Hi, thank you for submitting your question to Answers.Google, I hope I
can provide the information you are seeking.
"Everything" you need to know would require a massive report since
each branch of technology has different ethical issues involved.
For example, the ethical questions surrounding the building of nuclear
weapons isn?t the same as those involving genetic engineering.
This is a very active area of inquiry both in the scientific and
engineering fields and among philosophers who concern themselves with
this sort of question.
Ethics is the philosophical study of right and wrong or good and bad.
These are subjective questions while science and technology deal with
objective data.
There are multiple ethical issues concerning every branch of science
and every new technology we develop.
They all boil down to this:
Does the technology help or harm people, animals, and the planet as a whole?
Does it provide a positive benefit which greatly outweighs any harm or
potential harm.
Are there better ways to invest our resources in things which will
better the life of people or improve the planet?
Can we actually know enough to decide if something is right or wrong?
Does this technology violate basic religious beliefs and, if so, does this matter?
Here are links to hundreds of articles and other online information
concerning your question.
There is an engineering ethics center at MIT
www.niee.org/resource.htm
There are 338 links for ethics and technology at
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/links/links.cfm?cat=TECH
The Web Clearing House for Engineering and Computing Ethics is at
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jherkert/ethicind.html
You can find a biotech ethics paper, A Framework for Thinking
Ethically About Human Biotechnology, at
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/mclean/biotechframework.html
Here is a study of the ethics of intellectual property ownership
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/dialogue/candc/cases/jumpstart.html
A study of cloning ethics
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/sterns/doublenothing.html
Unanticipated consequences
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/healy/consequences.html
The proceedings of a Boston College conference on technology and
ethics are online at
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/commentary/ethicstech.html
Codes of ethics
Looking at the code of ethics developed by various professional
societies can tell you a lot about how they look at technology and
ethics, as well as showing what they are ignoring.
www.acm.org/constitution/code.html
www.aitp.org/organization/about/ethics/ethics.jsp
www.iit.edu/departments/csep/PublicWWW/codes/computer.htm
www.iit.edu/departments/csep/PublicWWW/codes has 800+ codes.
There is an engineering ethics center at MIT
www.niee.org/resource.htm
There are 338 links for ethics and technology at
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/links/links.cfm?cat=TECH
Thank you again for turning to Answers.Google for help. I have
provided links to a vast number of references which should provide the
information you are seeking. If you want specific ethical questions
being debated concerning a particular technology then you may wish to
post seperate questions for each such technology because the answers
are likely to be long and complex. |
