Abstract
During the education of scientists at the university level the students become more and more specialized. The specialization of the students is a consequence of the scientific research becoming specialized as well. In the interdisciplinary field of nanoscience the importance of specialization is also emphasized throughout the education. Being an interdisciplinary field of study the specialization in this area is not focused on scientific disciplines, but on the different branches of the research. Historically ethics has not been a priority in science education, however, in recent years the importance of such teachings has been highly recognize especially in medicine, biotechnology and engineering. The rapid development, the many new and unknown areas and the highly specialized focus of nanotechnology suggest the importance of having ethically competent researchers. In this article the importance of ethical competence in nanoscience research is argued for by an example of a dilemma that could occur in a research project. The dilemma is analyzed using two different ethical views, generating two different choices for action. It is seen that the dilemma can have more than one solution and that ethical competence can help in justifying the choice of solution in a specific situation. Furthermore it is suggested that a way to reach this competence is through education in ethics incorporated into the nanoscience education curriculum.
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Notes
The issues and arguments are concerned with ethical competence in health care, but can be argued to be relevant for scientific research as well.
A suggestion to the process of making such a decision will be explained later.
It should be noted that even though this example is based on research done, the situation is hypothetical.
Ethical guidelines regarding for example the design and implementation of research involving human experimentation, animal experimentation, various aspects of academic scandal, including scientific misconduct (such as fraud, fabrication of data and plagiarism) etc.
This dilemma of how to communicate the results of one’s research outside the specialized scientific journals does not only apply to researchers in the area of toxicology. It applies in all areas of (nano)scientific research. Furthermore it should be noted that depending on the audience in question the choice of communication content and method would be different. In this example the communication to lay people through media is chosen.
There would be more possible actions for the researcher to take than the four mentioned here, however, these four will serve as a basis of the analysis done below.
The procedure is explained as done by an individual scientist, however, often the scientist will be part of a research group and the discussions and decisions will be made in this group.
A problem could arise here in terms of the criteria that the scientist bases his/her decision on. It could be argued that there is a risk that the scientist will always chose the action that allows for most research or the action that is the cheapest or the action that is the easiest. This, however, is a larger discussion that we will not address here, our point being only that the ethical competence will give the scientist the ability to make a well-reflected and justifiable decision. Whether we agree with the decision or not is another matter.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the role of Professor Svend Andersen in the developement and discussion of this paper.
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Rasmussen, A.J., Ebbesen, M. Why Should Nanoscience Students be Taught to be Ethically Competent?. Sci Eng Ethics 20, 1065–1077 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-013-9494-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-013-9494-8