Skip to main content
Log in

Basing Science Ethics on Respect for Human Dignity

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Science and Engineering Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A “no ethics” principle has long been prevalent in science and has demotivated deliberation on scientific ethics. This paper argues the following: (1) An understanding of a scientific “ethos” based on actual “value preferences” and “value repugnances” prevalent in the scientific community permits and demands critical accounts of the “no ethics” principle in science. (2) The roots of this principle may be traced to a repugnance of human dignity, which was instilled at a historical breaking point in the interrelation between science and ethics. This breaking point involved granting science the exclusive mandate to pass judgment on the life worth living. (3) By contrast, respect for human dignity, in its Kantian definition as “the absolute inner worth of being human,” should be adopted as the basis to ground science ethics. (4) The pathway from this foundation to the articulation of an ethical duty specific to scientific practice, i.e., respect for objective truth, is charted by Karl Popper’s discussion of the ethical principles that form the basis of science. This also permits an integrated account of the “external” and “internal” ethical problems in science. (5) Principles of the respect for human dignity and the respect for objective truth are also safeguards of epistemic integrity. Plain defiance of human dignity by genetic determinism has compromised integrity of claims to knowledge in behavioral genetics and other behavioral sciences. Disregard of the ethical principles that form the basis of science threatens epistemic integrity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. In Dorothy Nelkin and Susan Lindee’s (2007) words, Watson himself “has… promoted a new eugenics. In publications, lectures, and interviews over the last two decades, he has repeatedly emphasized the promise of new genetic technologies that could enhance personal control over reproduction” (p. 203).

  2. It should have been clear from the above that “inner” in this formula implies no reference to the distinction between “internal” and “external” ethical problems of science (Drenth 2002, 2005; Evers 2001).

  3. In Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics, Onora O’Neill (2003) has particularly stressed that Kant “never speaks of an autonomous self or autonomous persons or autonomous individuals, but rather of the autonomy of reason, of the autonomy of ethics, of the autonomy of principles and of the autonomy of willing” (p. 83, original italics). She argued that this non-individualistic view of autonomy provides a stronger basis for an approach to ethical problems not only in medicine, but also in science and biotechnology, than the conceptions of individual autonomy.

  4. Left–wing eugenicist Julian Huxley (1963) admitted in 1962 that evidence for this postulate was “mainly deductive” (p. 289). This concession came in response to biologist Jacob Bronowski’s protest that he “knows no evidence for” deterioration of populations (Wolstenholm (Ed.) 1963: 285). For Huxley (1963), nevertheless, the alleged deduction was based on a fact: “that we are preserving many more genetically defective people than before, and are getting a lot of radioactive fallout” (p. 289). But assumption of such a “fact” of genetic degeneration was soon to be “dispelled by the new concepts and the theories of genetics” (Roll–Hansen 2010: 86).

  5. A critical evaluation of the existing literature on epistemic integrity is beyond the scope of this paper.

References

  • ACHRE (Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments). (1995). Final report. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Atomic Energy Commission. (1954). In the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcripts of hearing before personnel security board. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, S. B., & Dolby, R. G. A. (1970). The scientific ethos: A deviant viewpoint. European Journal of Sociology, 11(1), 3–25. doi:10.1017/S0003975600001934.

  • Bayertz, K. (1994). GenEthics: Technological intervention in human reproduction as a philosophical problem. (S. L. Kirkby, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1987).

  • Beauchamp, T. L. (2002). Changes of climate in the development of practical ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 8(2), 131–138. doi:10.1007/s11948-002-0014-5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beauchamp, T. L. (2014). In the shadow of Nuremberg: Unlearned lessons from the medical trial. In S. Rubenfeld & S. Benedict (Eds.), Human subjects research after the holocaust (pp. 175–193). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2001). Principles of biomedical ethics (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beecher, H. K. (2001 [1966]). Ethics and clinical research. Bulletin of the World Health Organization: The International Journal of Public Health, 79(4), 367–372. (Original article reproduced from The New England Journal of Medicine, 274(24), 1354–1360).

  • Broberg, G., & Roll-Hansen, N. (Eds.). (2005). Eugenics and the welfare state: Sterilization policy in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Michigan: Michigan State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaufan, C., & Joseph, J. (2013). The ‘missing heritability’ of common disorders: Should health researchers care? International Journal of Health Services, 43(2), 281–303. doi:10.2190/HS.43.2.f.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • CPA (Canadian Psychological Association). (2000). Canadian code of ethics for psychologists (3rd ed.). Ottawa: Canadian Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darwin, C. R. (1871). The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex (Vol. 1). London: John Murray.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dean, R. (2006). The value of humanity in Kant’s moral theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J., & Tufts, J. H. (2008 [1908]). Ethics. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The middle works of John Dewey 18991924, Vol. 5: 1908. Southern Illinois University Press.

