Abstract

This review describes the principles underpinning bioscience ethics as derived directly from scientific, social and environmental perspectives. It highlights how the scientific community can be more helpful in contemporary ethics. The connections between institutionalized warfare, environmental insecurity and future survival prospects are made. For example, the greenhouse effect, desertification and increasing scarcity of fresh water, are likely to cause violent competition for scarce resources, increasing the existing magnitude of environmental destruction. Biological warfare, the most feared form of global terrorism, is described. The review ends by asking whether we can afford to continue to allow the citizens of today to claim rights over the citizens of tomorrow, and suggests that we must seriously question the nature of our commitment to future generations. In conclusion, possible steps in the transition from an 'ethic of duty' to an 'ethic of care' are described