ETHICAL AND SOCIAL DIMENSIONS

OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Science, Technology, and Society (STS)

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OBJECTIVES
• Examine human rights in order to uphold such rights in
technological ethical dilemmas.
• Evaluate contemporary human experience in order to strengthen
and enlighten the human person functioning in society.

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OUTLINE
I. Ethical Dimensions of Science and Technology
A. General Principles
B. Ethical Decision-making in Science
C. Code of Ethics for Scientists and Engineers
II. Social Dimensions of Science and Technology
A. Albert Borgmann’s Device Paradigm
B. Theories of technology
III. Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

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 ETHICAL
DIMENSIONS OF
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY

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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

An international document that was adopted by

the United Nations General Assembly that
enshrines the rights of all human beings.

December 10, 1948

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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Article 1
All human beings are born free and
equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and conscience
and should act towards one another in
a spirit of brotherhood.

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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and
freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without
distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other
status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made
on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or
international status of the country or territory to
which a person belongs, whether it be
independent, trust, non-self-governing or under
any other limitation of sovereignty

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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
of person.

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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the
slave trade 04 shall be prohibited in all their forms.
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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Article 27
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate
in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy
the arts and to share in scientific
advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of
the moral and material interests resulting
from any scientific, literary or artistic
production of which he is the author.

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ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING IN SCIENCE
Essential elements in ethical decision-making

Identify Consider Reflect Act

• Ethical • Situational • On what you • By making a

principles influences have learned decision
• Duties to others • Alternative • Strengths and • By elevating
• Important Facts actions weaknesses the issue to a
• Conflicts of • Additional higher
interest Guidance authority

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THE ETHICAL MATRIX
• It is a conceptual tool designed to help decision-makers reach sound judgements
about the ethical acceptability of technologies
• Three prima facie principles
1. Well-being – “maximizing the good”
2. Autonomy – treating others as “ends in themselves”
3. Fairness – represents respect for justice
• Developed by Ben Mepham in 1994

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THE ETHICAL MATRIX

A generic ethical matrix

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THE ETHICAL MATRIX

An ethical matrix used in the ethical analysis of bST use in

dairy cattle (Mepham, 2005)
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MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
I. Brief history
For centuries, various principles in medical ethics have been used by physicians
A. Hippocrates (4th century BCE)
o “To help and do no harm”
B. Tom Beauchamp and James Childress (1979)
o Published the first edition of Principles of Biomedical ethics
o Principlism
C. Belmont Report (1979)
o Three principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice were identified
as guidelines for responsible research using human subjects.

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MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
II. The Four Principles
Respect for Autonomy
a. “Informed consent" in the physician/patient transaction
regarding health care.
b. Any notion of moral decision-making assumes that rational
agents are involved in making informed and voluntary
decisions.
c. In health care decisions, our respect for the autonomy of
the patient would, in common parlance, imply that the
patient has the capacity to act intentionally, with
understanding, and without controlling influences that
would mitigate against a free and voluntary act.

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MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
II. The Four Principles
Principle of Non-Maleficence
a. Requires to not intentionally create a harm or
injury to the patient, either through acts of
commission or omission.
b. Providing a proper standard of care that avoids
or minimizes the risk of harm is supported not only
by our commonly held moral convictions, but by
the laws of society as well.
c. This principle affirms the need for medical
competence.

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MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
II. The Four Principles
Principle of Beneficence
a. Health care providers have a duty to be of a benefit to
the patient, as well as to take positive steps to prevent
and to remove harm from the patient.
b. It is at the very heart of health care implying that a
suffering supplicant (the patient) can enter into a
relationship with one whom society has licensed as
competent to provide medical care, trusting that the
physician’s chief objective is to help.
c. The goal of providing benefit can be applied both to
individual patients, and to the good of society as a whole.