  • Drenth, P. J. D. (2002). International science and fair-play practices. Science and Engineering Ethics, 8(1), 5–11. doi:10.1007/s11948-002-0028-z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drenth, P. J. D. (2005). Responsible conduct in science. ALLEA Annual Report 2005 (pp. 93–104). Amsterdam: ALLEA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evers, K. (2001). Standards for ethics and responsibility in science: An analysis and evaluation of their content, background and function. The International Council for Science, The Standing Committee on Responsibility and Ethics in Science. Retrieved from http://www.icsu.org/publications/reports-and-reviews/standards-responsibility-science/SCRES-Background.pdf.

  • Falk, R. (2000). The gene—a concept in tension. In P. J. Beurton, R. Falk, & H-G. Rheinberger (Eds.), Concept of the gene in development and evolution: Historical and epistemological perspectives (pp. 317–347). Cambridge University Press.

  • Fox Keller, E. (2010). The mirage of a space between nature and nurture. Durham, London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gadamer, H.-G. (1996). The enigma of health. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galton, F. (1892 [1869]). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences (2nd ed.). London: MacMillan and Co.

  • Galton, F. (1907 [1883]). Inquiries into human faculty and its development (2nd ed.). Dent & Dutton (Everyman).

  • Galton, F. (1909). Essays in eugenics. London: The Eugenics Education Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gayon, J. (2004). La génétique est-elle encore une discipline? Erudit, 20(2), 248–253.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (2003 [2001]). The debate on the ethical self-understanding of the species. In The future of human nature (pp. 16–74). Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Habermas, J. (2007). The language game of responsible agency and the problem of free will: How can epistemic dualism be reconciled with ontological monism? Philosophical Explorations, 10(1), 13–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (2010). The concept of human dignity and the realistic utopia of human rights. Metaphilosophy, 41(4), 464–480. doi:10.1080/13869790601170128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel, E. (1887 [1868]). History of creation (Vol. 1). New York: D. Appleton and Company. (Original work published 1868).

  • Huxley, J. (1963). The future of man—evolutionary aspects; discussion: Eugenics and genetics. In G. Wolstenholm (Ed.), Man and his future: A CIBA Foundation volume (pp. 1–22; 274–298). Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company.

  • ICSU–SCRES (International Council for Science’s Standing Committee on Responsibility and Ethics in Science). (2000). Ethics and the responsibility of science. Science and Engineering Ethics, 6(1), 131–142. doi:10.1007/s11948-000-0031-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, D. G. (1996). Forbidden knowledge and science as professional activity. Monist, 79(2), 197–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jonas, H. (1978). Straddling the boundaries of theory and practice: Recombinant DNA research as a case of action in the process of inquiry. In J. Richards (Ed.), Recombinant DNA: Science, ethics, and politics (pp. 253–271). New York: Academic Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Joseph, J. (2015). The trouble with twin studies: A reassessment of twin research in the social and behavioral sciences. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalleberg, R. (2007). A reconstruction of the ethos of science. Journal of Classical Sociology, 7(2), 137–160. doi:10.1177/1468795X07078033.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I. (1992). Lectures on logic. J. M. Young (Ed.). (J. M. Young, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1800).

  • Kant, I. (1996a). The metaphysics of morals. In M. J. Gregor (Ed.), Practical philosophy (pp. 363–603). (M. J. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1797).

  • Kant, I. (1996b). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. In M. J. Gregor (Ed.), Practical philosophy (pp. 41–93). (M. J. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1785).

  • Kant, I. (1996c). The conflict of the faculties. In A. W. Wood & G. di Giovanni (Eds.), Religion and Rational Theology (pp. 233–328). (M. J. Gregor & R. Ancho, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1798).

  • Kant, I. (1996d). Critique of practical reason. In M. J. Gregor (Ed.), Practical philosophy (pp. 133–271). (M. J. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1788).

  • Kant, I. (1997 [1775–1794]). Lectures on ethics. P. H. Heath & J. B. Schneewind (Eds.). (P. Heath, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1924).

  • Kant, I. (1998). Critique of pure reason. P. Guyer, & A. Wood (Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1781, 2nd ed. 1787).

  • Kant, I. (2002). Critique of the power of judgment. P. Guyer (Ed.). (P. Guyer & E. Matthews, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1790).

  • Kant, I. (2006). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In R. Louden (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1798).

  • Katz, J. (1992). Abuse of human beings for the sake of science. In Arthur L. Caplan (Ed.), When medicine went mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust (pp. 233–270). New York: Springer Science+Business Media.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kevles, D. J. (1985). In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kevles, D. J. (2009). Eugenics, the genome, and human rights. Medicine Studies, 1(2), 85–93. doi:10.1007/s12376-009-0010-z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, T. (1979 [1957]). The Copernican revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  • Lewontin, R. C. (1974). The analysis of variance and the analysis of causes. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 26(3), 400–411. doi:10.1093/ije/dyl062.

