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Summary on Ethics lectures
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A summary of the lectures of the Ethics course from the biomedical Science Master from year 20/21.
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ETHICSINTRODUCTION TO ETHICS
- Ethics is the practical study of deciding how we ought to act.
o The branch of philosophy that deals with morality and values.
Systematic reflection on morality.
Providing reasons to justify our decisions.
- We have to engage in ethical reflection when the values, rights, interest desires of ‘an other’ are at
stake or harmed (Moral problems)
o How do we recognize values, rights, interests and desires?
o How do we define the other? Who is a proper subject of moral concern? Who or what can be
said to have ‘intrinsic value’? (This is always an open question and there is never a consent on
it, you can have you own answer if you reason well).
o Ethical reasoning is needed whenever we are confronted with a moral problem.
- Almost anything can be morally pertinent ‘other’. (humans or ecosystems or anything else).
- Ethical reasoning ….
Values are concepts or beliefs, about desirable end states or behaviours, that transcend specific situations,
guide selection or evaluation of behaviour and events, and are ordered by relative importance.
In short Values are what we think is important. Values can be transformed into norms.
Conceptualization and analysis:
- What do you mean with value such-and-such?
- ….
Thomas Midgley jr. is the inventor of leaded fuel and chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs).
Leaded fuel keeps engines from knocking. CFS used in refrigerants as repellent… ?
This had an immense negative impact on human health and environment. It took more than half a
century before all fuels were free of lead. The toxicity of lead was already known for a long time and there was
an alternative readily available. He also got sick from it himself. This didn’t keep him from making this into a
product.
What went wrong here?
- Safety for people and planet were clearly not among General Motor’s core values (money over
health).
Motivational assumptions
- Science, technology and innovation can help solve problems and be valuable in many ways – but can also
cause (new) problems.
Ethics as a design discipline
- Design problems and moral problems have something in common: they rarely have one unique correct
solution.
SAFE-BY-DESIGN
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 practise, instead of merely doing things right.
Standardized ways of dealing with risks (guidelines and certification) help you prevent bringing danger into the
world. But does complying with these means you do the right thing?
Safety is a very important value (‘safety first’).
Safety is often predominantly regarded as a regulatory requirement:
- Safe-by-compliance (following rules)
- ‘end-of-pipe’ type interventions (you have to make it through every phase of design).
We are currently witnessing a shift towards safety as a core value and a precondition for product development.
Safe-by-design expresses this move towards taking into account safety pro-actively, early on, continuously and
integrally in research and innovation trajectories.
The pacing problem
‘Technology changes exponentially (fast), but social, economic, and legal systems chance incrementally (slow).‘
Especially when working on emerging technologies, there will often be no relevant laws or regulations in place
warranting safety and other public values.
The Collingridge dilemma
‘When change is easy, the need for it cannot be foreseen; when the need for change is apparent, change has
become expensive, difficult and time-consuming.’
So we have a problem inherent to the innovation and a problem in the decision-making.
Safe-by-design is in a sense dealing with these problems. Another solution that is used in the EU is precaution.
The precaution 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 casu GMOs.
Safe-by-design intends to be less a barrier to innovation,
rather a facilitator or even a driver of innovation.
There are four types of innovation
1. Regular (incremental) innovation:
Builds on existing knowledge and aims at existing customers.
E.g. new model of a mobile phone.
2. Niche innovation:
Builds on existing knowledge but reaches out to new
customers or markets. E.g. GPS device especially for cyclists.
3. Revolutionary (radical) innovation:
Aimed at existing customers but based on new knowledge.
E.g. electric cars.
4. Architectural (disruptive) innovation:
Based on new knowledge that opens up new markets for the
innovator. E.g. the T-ford, the television, fighter jets, the
internet, nanotechnology, fertilizers etc.
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