Abstract
To what extent do nanotechnology researchers discern specific work-related ethical responsibilities that are incumbent upon them? A questionnaire was designed and administered to answer this question. Analysis of responses to 11 ethical responsibility statements (ERSs) by 213 researchers at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility revealed widespread agreement about a number of work-related ethical responsibilities and substantial divergence in the views about several others. Explanations of this divergence are proposed. A new variable is defined that gauges the respondent’s overall level of discernment of the ethical responsibilities referenced in the ERSs. The mean discernment level score for respondents who had taken a course that included discussion of ethical issues closely related to science, technology, or engineering was significantly higher than for those who had not. Further, among respondents who had taken such a course, the mean discernment level score for those who had taken an ethics course devoted to exploration of ethical issues closely related to science, technology, or engineering was significantly higher than for those who had taken a technical science or engineering course that typically pays only fleeting attention to such issues. Implications of these findings are discussed.
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Notes
The SNF is a shared laboratory, open to researchers from industry and government, as well as from Stanford and other universities around the world. Over 400 researchers use the lab in the course of a typical year. To join the lab, each researcher must complete the safety and orientation program, which includes an ethics module (EM). While completing the EM questionnaire is not required for admission to the lab, new user researchers are encouraged to do so anonymously online.
In the survey period, 88 new SNF users did not complete the questionnaire. Thus, as a rough approximation, the 213 individuals who did complete it constitute about 70.7 % of the 301 new users in that period. Thus, the respondents in this study comprised a robust subset but not a random sample of all new users in the survey period. If the researchers who completed the questionnaire self-selected and disproportionately represent researchers with a prior interest in ethical issues related to their work, then a random sample of new users for this period would likely have had a greater percentage of those with little or no interest in ethical issues related to nanotechnology.
For further discussion of this point, see McGinn [2, p. 4].
The following discussion is adapted from ibid.
This is a more defensible version of the vague employee-loyalty-to-employer canons found in many codes of engineering ethics. For example, Fundamental Canon I.4 of the National Society of Professional Engineers’ Code of Ethics for Engineers states, “Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.”
Compare this formulation with the first “fundamental canon” of many engineering ethics codes: “Engineers shall, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, hold paramount the health, safety, and welfare of the public.” The key word is “paramount.” See National Society of Professional Engineers, “NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers,” http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/index.html.
The viewpoint that underlies the ethical judgments that follow is “harm and well-being consequentialism.” In particular, it is assumed that at that bottom “ethics has to do with the relationship between actions and practices on one hand and the well-being of parties they affect on the other.” Ethical judgments that certain actions or practices are morally right, wrong, or permissible, that certain individuals have specific ethical responsibilities under certain circumstances, and that certain people or social groups are or are not being treated justly, all such judgments depend at bottom on, among other things, “whether and the extent to which the actions and practices in question” harm, preserve, enhance, or jeopardize the well-being of parties affected or likely to be affected by them [2, pp. 3–4].
For further discussion of this point, see McGinn [2, pp. 7–8].
The putatively fraudulent publications about organic semiconductors by Hendrick Schön and several “narrow-checking” coauthors at Lucent Technologies’ Bell Laboratories, and the putatively fraudulent paper with false claim of discovery of a new transuranic element by Victor Ninov and coauthors at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, illustrate the nontrivial individual and institutional harms that can result when narrow scrutiny of her/his own contribution is taken to be each coauthor’s sole ethical responsibility. See Malcolm Beasley et al., “Report of the Investigation Committee on the Possibility of Scientific Misconduct in the Work of Hendrik Schön and Co-Authors,” September 2002, http://publish.aps.org/reports/lucentrep.pdf and George Johnson, “At Lawrence Berkeley, Physicists Say a Colleague Took Them for a Ride,” New York Times, October 15, 2002. In an interview about the Schön affair, after the publication of the Beasley Report, physicist Paul Ginsparg was asked, “Do fraud stories like this hurt science in the public’s eye?” He responded, “I was indeed concerned about how the case would affect perceptions, that it might reinforce the cynicism about scientists.” Asked about Schön’s coauthors, he responded, “People should read and understand at least those papers of which they’re co-author. If this had been Nobel Prize work, they would have shared in the glory…. I know for myself, every paper I’ve authored, I check every equation.” See W. S. Weed, “Phony Science,” New York Times, October 13, 2002.
Although it was argued that the ethical responsibility-centric responses to ERS1–11 are “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree,” in some instances “somewhat agree,” “somewhat disagree,” or “agree as much as disagree” might seem preferable answers. However, while some respondents may have chosen somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or agree as much as disagree as their responses because they believe there are competing interests in the situation, doing so would be based on a misunderstanding. The ERS statements are not seeking the respondent’s overall ethical judgment about the situation in question; they are seeking her/his view about whether the researcher has the stated or implied ethical responsibility in the situation in question. A particular ethical responsibility may sometimes be balanced or trumped by considerations that dictate acting otherwise in a particular situation. But that is perfectly consistent with the ethical responsibility-centric response to the relevant ERS being strongly agree or strongly disagree. For those judgments only pertain to how strongly the respondent agrees or disagrees that the researcher has the related ethical responsibility, not to the on-balance judgment about what should be done in the situation in question.
“Two factors explain this remarkable phenomenon. First, nanomaterials have relatively high percentages of their constituent atoms at the surface (rather than being within their volumes) compared to the percentages at the surface in bulk materials. This can lead to phenomena like increased chemical reactivity and affect the strength of such materials. Properties and phenomena attributable to the fact that nanomaterials have much greater surface area to volume ratios than do bulk materials are called ‘surface effects.’ Second, at the nanoscale, a material’s intra- and inter-atomic relationships can affect its properties, giving rise to novel electrical, optical, magnetic and chemical characteristics and phenomena, often called ‘quantum effects’.” McGinn [2, p. 5].
When indicating the kind of course s/he might have taken, the respondent was presented with four choices: “a traditional ethics course,” “an ethics course focused on ethical issues closely related to science, technology, or engineering,” “a technical science or engineering course,” and “other.”
References
McGinn R (2003) ‘Mind the Gaps’: an empirical approach to engineering ethics, 1997–2001. Sci Eng Ethics 9(4):518–542
McGinn R (2010) Ethical responsibilities of nanotechnology researchers: a short guide. Nanoethics 4(1):1–12
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Rafael Pardo Avellaneda for commenting on an early draft of this essay and for suggestions for improving the ERSs and the discussion of findings. Three anonymous referees made a number of helpful criticisms and suggestions. Mary Tang made valuable suggestions for improving the ERSs and facilitated the survey administration process. Remaining errors are solely the responsibility of the author.
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McGinn, R. Discernment and Denial: Nanotechnology Researchers’ Recognition of Ethical Responsibilities Related to Their Work. Nanoethics 7, 93–105 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-013-0174-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-013-0174-6
Keywords
- Discernment
- Work-related ethical responsibilities
- Ethics module (EM)
- Sociodemographic variables
- Ethical responsibility statements (ERSs)
- Micro-social, meso-social, and macro-social domains or contexts
- Fundamental Ethical Responsibilities of Scientists and Engineers (FERSEs)
- Nanotechnology researchers’ overall levels of discernment of ethical responsibilities (OLDER) related to their work
- Mean OLDER scores