    Google Scholar 

  • Looren de Jong, H. (2000). Genetic determinism: How not to interpret behavioral genetics. Theory & Psychology, 10(5), 615–637. doi:10.1177/0959354300105003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Medawar, P. (1996 [1977]). Unnatural science. In The strange case of the spotted mice and other classic essays on science (pp. 144–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Merton, R. K. (1938). Science and the social order. Philosophy of Science, 5(3), 321–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merton, R. K. (1942). A note on science and democracy. Journal of Legal and Political Sociology, 1(1/2), 115–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelkin, D., & Lindee, M. S. (2007). The DNA mystique: The gene as a cultural icon (2nd ed.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill, O. (2003). Autonomy and trust in bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oppenheimer, R. (1946). Atomic weapons. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 90(1), 7–10 [Read November 16, 1945, in the Symposiumm on Atomic Energy and its Implications].

  • Paul, D. B. (1998). The politics of heredity: Essays on eugenics, biomedicine, and the nature-nurture debate. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, D. B., & Spencer, H. G. (1998). Did eugenics rest on an elementary mistake? In D. B. Paul (Ed.), The politics of heredity: Essays on eugenics, biomedicine, and the nature-nurture debate (pp. 117–132). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K. R. (1962a [1954]). Kant’s critique and cosmology. In Conjectures and refutations (pp. 175–183). New York, London: Basic Books.

  • Popper, K. R. (1962b [1960]). On the sources of knowledge and of ignorance. In Conjectures and refutations (pp. 3–30). New York: Basic Books.

  • Popper, K. R. (1969). The moral responsibility of the scientist. Encounter, 32(3), 52–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K. R. (1977 [1970]). Reason or revolution? In T. W. Adorno, H. Albert, R. Dahrendorf, J. Habermas, H. Pilot & K. R. Popper (Eds.), The positivist dispute in German sociology (pp. 288–300). London: Heinemann.

  • Popper, K. R. (1994 [1972]). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach (Revised ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Popper, K. R. (1998 [1993]). The world of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic enlightenment. London: Routledge.

  • Popper, K. R. (2011 [1945]). The open society and its enemies (One–volume ed.). London: Routledge.

  • Rescher, N. (1987). Forbidden knowledge and other essays on the philosophy of cognition. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Resnik, D. (1993). Philosophical foundations of scientific ethics. In M. Thomsen (Ed.), Ethical issues in physics workshop proceedings I. Retrieved from http://people.emich.edu/jthomsen/Ethics/proceedings/Resnik1.pdf.

  • Roll-Hansen, N. (2010). Eugenics and the science of genetics. In A. Bashford & P. Levine (Eds.), Oxford handbook of the history of eugenics (pp. 80–97). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, S. (1998). Lifelines: Biology beyond determinism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Segal, N. L. (2012). Born together—reared apart: The landmark Minnesota twin study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shuster, E. (1998). The Nuremberg code: Hippocratic ethics and human rights. Lancet, 351(9107), 974–977. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)60641-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sismondo, S. (2010). An introduction to science and technology studies (2nd ed.). West Sussex: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Speier, H. (1938). The social determination of ideas. Social Research, 5(2), 182–205.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Nuernberg, October 1946April 1949 (Vol. 2, pp. 80–82). (1950). Washington DC: US, Government Printing Office.

  • Turkheimer, E. (2011). Commentary: Variation and causation in the environment and genome. International Journal of Epidemiology, 40(3), 598–601. doi:10.1093/ije/dyq147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO. (1998). Universal declaration on the human genome and human rights. Records of the general conference twenty-ninth session. Paris, 21 October to 12 November 1997, Volume 1: Resolutions (pp. 41–46). Paris: UNESCO.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO. (2000). World conference on science: Science for the twenty-first century; a new commitment. London: UNESCO.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO. (2006). Universal declaration on bioethics and human rights. Paris: UNESCO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veatch, R. M. (1985). Against virtue. In E. Shelp (Ed.), Virtue and medicine: Explorations in the character of medicine (pp. 329–345). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wachbroit, R. (1994). Human genetic engineering and the ethics of knowledge. In D. Wueste (Ed.), Professional ethics and social responsibility (pp. 205–218). London: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, J. D., & Berry, A. (2003). DNA: The secret of life. New York: A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, A. W. (2008). Kantian ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziman, J. (1998). Why must scientists become more ethically sensitive than they used to be? Science, 282(5395), 1813–1814. doi:10.1126/science.282.5395.1813.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ziman, J. M. (2000). Real science: What it is, and what it means. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Ackowledgments

The authors are particularly grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments. Some of the arguments of this paper were first developed by the authors in two earlier papers in Turkish: Bilim ahlakının etik temellendirilmesi: Hakikate ve insan onuruna saygı ilkeleri (Ethical justification of the moral codes in scientific research: Respect for truth and for human dignity), Yükseköğretim ve Bilim Dergisi/Journal of Higher Education and Science, 5(2), 2015, 109–124; Bilim insanlarının bilime yönelik sorumluluklarının etik temellendirilmesi (Ethical justification of scientists’ responsibilities towards science), to be published by the same journal.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emel Aközer.

Additional information

Independent researcher, Ankara, Türkiye.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Aközer, M., Aközer, E. Basing Science Ethics on Respect for Human Dignity. Sci Eng Ethics 22, 1627–1647 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9731-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9731-4

Keywords

Navigation