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Summary lectures of Ethics in Life Sciences
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Summary of all the given lectures in the Ethics in Life Sciences course
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Ethics in Life SciencesLecture 1: Intro & Ethics as Design Discipline
Take home message:
Safe by design is all about:
- Thinking before doing
- Taking safety – in the broadest sense of the word – into
account integrally in innovation trajectories
- Making doing the right thing standard practice, instead of
merely doing things right
Examples of unsafe innovations
- X-rays
- Nuclear energy
- Gene-therapy
Standardized ways of dealing with risks
- REACH (chemical substances) à regulatory infrastructure
- Risks assessment genetically modified organisms (“Buro GGO”) à checks safety of every
instance working with GMO
- Ce-certification (“Conformité Européenne”)
- ISO-standards
- EMA-guidelines
à complying with these, means you “do things right”
à But does it also mean you do “the right thing”?
Ethics:
à the practical study of deciding how we ought to act
- Systematic reflection on morality (values, norms, beliefs)
- Providing reasons to justify our decisions
Moral problems arise when the values, rights, interests, desires of “another” are at stake or harmed
Safety
à is a very important value (“safety first”)
- Being safe means being protected against harmful event, products, processes etc.
- Safety for environment, animals, humans, species, ecosystems etc.
Design
à (Biological) Engineering, Chemical engineering, Nanotechnology, Medical technologies and
instruments, hardware, software etc.
Desired model:
Central values in phase 1: Originality, Objectivity, Truth
Central values in phase 5: Usefulness, Impact, Efficiency, Speed, Profitability
à Safety only comes in around phase 4 and 5
,Science
à The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world
- Many different disciplines, studying virtually everything we know to exist, using a multitude
of methodologies
Technology
à “The science of craft”
à Techniques, skills, methods, processes used to produce goods or services
à Combines knowledge and machinery
- Everything from bows and arrows to apps on your smartphone or CERN’s Large Hadron
Collider
Innovation
à New idea, concept, product, process, technology..
1. Regular
2. Niche
3. Revolutionary
4. Architectural
New views 9on innovation:
- Aimed at impact on market and or society
- Practical implementation of invention/knowledge
- Not necessarily new knowledge
Technoscience
à Science, technology and social context
- Science and technology are linked and grow together
- Scientific knowledge is historically situated and socially structured, and it’s made durable
through material (non-human) networks
- Scientific knowledge requires an infrastructure of technology in order to remain stationary or
move forward
à In this course we are mostly interested in the overlap between technoscience and innovation:
(new) knowledge-intensive innovation
Safety and safety-by-design
Safety often predominantly regarded as a regulatory requirement:
- Safe by compliance
- “End-of-pipe type of interventions
à We are currently witnessing (in several fields: e.g. AI, nanotechnology, biotechnology, chemistry)
a shift towards safety as a core value and precondition for a product development
à Safety-by-design expresses this move towards taking into account safety pro-actively, early on,
continuously and integrally in research and innovation trajectories.
Difficulties with the shift in safety
1. The pacing problem: “technology changes exponentially, but social, economic and legal
systems change incrementally” (Downes 2009) à Problem inherent to the innovation system
- Technological innovation outpaces the ability of laws and regulations to keep up
- Hence, especially when working on emerging technologies, there will be often no relevant
laws or regulations in place warranting safety and other public values
2. The Collingridge dilemma: “When change is easy, the need for it can’t be foreseen; when the
need for change is apparent, change has become expensive, difficult, and time consuming.
à Translation to contexts of decision making
, Precaution as solution
à The precautionary principle:
- The introduction of new products or processes, the ultimate effects of which are disputed or
unknown, should be resisted. (or: “Better safe than sorry”)
- Application visible in EU rules and regulations in case GMOs
Precaution VS. Safe-by-design
SBD purports to be less a barrier to innovation, than a facilitator or even a driver of innovation
Types of innovation
1. Regular / Incremental (new model of mobile phone)
à build on existing knowledge and aims at existing customers
2. Niche (GPS device especially for cyclists)
à builds on existing knowledge but reaches out to new
customers or markets
3. Revolutionary / Radical (electric cars)
à aimed at existing customers bus based on new knowledge
4. Architectural / Disruptive (the internet)
à based on new knowledge that opens up new markets for the
innovator
Safety was always pertinent (batteries can explode, privacy can be breached etc.)
Risk and uncertainty
Safe-by-design
Safety first! But what about the other values?
Transparency, Openness, Democracy, Justice, Privacy, Sustainability, Welfare etc.
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