Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 237-240.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 293-302.

This article looks at the public debate which took place in the first half of the twentieth century and has repercussions to the present day. It was about the ethical stance of scientists, and how science should be organized. In particular, it examines the positions taken by Professor F. Soddy, F.R.S. and Nobel Laureate, who stressed the responsibility of scientists for the uses made of their research, Professor Michael Polanyi, F.R.S., who emphasised the obligation of scientists to the truth (...) and the essential role of morality in the organization of science, and Professor J.D.Bernal, F.R.S., who insisted that science was practised for utilitarian reasons and should be consciously developed for the good of society. (shrink)

Who owns your genes? What does climate science imply for policy? Do corporations conduct honest research? Should we teach intelligent design? Humans are creating a new world through science. The kind of world we are creating will not simply be decided by expanding scientific knowledge, but will depend on views about good and bad, right and wrong. These visions, in turn, depend on critical thinking, cogent argument and informed judgement. In this book, Adam Briggle and Carl Mitcham help (...) readers to cultivate these skills. They first introduce ethics and the normative structure of science and then consider the 'society of science' and its norms for the responsible conduct of research and the treatment of human and animal research subjects. Later chapters examine 'science in society' - exploring ethical issues at the interfaces of science, policy, religion, culture and technology. Each chapter features case studies and research questions to stimulate further reflection. (shrink)

Introduction to reprint edition of A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science.

This a general account of the school of Mo-tzu, its social basis as a movement of craftsmen, its isolated place in the Chinese tradition, and the nature of its later contributions to logic, ethics, and science. It assesses the relation of Mohist thinking to the structure of the Chinese language, and grapples with the textual dynamics of later Mohist writings, particularly in regard to grammar and style, technical terminology, the use and significance of stock examples, and overall organization. (...) Includes edited and annotated Chinese text with an English translation and commentary, a glossary, and a photographic reproduction of the unemended text from the Taoist Patrology. (shrink)

The principle of clinical equipoise requires that, aside from certain exceptional cases, second generation treatments ought to be tested against standard therapy. In violation of this principle, placebo-controlled trials (PCTs) continue to be used extensively in the development and licensure of second-generation treatments. This practice is typically justified by appeal to methodological arguments that purport to demonstrate that active-controlled trials (ACTs) are methodologically flawed. Foremost among these arguments is the so called assay sensitivity argument. In this paper, I take a (...) closer look at this argument. Following Duhem, I argue that all trials, placebo-controlled or not, rely on external information for their meaningful interpretation. Pending non-circular empirical evidence that we can trust the findings of PCTs to a greater degree than the findings of ACTs, I conclude that the assay sensitivity argument fails to demonstrate that placebo-controlled trials are preferable, methodologically or otherwise, to active-controlled trials. Contrary to the intentions of its authors, the fundamental lesson taught by the assay sensitivity argument is Duhemian: the validity of all clinical trials depends on external information. (shrink)

Science has always been tightly associated with environmental ethics in a way traditional ethics has not. However, despite this proximity, science has had a merely informational role, where it must inform ethics but not intervene in ethical judgment. Science is seen as an amoral enterprise, requiring an ethics rather than recommending one. In this paper I try to go against this common view. First, I give a critique of the naturalistic fallacy following the (...) lines of Frankena. Then I go on to describe the two possible roles science can have in ethical though, and in environmental ethics in particular. As it turns out, science does not only inform ethics, but can actually have moral import and intervene in moral judgment. Finally, from an ecocentric point of view, I try to illustrate this last point by construing the ecological notion of resilience as a moral boundary—a scientifically determined boundary between right and wrong. (shrink)

This essay introduces this special issue on virtue ethics in relation to military AI. It describes the current situation of military AI ethics as following that of AI ethics in general, caught between consequentialism and deontology. Virtue ethics serves as an alternative that can address some of the weaknesses of these dominant forms of ethics. The essay describes how the articles in the issue exemplify the value of virtue-related approaches for these questions, before ending with (...) thoughts for further research. (shrink)

It has frequently been lamented that while the human species has made immense progress in science it is nevertheless ethically backward. This ethical backwardness is all the more dangerous because the advanced state of scientific knowledge has made available a technology with which we are able to destroy ourselves—indeed a technology which may have got so much out of hand that we may not even have the capacity to prevent it from destroying us.

