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Summary Ethics (version 2021)
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I wrote this summary, based on the lecture in the year 2021. It gives a nice overview of the course, and helped me to pass the exam with an 8,5.
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Lecture notes EthicsLecture 1: Introduction Lecture (5th January)
Take-home message
- Ethics is the practical study of deciding how we ought to act.
- We have to engage in ethical reflection when the values, rights, interests, desires of
‘another’ are at stake or harmed
- Almost anything can be a morally pertinent other
- Ethical reasoning requires an open mind and critical reasoning skills
- In this course, we look at ethics as a design discipline
Ethics is the practical study of deciding how we ought to act.
The branch of philosophy that deals with morality and values
- Systematic reflection on morality (values, norms, beliefs)
- Providing reasons to justify our decision
The purpose of education is to learn how to think for yourself
Moral problems arise when the values, rights, interests, desires of ‘another’ are at stake or
harmed.
but how do we recognize these values, rights, interests and desires?
how do we define ‘the other’?
who is proper subject of moral concern?
who or what can be said to have ‘intrinsic value’?
Ethical reasoning is needed whenever we are confronted with a moral problem.
Values refer to what is (or
is perceived as) good.
Values can be
translated into norms
Intermediate step: conceptualization and analysis.
what do you mean with value such-and-such?
why is this valuable?
how does it relate to other values?
when or where is this relevant?
Specific! Tie in with context!
Thomas Midgley jr.
invented or leaded fuel and chlorofluorocarbon (refrigerants)
1. Leaded fuel: to keep engines from “knocking”
o Did have an immense negative impact on human health and environment
o It took more than half a century before all fuels were free of lead (again)
Toxicity of lead was already known
Alternative was readily available
,What went wrong here?
- Safety for people and planate were not clearly among General Motor’s or Midgley’s
core values
- These private actors did not assume responsibility for the public good but only for
their own immediate interests
- Short-term and local benefits were prioritized over long(er)-term and
global/scattered costs
Motivational assumptions:
- Science, technology and innovation can help to solve problems and be valuable in
many ways – but can also cause (new) problems
- Ethics can be a facilitator or even a driver of research, technology and innovation for
good
- This minimally requires prevention of future harmful innovations (like leaded fuel)
- For this, theoretical knowledge and practical instruments for and hands-on-practice
in moral deliberation are requisite.
The direct and indirect, intended and
unintended influences of scientists on the moral
states of others is large.
Lecture 2: Safe by Design (5th January)
Safe-by-design is 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.
There are standardized ways of dealing with risks:
- REACH (chemical substances)
- Risk assessment genetically modified organisms
- CE-certification (Conformité Européenne)
- ISO-standards
- EMA-guidelines
- Etc.
Working by such standards will help you to bring a lot of danger into the world. You might
check all these boxes, but this does not have to mean that you do the right thing.
You do things right, BUT do you do the right thing?
, Safety is a very important value (Safety first).
- It’s broad – environment / animals / humans / species / ecosystems
- Being safe means being protected against harmful events, products, processes, etc.
What is a design?
- Bio-engineering / Chemical-engineering / Nanotechnology / Medical technologies /
instruments / hardware / software
- Model of engineering,
However in real life it
is not linear!
Values differ between these phases:
- originality, truth
- usefulness, chance of profit
Definitions:
Science: the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural
world.
Technology: the science of craft: techniques, skills, methods, processes used to produce
goods or services, knowledge and machinery
Innovation: new ideas, concepts, product, process, technology
Technoscience: Science and technology and social context!
Science and technology are linked and grow together
Scientific knowledge is historically situated and socially constructed, and it is made
durable through material (non-human) networks
Scientific knowledge requires an infrastructure of technology in order to remain
stationary or move forward
Innovations:
aimed at impact on market an/or society
practical implementation of invention/knowledge
not necessarily new knowledge
Ethics mainly is interested in the overlap between (new) knowledge intensive innovation!!
Safety:
- Often predominantly regarded as regulatory requirement
o safe by compliance
o end-of-pipe type interventions
- We are currently witnessing (in several fields) a shift towards safety as a core value
and a precondition for product development
- SbD expresses this move towards taking into account safety pro-actively, early on,
continuously and integrally in research and innovation trajectories
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