Science and Ethics

In Science and Ethics, Bernard Rollin examines the ideology that denies the relevance of ethics to science. Providing an introduction to basic ethical concepts, he discusses a variety of ethical issues that are relevant to science and how they are ignored, to the detriment of both science and society. These include research on human subjects, animal research, genetic engineering, biotechnology, cloning, xenotransplantation, and stem cell research. Rollin also explores the ideological agnosticism that scientists have displayed regarding subjective experience in humans and animals, and its pernicious effect on pain management. Finally, he articulates the implications of the ideological denial of ethics for the practice of science itself in terms of fraud, plagiarism, and data falsification. In engaging prose and with philosophical sophistication, Rollin cogently argues in favor of making education in ethics part and parcel of scientific training.

• Very readable, anecdotal, and accessible to lay people, yet still philosophically sophisticated • Deals with numerous timely and fascinating issues including animal research, illicit research on people, genetic engineering, and cloning • Grows out of the author’s 30 years’ experience in teaching these issues to students

Contents

Preface; 1. The waxing and waning of faith in science; 2. Scientific ideology and ‘value free’ science; 3. What is ethics?; 4. Ethics and research on human beings; 5. Animal research; 6. Biotechnology and ethics: is genetic engineering intrinsically wrong?; 7. Biotechnology and ethics II: rampaging monsters and suffering animal; 8. Biotechnology and ethics III: cloning, xenotransplantation and stem cells; 9. Pain and ethics; 10. Ethics in science.