In celebration of Einstein's remarkable achievements in 1905, this essay examines some of his views on the role of “intellectuals” in developing and advocating socio-economic and political positions and policies, the historical roots of his ethical views and certain aspects of his philosophy of science. As an outstanding academic and public citizen, his life and ideas continue to provide good examples of a life well-used and worth remembering.

An emerging view of science rejects an infallible observational given and takes consensus as the starting point for confirmation. Theory and Observation are seen as mutually correcting. I argue that the same is true of ethics, such as Rawls' "reflective equilibrium." Though epistemologically similar, their truth conditions may differ. Ethics may be reducible to physics; but even if it is not, that does not imply that it has no truth conditions. The options for truth in ethics (...) are the same as those of other abstract fields such as mathematics. (shrink)

This paper argues that morality is objective in a specific sense that accords with a broadly expressivist stance in metaethics. The paper also explains that although there is a kind of subjectivity in moral inquiry, the same holds for other kinds of normative inquiry, including epistemic and even scientific inquiry, and moreover that this kind of subjectivity is no threat to morality’s objectivity. The argument for the objectivity of morality draws strong parallels between ethics, epistemology, and science, but (...) does not depend on equally strong parallels between ethics and mathematics. I argue that there is more to learn from a comparison between ethics and mathematics than I used to think, but the difference between the issues that come up in thinking about objectivity in ethics and those that come up in thinking about objectivity in mathematics is substantial, and we cannot carry over results from the philosophy of mathematics to the case of morality. (shrink)

This book discusses how we can inspire today's youth to engage in challenging and productive discussions around the past, present and future role of animals in science education. Animals play a large role in the sciences and science education and yet they remain one of the least visible topics in the educational literature. This book is intended to cultivate research topics, conversations, and dispositions for the ethical use of animals in science and education. This book explores the (...) vital role of animals with/in science education, specimens, protected species, and other associated issues with regards to the role of animals in science. Topics explored include ethical, curriculum and pedagogical dimensions, involving invertebrates, engineering solutions that contribute to ecosystems, the experiences of animals under our care, aesthetic and contemplative practices alongside science, school-based ethical dialogue, nature study for promoting inquiry and sustainability, the challenge of whether animals need to be used for science whatsoever, reconceptualizing museum specimens, cultivating socioscientific issues and epistemic practice, cultural integrity and citizen science, the care and nurturance of gender-balanced curriculum choices for science education, and theoretical conversations around cultivating critical thinking skills and ethical dispositions. The diverse authors in this book take on the logic of domination and symbolic violence embodied within the scientific enterprise that has systematically subjugated animals and nature, and emboldened the anthropocentric and exploitative expressions for the future role of animals. At a time when animals are getting excluded from classrooms (too dangerous! too many allergies! too dirty!), this book is an important counterpoint. Interacting with animals helps students develop empathy, learn to care for living things, engage with content. We need more animals in the science curriculum, not less. David Sobel, Senior Faculty, Education Department, Antioch University New England. (shrink)

Offers a vision of wholeness for approaching human ethical responses to what science is telling us about the crises facing our environment and climate.

Contributing Authors Are Francis G. Wilson, Kenneth E. Boulding, Herbert Johnson And Others.