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MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
II. The Four Principles
Principle of Justice
a. Justice in health care is usually defined as a form of fairness, or as Aristotle once said,
"giving to each that which is his due."
b. It is generally held that persons who are equals should qualify for equal treatment.
c. Our society uses a variety of factors as criteria for distributive justice, including the
following:
• To each person an equal share
• To each person according to need
• To each person according to effort
• To each person according to contribution
• To each person according to merit
• To each person according to free-marketexchanges
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THE NUREMBERG CODE
• The most important document in the history of ethics of medical research.
• It was formulated in August 1947 in Nuremberg, Germany.
• It served as blueprint for today’s principles that ensures the rights of subjects
in medical research.

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THE NUREMBERG CODE
• Doctor’s Trial
o Main trial conducted after World War
II
o Euthanasia Program
o Pseudoscientific experiments of German
physicians utilizing thousands of
concentration camp prisoners without
their consent.

© Lemaire, F. (2016)

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THE NUREMBERG CODE
1. Voluntary consent is essential.
2. The results of any experiment must be for the greater good of society.
3. Human experiments should be based on previous animal experimentation.
4. Experiments should be conducted by avoiding physical/mental suffering and
injury.
5. No experiments should be conducted if it is believed to cause
death/disability.

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THE NUREMBERG CODE
6. The risks should never exceed the benefits.
7. Adequate facilities should be used to protect subjects.
8. Experiments should be conducted only by qualified scientists.
9. Subjects should be able to end their participation at any time.
10. The scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment when
injury, disability, or death is likely to occur.

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 SOCIAL
DIMENSIONS OF
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY

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DEVICE PARADIGM
• Albert Borgmann – “Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life”
• A principle that explains the phenomena occurring among gadgets with regards
to their nature, good and bad effects, as well as how humans are affected.
• “Technology, as we have seen, promises to bring the forces of nature and culture
under control, to liberate us from misery and toil, and to enrich our lives.

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DEVICE PARADIGM
• Things – are technologies inseparable from the world and provides more than
one commodity. Fully-dimensional.
• Devices – technologies that does not serve a social purpose.

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DEVICE PARADIGM
• “Postmodern culture is infused with
technological devices to such an extent that
humans are incapable of perceiving how
bad human life has been affected by this
hidden model of living”
• Focal things and practices

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FOCAL THINGS AND PRACTICES

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THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY

Substantive View

Instrumentalist View

Pluralist View

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THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY
Substantive view
• The substantive approach sees technology as an independent force that
cannot be stopped by any means.
• Technology as a way of life.

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THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY
Instrumentalist view
• It is based on the common sense idea that technologies are “tools” standing
ready to serve the purposes of their users. Technology is deemed “neutral”,
without valuative content of its own.
• The instrumentalist view appears to account for the tensions between tradition,
ideology and efficiency which arise from socio-technical change.
• Technology is universal.
• “There is a continuous historical thread that leads from our ensemble of
machines back to simple tools and instruments.”

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THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY
Pluralist view
• “Evolution and interaction” approach
• Considers all factors, the entire complex web of numerous countervailing
forces.

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 ETHICAL
ISSUES IN
ROBOTICS AND
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE

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ETHICAL ISSUES IN ROBOTICS
Privacy and Surveillance
• Facial recognition
• Device fingerprinting
• Data Privacy in various services

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ETHICAL ISSUES IN ROBOTICS
Manipulation of Behaviour
• Political propaganda
• AI Faking Technologies
• Exploitation of behavioral biases, deception,
and addiction generation

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ETHICAL ISSUES IN ROBOTICS
Manipulation of Behaviour

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ETHICAL ISSUES IN ROBOTICS
Automation and Employment
• The highly skilled technical jobs are in demand and highly
paid, the low skilled service jobs are in demand and badly
paid, but the mid-qualification jobs in factories and offices,
i.e., the majority of jobs, are under pressure and reduced
because they are relatively predictable, and most likely to
be automated (Baldwin 2019).

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 ETHICAL ISSUES IN ROBOTICS

Self-serving kiosks in a Philippine fastfood

chain

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ETHICAL ISSUES IN ROBOTICS

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