Science ethics

The ethics of science is concerned with the ethical aspects of scientific research. This relates both to ethical standards within the sciences and to the social impact of the research process.

aims

Scientific ethics seeks answers to the questions: What is ethically permitted within the framework of what is scientifically possible? Which things should be left unexplored? To what extent is a scientist responsible for the application of the work results?

In addition to legal regulations on scientific misconduct , two instruments should be mentioned with which the principles of scientific ethics are implemented in practice:

Subject-specific ethics codes
Ethics committees and commissions against scientific misconduct such as the ombudsman for science or the joint committee for dealing with security-relevant research of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

Both instruments rely on the internal scientific correction of undesirable developments, since state demarcations in Germany are problematic due to the freedom of research guaranteed in Article 5 of the Basic Law .

Ethics committees are particularly common in the field of medical and bioethical issues. Subject-specific ethics codes and job-related ethics codes that set up ethical rules for individual professional groups cannot be clearly separated from one another.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Academy of Sciences have been devoting themselves for a long time to the issue of the problem identified by the keyword "dual use", namely that research results that open up great opportunities can also be misused in almost all fields of science. In 2015, for example, they founded a “Joint Committee on Dealing with Security-Relevant Research” which supports the implementation of the recommendations of the DFG and Leopoldina on “Scientific Freedom and Scientific Responsibility”. This applies in particular to the establishment of the Commissions for Research Ethics (KEF) provided for in the recommendations.

history

In the course of the late 1930s, for example, it became foreseeable that the enormous energies of nuclear fission could also be used for weapons . Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development and initial use of nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project shows the conflict of interest between feasibility thinking , personal ideals and the interests of government . Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard turned to Franklin D. Roosevelt before the start of World War II . The two physicists urged the American president to advance research on the atomic bomb in order to forestall the scientists of Nazi Germany. After the war and under the influence of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki , Einstein became a staunch opponent of the use of nuclear weapons. Contrary to popular belief, Einstein made no scientific contribution to the development of nuclear weapons. Criticism of science was later directed against the creation of weapons that could literally destroy all human life on earth at the push of a button ( overkill ). On the other hand, there were always voices from science who warned of the dangers of the nuclear arms race , such as the Göttingen Eighteen or Andrei Sakharov .

Genetic research has been at the center of ethical discussions since the 1990s . When using embryos for stem cell research , it is important to consider which forms of human life are to be protected from external interference (see also the debates on abortion and euthanasia ). An even more far-reaching ethical dilemma arises with therapeutic or cloning intervention in the human germ line . Science provides methods that change human life itself. Appropriate tools are given to proponents of eugenics . Here the criticism is directed against the lack of interest of many scientists in asking ethical questions and taking responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of their actions.

literature

Felix Hammer: Self-censorship for researchers? Focus of a scientific ethics . Edition Interfrom, Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-7201-5162-X .

Hans Lenk (Ed.): Science and Ethics , Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-15-008698-1 .

Thomas Reydon: Science Ethics: An Introduction , Stuttgart: Ulmer / UTB, 2013.

Web links

International Center for Ethics in Science

At the TU Clausthal there have been lectures on science, technology and ethics since 1997 : since 1998 there has been a lecturer for this subject. Almost every topic of our modern society is dealt with, examined and critically questioned in interdisciplinary conversations and discussions.