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Author: Jurie van den Heever
Publisher: AOSIS
ISBN: 1928396844
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
This book reflects academically on important and relevant natural scientific disciplines, important technologies and related media to determine and communicate the moral issues and challenges within those specific fields of study, and how to deal with them morally and from a multidimensional South African context. It aims to add scientific, technological and ethical value, locally and globally, by reflecting mainly from the viewpoint of a specific scholars, writing about the most pressing moral issues or challenges raised by problems within their specific field of study. It is written mainly from a qualitative methodological perspective, including autobiographical and participatory views. The co-authors present in respective chapters their research systematically and intersectionally, based on profound theoretical analysis and reasoning. Current research in the basic and implied sciences and technologies requires sound ethical practice based on a defensible moral stance. Moral norms, in our view, are deeply grounded and evolved convictions about justice and injustice, right and wrong, good and bad. It is not about rules. This scholarly book combines the insights and expertise of established South African scholars from different disciplines and backgrounds. The contributors are all deeply committed to the value and validity of science and ethical practice across the moral spectrum. Open and responsible discussions around this topic can lead to the introduction of moral guidelines and regulations to protect the rights of individuals, animals and the environment, while simultaneously facilitating the growth of scientific practice. This collected work, with its very specific and carefully selected grouping of academic fields, aims to innovatively assist in alleviating the shortage of academic publications reflecting on the moral issues in these specific fields.
Author: Jurie van den Heever
Publisher: AOSIS
ISBN: 1928396844
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book reflects academically on important and relevant natural scientific disciplines, important technologies and related media to determine and communicate the moral issues and challenges within those specific fields of study, and how to deal with them morally and from a multidimensional South African context. It aims to add scientific, technological and ethical value, locally and globally, by reflecting mainly from the viewpoint of a specific scholars, writing about the most pressing moral issues or challenges raised by problems within their specific field of study. It is written mainly from a qualitative methodological perspective, including autobiographical and participatory views. The co-authors present in respective chapters their research systematically and intersectionally, based on profound theoretical analysis and reasoning. Current research in the basic and implied sciences and technologies requires sound ethical practice based on a defensible moral stance. Moral norms, in our view, are deeply grounded and evolved convictions about justice and injustice, right and wrong, good and bad. It is not about rules. This scholarly book combines the insights and expertise of established South African scholars from different disciplines and backgrounds. The contributors are all deeply committed to the value and validity of science and ethical practice across the moral spectrum. Open and responsible discussions around this topic can lead to the introduction of moral guidelines and regulations to protect the rights of individuals, animals and the environment, while simultaneously facilitating the growth of scientific practice. This collected work, with its very specific and carefully selected grouping of academic fields, aims to innovatively assist in alleviating the shortage of academic publications reflecting on the moral issues in these specific fields.
Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393253856
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
We live in a world increasingly governed by technology—but to what end? Technology rules us as much as laws do. It shapes the legal, social, and ethical environments in which we act. Every time we cross a street, drive a car, or go to the doctor, we submit to the silent power of technology. Yet, much of the time, the influence of technology on our lives goes unchallenged by citizens and our elected representatives. In The Ethics of Invention, renowned scholar Sheila Jasanoff dissects the ways in which we delegate power to technological systems and asks how we might regain control. Our embrace of novel technological pathways, Jasanoff shows, leads to a complex interplay among technology, ethics, and human rights. Inventions like pesticides or GMOs can reduce hunger but can also cause unexpected harm to people and the environment. Often, as in the case of CFCs creating a hole in the ozone layer, it takes decades before we even realize that any damage has been done. Advances in biotechnology, from GMOs to gene editing, have given us tools to tinker with life itself, leading some to worry that human dignity and even human nature are under threat. But despite many reasons for caution, we continue to march heedlessly into ethically troubled waters. As Jasanoff ranges across these and other themes, she challenges the common assumption that technology is an apolitical and amoral force. Technology, she masterfully demonstrates, can warp the meaning of democracy and citizenship unless we carefully consider how to direct its power rather than let ourselves be shaped by it. The Ethics of Invention makes a bold argument for a future in which societies work together—in open, democratic dialogue—to debate not only the perils but even more the promises of technology.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309451051
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153
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Book Description
Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, people face an increasing need to integrate information from science with their personal values and other considerations as they make important life decisions about medical care, the safety of foods, what to do about climate change, and many other issues. Communicating science effectively, however, is a complex task and an acquired skill. Moreover, the approaches to communicating science that will be most effective for specific audiences and circumstances are not obvious. Fortunately, there is an expanding science base from diverse disciplines that can support science communicators in making these determinations. Communicating Science Effectively offers a research agenda for science communicators and researchers seeking to apply this research and fill gaps in knowledge about how to communicate effectively about science, focusing in particular on issues that are contentious in the public sphere. To inform this research agenda, this publication identifies important influences â€" psychological, economic, political, social, cultural, and media-related â€" on how science related to such issues is understood, perceived, and used.
