individual responsibility for the actions of themselves or their colleagues, it will be difficult to ensure the social responsibility of science.

In these days, when so much money and prestige rests upon scientific discoveries, publications and implementation, it is foolish to allow scientists to be the sole arbiters of the right and wrong of their actions. In particular, we need to open up scientific discussions to the general community. That may annoy the scientists who have been able to call their own shots for most of the twentieth-century. But it is a healthy response to the increasing power of science in all of our lives.

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The notes presented here are for the AK NATS 1760.06 “Science, Technology and Society” course offered in the Fall/Winter Semester of 2001/2002 by the Atkinson College of York University, Toronto, Canada and taught by John Dwyer. The lectures are based on the following texts:

1. Martin Bridgstock et al, Science, Technology and Society: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1998), ISBN 0-521-58735-2
2. Kevin Robbins and Frank Webster, Times of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to the Virtual Life (New York, Routledge, 1999), ISBN 0-415-16115-0
3. Albert H. Teich, Technology and the Future (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2000), ISBN 0-312-01885-1

For more about John Dwyer, visit: http://www.sayitagain.com/ivorytower/