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Misconduct and the Development of Ethics in the Biological Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Stanley Joel Reiser
Stanley Joel Reiser
Affiliation:
University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, and the co-editor of the International journal of Technology Assessment and Healthcare
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Extract

A variety of cases of scientific misconduct have been documented since the 1980s among biological scientists. These cases have focused the attention of the public and scientific community on this behavior and made it the centerpiece of the concern about ethics in the biological sciences. In contrast, the ethics movement in clinical medicine, which arose in the 1960s, was not basically directed at the problems of wrong-doing. Instead it concentrated on the difficult ethical choices that had to be made In the practice of medicine.

In this essay, I discuss the two movements. The attention given to misconduct In the biological sciences has become excessive and diverts its ethics movement from exploring and teaching about the difficult ethical decisions scientists must make in weighing obligations to self, science, and society. A more balanced and selective approach to developing an ethical framework in the biological sciences is needed.

Type
Special Section: Research Ethics: Ethics at the Borders of Medical Research
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , Fall 1994 , pp. 499 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

Notes

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