Ethics, science and society (ESS)
Partners:
- Project under preparation; open to new participants
The Project:
Ethical issues truly encompass most areas of human activities. Hitherto, questions of ethics had been governed by two basic approaches. The first one was what might be called the "universal approach" which mainly emerged from religious sources and was trying to address behavioural codes as derivatives of what should be shared by all humans because of their being humans. It attempted to regulate the "right" and "wrong" and not too infrequently attributed the determination of such "rights" and "wrongs" to a "higher" non-human authority or sovereignty.
The other approach concentrated on individuals, while recognising environmental influences on their behavioural practices. Here, the main idea was that while there might be such universal "rights" and "wrongs" – they truly are innate to humans as individuals, because in the last analysis, it is the individual who is the ultimate sovereign.
However, in the last few centuries, it has become apparent that there is more to it and that ethics is a social arrangement thus not only a matter for the individual alone or to any extra-human force, but – maybe mainly – of groups and various social formations and activities. Amongst the latter, countries or professional communities and their like can be case in point and sciences, in their diverse fields, or law, can represent social activities.
While based on what might be referred to as human values, ethics has a much more "practical" facet. It is the agreed arrangement of limits to activities, based of the potential results of such activities. This is why the international angel becomes important, particularly as countries and communities are more readily available with the development of contacts and communications.
Such issues of adoption of children from developing countries by people from the better off countries had not been relevant even 50 years ago. The same is true for transplants, euthanasia, migrant-workers, exploitation of physical or human resources and a wide variety of other such issues. Questions relating to what can or must not be developed in the areas of technologies are equally becoming international.
The Proposed project will look into such issues that are generated by international scientific and technological co-operation with both developing and industrialised countries. It will examine the implications arisen by legal and cultural differences and the impact that can be achieved by the better understanding of such differences – particularly in view of current practices of co-operation or "benefit-sharing" schemes. Ethical, cultural and legal issues will be examined in these contexts, addressing both local and international situations and issues.
Interested parties, please contact us