1.5 Ethics

1.5

Ethics

KEY IDEAS

Ethical understanding

Ethical understanding is a principle that should be considered across all VCE Sciences. When undertaking student-designed investigations or evaluating research, you must apply an ethical understanding. Applying an ethical understanding means applying integrity when collecting and analysing data. You need to consider how the investigation will affect the environment and living things. Decisions based on science-related ethical issues take into consideration scientific knowledge, current and future needs as well as sociocultural, economic, political and legal factors. Some practical investigations involve humans as subjects. In these situations, your teacher is responsible for ensuring the ethical concepts are followed. You are not expected to use animals in this course. You may only use animals if it complies with the law.

Ethical approaches

An ethical approach will help guide your discussions, thoughts and decision-making. Using an ethical approach means that you explore ethical issues in context, consider ethical dilemmas, reflect on the various courses of action and make sure that your final decisionmaking considers all previous concepts. There are three types of ethical approaches. • A consequences-based approach considers the implications of the decision by maximising the positive outcomes and minimising the negative consequences. This can be expressed as ‘the end justifies the means’. • A duty-based, or rules-based, approach means that people have a responsibility to act in a particular way. This approach is not concerned with the consequences of the outcome, as long as the agreed rules were followed during the process. integrity the ethical • A virtues-based approach considers a person’s virtue or moral character, not the action. It principle about the considers good behaviours and actions. Did the person mean to do the right thing? commitment to search for knowledge and be honest in the Ethical concepts approach When exploring ethical issues and dilemmas, you need to consider ethical concepts to justice determine the acceptability of particular effects and causes. the ethical principle to ensure a fair and • Integrity is the commitment to being honest. When researching, it is important to equal consideration honestly communicate results and research, whether favourable or unfavourable. of all factors • Justice is the moral rightness and commitment to fairly assessing claims, means and beneficence actions. It means that all are treated equally to make sure moral obligation stands. the ethical principle • Beneficence is the idea that the purpose of a person’s action should be to do well and of a commitment to minimising risk and minimise the risk of harm. This involves analysing potential risks against the benefits doing good of the action.

In this topic, you will learn that: ✚ ethical understanding should be applied when undertaking research ✚ ethical approaches guide discussion and decision-making in research. DRAFT ONLY - NOT FOR SALE

non-maleficence

the ethical principle of avoiding harm or decreasing the amount of harm inflicted

respect

• Non-maleficence is the idea of avoiding harm. As scientific research may involve harm, any benefits of the course of action must outweigh the resulting harm. • Respect refers to the intrinsic value of all living things, which considers the religious beliefs, cultural heritage, views and opinions, customs, and health and safety of an individual or group. This ethical principle makes sure that living things can make their own decisions and when that capacity is diminished, decisions should be based on the ethical principle empowerment and protection when necessary. that considers the value of living things and the ability for living things to make their own decisions where possible

CASE STUDY 1.5

Human–monkey chimeras for organ production In China, a controversial project that aims to grow human organs from primate embryos is being conducted. A team of scientists is working on this project, trying to develop chimeras (organisms composed of cells from two or more species) by combining primate and human cells. Human–animal chimeras are produced by implanting human stem cells into animal embryos early in development. The goal is to produce human organs in animals as an alternative to organ transplantation. Similar experiments have been conducted on human stem cells and sheep and pig embryos. These experiments were unsuccessful probably because sheep and pigs are only distantly related to humans. Primates are more closely related to humans and share more than 95% DNA sequences. The main ethical concern regarding this project is the difficulty of restricting human cell growth to just one organ of interest. What should happen if the human–primate chimera developed a human-celled nervous system that had a consciousness and displayed human-like behaviours? At this stage, the human–primate chimera embryos are only kept for a few weeks so the nervous system has not fully developed. Japan recently legalised the creation of human–animal chimera embryos for transplantation into surrogates to be brought to full term. This essentially means that chimera organisms can be born from surrogates for the purpose of developing human organs. This could take experiments into ethically uncharted territory.

Describe and explain

1 Explain the importance of an ethical understanding in science. 2 Describe the three types of ethical approach. 3 Define the ethical principle of ‘respect’.

Apply, analyse and compare

4 Compare (discuss the similarities and difference between) ethical approaches and ethical concepts.

CHECK YOUR LEARNING 1.5

5 Use an example to explain when the ethical principle of integrity would be important in biology.

Design and discuss

6 Discuss the ethical dilemma of Case study 1.5.

FIGURE 1 Implanting human stem cells into an animal embryo produces a human–animal chimera. DRAFT ONLY - NOT FOR SALE