IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 56
This sentiment is an honorable
one, but it does not consider whether
or not the researcher has an obligation to avoid harming the public. It
assumes deterministically that these
good values of science lead to good
technology which leads to good
social results. It ignores the historical evidence that many research
projects have not led to good social
results, including the case of Agent
Orange which illustrates this section of the booklet. Because this is
these subjects at Cornell, prompts
me to suggest some practical
guidance about how to improve
our teaching of social responsibility
in research.11
First, I recommend addressing head-on the inversion of priority toward social responsibility
in research and engineering ethics. My experience teaching an
NSF-required session on research
ethics for undergraduate students
doing research in nanoscience and
Reflection on possible
consequences while conducting
research is also a worthy value -
one we seem to expect engineers
to have more so than scientists.
a historical case, rather than a hypothetical one, there are no questions
asking readers about the ethics of
Galston's actions throughout this
episode, alternative paths he might
have taken, or the responsibility of
other researchers in this case. readers miss the opportunity to consider
what the social responsibilities of
scientists are while they are conducting research. Monitoring is
a worthy value, but reflection on
possible consequences while conducting research is also a worthy
value - one we seem to expect
engineers to have more so that
scientists.10
Recommendations
This brief analysis of the history
and present state of priorities in
research and engineering ethics,
as well as my experience teaching
technology during the summer at
Cornell is that they respond well
to this approach. Their puzzlement that engineers are expected to
privilege public health and safety,
while scientists are not, leads them
to reflect on their own expectations
of research and their status in the
university laboratories. They see
the hybridity of science and engineering in the labs because nano
research is conducted by both
scientists and engineers, often in
the same building. Being young,
they are also idealistic and are
very interested in the social implications of their research. I try to
balance the attention I give to the
conduct of research and its possible consequences. The main way
I've done this is to introduce the
inversion of priorities about social
responsibility, discuss a case or two
11
10
The view that the main social responsibility of
scientists pertains to their public role in giving
expert testimony, making statements to the public, and advocacy has most likely been shaped
by post World War II cases of the scientist in the
public eye, beginning with the scientist's movement of the atomic scientists.
56
|
In contrast to my proposals, which are directed
at introducing social responsibility into the teaching research ethics, Mitcham [8, pp. 280-282]
advocates moving beyond collective role responsibility (the recognition by the scientific community of the need for rCr) to co-responsibility between scientists and citizens in the areas of public
debate and technology assessment.
along the lines of those on research
conduct in On Being a Scientist -
though I tend to use more detailed
cases - and discuss in-depth a current social concern about nanoscience and technology, such as the
toxicity of nano products or the
creation of surveillance bots.
My second recommendation
is to bring literature from Science
and Technology Studies - the
history, sociology, and philosophy
of science and technology - to
bear on research ethics. One value
of that approach is to question the
sharp boundary drawn between
science and engineering in the
cases we use.12
Third, I recommend expanding
the material on social responsibility in the booklet On Being a Scientist and giving it a higher priority
in the next revision. Including a
statement on the obligation to protect the public's safety and welfare
should be considered, as well as
explicit statements about the duties
of social responsibility during the
conduct of research. I suggest adding a hypothetical case study on
this aspect of social responsibility to balance the current historical case on the public role of the
scientist. One might go further
and devote two sections to social
responsibility: one on the conduct
of research and one on interactions
with the public. That would send
the message that social responsibility involves attending to large-sale
social consequences as much as it
does to the obligation to care for
the welfare of experimenters and of
the human subjects of research.
While writing this paper, I
looked for an existing case that
would exemplify what I had in
mind about teaching the broad
social responsibility of conducting research. In the six volumes of
cases on graduate research ethics,
edited by Brian Schrag at APPE
and published from 1997 to 2002,
I found one case on obligations to
12
On this approach, see [10].
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE
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