Sir

Science nowadays often responds to a particular ethical challenge in isolation from others, so that any overall philosophical perspective might not be apparent to the public. This can contribute to an impression that scientists muddle through on the defensive when it would be fairer and more persuasive if they displayed the relationships and consistencies between ethical positions on different matters. How might it be possible to achieve this?

People make ethical decisions by weighing opposing arguments, pressures and concerns, drawing on their feelings about the issues as well as on their thinking. Is earning a profit from drug or seed sales less ethical than providing these commodities cheaply or free to the needy? Is whistleblowing in public better than a quiet warning? Should the integrity of experimental animals take priority over prospects for medical advances?

Most people would probably agree that the answer to each of these questions is sometimes yes and sometimes no. Judgements are personal and specific to the circumstances. When people disagree it is usually because they assign different weights to particular factors, rather than differing on what the considerations should be.

I believe that most people could agree on generic principles which cover most or all issues in current contention, deep though their differences might be over interpretation and application. I suggest that these three would suffice:

  1. 1

    Fair shares of burdens and fruits. Goods and services for one population should not bring undue disadvantage to another, for example in the form of chemical, radioactive or noise pollution. Areas of risk include genetically modified crops; information technology and its use (on whom and for whom); databases and copyright law and intellectual property law for private versus public benefit, among others. Some inequities arise through omission, especially of the application of science to agriculture, health and education in the poorer countries (a theme of UNESCO's recent World Conference on Science).

  2. 2

    Obedience to truth. Honesty over details must be reconciled with perspectives on what is important in academic and corporate science and their applications. This should apply to the use, abuse and fabrication of data; commitment to establishing and acknowledging the whole truth; and the ethical tensions that arise from private research funding in public institutions.

  3. 3

    Respect for life. The uniqueness and integrity of all life forms and the environments that support them must be protected, whether as elements of the planet's gene pool or as individuals with conscious lives. This will expose conflicts between the needs of one organism and another, but although conflicts have existed throughout biological evolution, it is inevitable that we now accept the responsibility of resolving them by human decision.

Each of these principles is formulated as a balance to reveal why people think and feel differently about given problems, and even why they change between related issues. Ethical positions will and should always shift at the levels both of individuals and of society as a whole, and consensus will not and should never be complete or stable. We need challenge to recognize danger and test responsibility, and we also need to understand the patterns in different judgements to develop the democratic mandate for science to go forward to meet the needs and aspirations of society. Engagement with critics of science needs to shift from tactics to strategy; namely from whether in the short term new technologies are to be developed, to how in the long term they are to be certified and introduced.