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309041368
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 183
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Book Description
By all indicators, the reproductive health of Americans has been deteriorating since 1980. Our nation is troubled by rates of teen pregnancies and newborn deaths that are worse than almost all others in the Western world. Science and Babies is a straightforward presentation of the major reproductive issues we face that suggests answers for the public. The book discusses how the clash of opinions on sex and family planning prevents us from making a national commitment to reproductive health; why people in the United States have fewer contraceptive choices than those in many other countries; what we need to do to improve social and medical services for teens and people living in poverty; how couples should "shop" for a fertility service and make consumer-wise decisions; and what we can expect in the futureâ€"featuring interesting accounts of potential scientific advances.
Author: Seumas Miller
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402083122
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 79
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Book Description
What Is the Dual-Use Dilemma? The so-called “dual-use dilemma” arises in the context of research in the biological and other sciences as a consequence of the fact that one and the same piece of sci- tific research sometimes has the potential to be used for harm as well as for good. A dual-use dilemma is an ethical dilemma, and an ethical dilemma for the researcher (and for those who have the power or authority to assist or impede the researcher’s work, e. g. , governments). It is an ethical dilemma since it is about promoting good in the context of the potential for also causing harm, e. g. , the p- motion of health in the context of providing the wherewithal for the killing of in- cents. It is an ethical dilemma for the researcher not because he or she is aiming at anything other than a good outcome; typically, the researcher intends no harm, but only good. Rather, the dilemma arises for the researcher because of the potential actions of others. Malevolent non-researchers might steal dangerous biological agents produced by the researcher; alternatively, other researchers—or at least their governments or leadership—might use the results of the original researcher’s work for malevolent purposes. The malevolent purposes in question include bioterrorism, biowarfare and blackmail for financial gain.
Author: Peter-Paul Verbeek
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226852903
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Technology permeates nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Cars enable us to travel long distances, mobile phones help us to communicate, and medical devices make it possible to detect and cure diseases. But these aids to existence are not simply neutral instruments: they give shape to what we do and how we experience the world. And because technology plays such an active role in shaping our daily actions and decisions, it is crucial, Peter-Paul Verbeek argues, that we consider the moral dimension of technology. Moralizing Technology offers exactly that: an in-depth study of the ethical dilemmas and moral issues surrounding the interaction of humans and technology. Drawing from Heidegger and Foucault, as well as from philosophers of technology such as Don Ihde and Bruno Latour, Peter-Paul Verbeek locates morality not just in the human users of technology but in the interaction between us and our machines. Verbeek cites concrete examples, including some from his own life, and compellingly argues for the morality of things. Rich and multifaceted, and sure to be controversial, Moralizing Technology will force us all to consider the virtue of new inventions and to rethink the rightness of the products we use every day.
Author: Michael J. Reiss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521008471
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Little more than a decade ago the term "genetic engineering" was hardly known outside research laboratories. Today it regularly makes headlines. Those in favor of genetic engineering--and those against it--tell us that it has the potential to change our lives perhaps more than any other scientific or technological advance. But what are the likely consequences of genetic engineering? Is it ethically acceptable? Should we be trying to improve on nature? In Improving Nature?, the authors, a biologist and a moral philosopher, examine the implications of genetic engineering in every aspect of our lives. The underlying science is clearly explained and the moral and ethical considerations are fully disussed, resulting in a wide-ranging, balanced overview of a controversial subject. Michael Jonathan Reiss, a biologist, is Professor of Science Education and Head of Science & Technology, University of London Institute of Education. He is the author of Understanding Science Lessons (Open University Press, 2000). Roger Straughan is Reader in Education at the University of Reading. He is the author of Beliefs, Behaviour and Education (Cassell Academic, 1989). Previous paperback edition (1996) 0-521-63754-6
Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143917122X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.
Author: Juan Enriquez
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262542811
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
A lively and entertaining guide to ethics in a technological age. Most people have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they aren't shy about expressing their opinions. But when we take a polarizing stand on something we regard as an eternal truth, we often forget that ethics evolve over time. Many shifts in the right versus wrong pendulum are driven by advances in technology. Our great-grandparents might be shocked by in vitro fertilization; our great-grandchildren might be shocked by the messiness of pregnancy, childbirth, and unedited genes. In Right/Wrong, Juan Enriquez reflects on what happens to our ethics as technology makes the once unimaginable a commonplace occurrence.
Author: Michael J Sandel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674043065
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature—to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why. What is wrong with re-engineering our nature? The Case against Perfection explores these and other moral quandaries connected with the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. Michael Sandel argues that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery and dominion that fails to appreciate the gifted character of human powers and achievements. Carrying us beyond familiar terms of political discourse, this book contends that the genetic revolution will change the way philosophers discuss ethics and will force spiritual questions back onto the political agenda. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable. Addressing them is the task of this book, by one of America’s preeminent moral and political thinkers.