Biomedical research is an increasingly multidisciplinary activity bringing together a range of different academic fields and forms of expertise to investigate diseases that are increasingly understood to be complex and multifactorial. Recently the discipline of ethics has been starting to find a place in large-scale biomedical collaborations. In this article we draw from our experience of working with the Malaria Genomic Epidemiology Network and other research projects to reflect upon the integration of ethics into biomedical research. We examine (...) the way in which ethics input may be valuable to research, the forms it tends to take, and also the problems and limitations of such collaborations. (shrink)

The 21st century has been revolutionary for the field of clinical genomics, with major advancements and breakthroughs over the years. It is now considered an instrumental tool in clinical and preventive medicine and has been used on a day-to-day basis to complement current clinical practice. However, with advancements in genomics comes greater bioethical concerns, which becomes increasingly complex with more cutting-edge technology. Some of the major ethical concerns include obtaining informed consent, possibility for genetic enhancements and eugenics, genomic equity and (...) potential discrimination and cloning. It is imperative that we appreciate the benefits of genomic medicine in complementing traditional practices, identify and address the ethical concerns with relation to the practice of genomic medicine, and to ensure a common goal of improving human lives. With these in mind, the practice of genomics can have maximum impact in the collective health of the population, with greater benefit to all. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001713213; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 908-928.; Physical Description: graphs ; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 926-928.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

The intersection of ethics, computing, and genetics plots a space not yet adequately mapped, despite its importance, indeed, its rapidly growing importance. Its subdomains are well-enough known: or the study of ethical issues in genetics and genomics, is part of core curricula everywhere. Ethics and computing is an established subfield. Computing and geneticshas in little more than a decade progressed from subsubspecialty to the sine qua non of contemporary biomedical research, and it bids fair to transform clinical practice. (...) We must prepare for the complete digitization of the genomes of individual patients and the storage of millions of these genomes in very large databases. (shrink)

Ethics, Animals and Science provides an introduction to ethics, aimed especially at those who work with animals in a scientific setting. Following an introduction to ethics in general, the book goes on to concentrate on the ethical issues which are closely associated with the most commonly occurring topics in debates on the use of animals in research. An attempt is made to find common premises for discussions which in the past have often proved to be mere (...) dialogues of the deaf. (shrink)

Efforts to promote responsible conduct of research (RCR) should take into consideration how scientists already conceptualize the relationship between ethics and science. In this study, we investigated how scientists relate ethics and science by analyzing the values expressed in interviews with fifteen science faculty members at a large midwestern university. We identified the values the scientists appealed to when discussing research ethics, how explicitly they related their values to ethics, and the relationships between (...) the values they appealed to. We found that the scientists in our study appealed to epistemic and ethical values with about the same frequency, and much more often than any other type of value. We also found that they explicitly associated epistemic values with ethical values. Participants were more likely to describe epistemic and ethical values as supporting each other, rather than trading off with each other. This suggests that many scientists already have a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between ethics and science, which may be an important resource for RCR training interventions. (shrink)

With the title “Philosophy and Cognitive Science: Western and Eastern Studies,” the average reader can expect to find at least three things: a book on the main relationships between cognitive science and philosophy, a text that compares the academic research on cognitive science in Western contexts with Eastern contexts , and finally a significant representation of main Western and Eastern countries, at least those participating in contemporary research. Astonishingly none of these three aspects can be found reading (...) this book. The anthology has a basic and recurring topic, abduction, with a special emphasis on co-editor Magnani’s contributions to the field, although some chapters go beyond this sphere. All the quoted authors and book references belong to the Western bibliographical corpus. Despite being the result of a conference held in Guangzhou, China, the book does not represent the main views of b .. (shrink)

In the future, magic, prophecy, and faith, as well as the usual thought patterns of classical philosophy, but also revelations, will no longer serve to convey to people the meaning of existence. The book shows how they are superseded by the modern physical theory of matter. This has far-reaching implications since there is no possibility for the existence of a (creating) God and the cosmos has to be regarded as a "split zero". In addition the book presents an outline for (...) a cosmic ethic, which calls for mutual respect and mutual assistance between all people. (shrink)

Essays on the History and Philosophy of Science by David B. Levy.