Tools for systematic ethical analysis of biotechnology
In component project 3 we will develop an ethics toolbox, based on ethical analysis, consumer research, and in-depth discussions with scientists and stakeholders. The toolbox will make developers, regulators, policy-makers and retailers better equipped to anticipate and assess the ethical issues that new products may give rise to.
The debate about ethical issues of biotechnology and its applications is very polarized – some people are against, some people are in favour of it, and those views are often very firmly held. This project provides a structured method for making this debate less polarized and allowing all involved to better understand each other’s arguments. Despite the large literature on ethics of technology in general, there is a shortage of studies carried out in close collaboration with scientists developing the actual technologies. Therefore, much of the debate is insufficiently informed about recent developments and has been rather sweeping in character. This applies not least to biotechnology. Also, few applications of ethical technology assessment concern new biotechnologies, and even fewer take into account the potential positive environmental and health impacts of agricultural applications of biotechnology in a systematic way.
There is a set of method developing tools such as checklists and matrices for ethical analysis. These methods have undergone rapid development in the last decade. In order to obtain more precision and higher resolution in the analysis, a close analysis of the technological and use-related dimensions of biotechnology that may influence its ethical appraisal will be undertaken in close co-operation between the natural scientists and the ethicists in the programme. This analysis will be further used in consumer research to investigate the impact of different such factors on consumer’s appraisal of the technologies in question. The co-operative approach will provide new and more precise knowledge on the factors that influence ethical appraisals of agricultural biotechnology, resulting in an ethics toolbox.
In the process of developing the toolbox, we will collaborate closely with researchers from other projects in Mistra Biotech, but also invite various stakeholders such as NGOs, industry, and other concerned parties to the discussion.
We will also investigate what precaution might mean in the context of agricultural biotechnology, and study some concepts that are common in the public debate but which are sometimes cursorily treated in the scholarly discourse, for example naturalness.
DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT MISTRA BIOTECH?
PLEASE E-MAIL mistrabiotech@slu.se