13. Applied professional ethics in the doing of technoscience
Jan Hayes, RMIT University; Sarah Maslen, University of Canberra; Carl Macrae, Nottingham University Business School;
We call for papers that grapple with the nexus between contemporary challenges in professional ethics, and the doing of science, medical and engineering work. Accelerating developments in technoscience have brought with them a range of controversies. For instance, the field of synthetic biology has generated public debate over genetically modified food and stem cell research. Medical sciences raise questions about transformations in patienthood from genetic responsibility to human-nonhuman assemblages. Advancements in computer science are forcing us to grapple with the implications of big data and AI, and responsibility for decision making. In the context of climate change, involvement in energy and extraction work raises an ethics of care and questions of public safety and ecological risk.
This panel turns attention specifically to workers doing technoscientific work who in their day-to-day practices in laboratories, clinics, offices and data centres navigate the progress of their respective fields. We understand professional ethics to refer to both the outcomes of technological development, and the practice of technological development itself. We invite contributions from genetics and biotechnology, laboratory studies, engineering, energy and extraction, AI and computer sciences, and medicine and healthcare. Specific areas of inquiry include:
Navigation of ethical questions in day-to-day technoscientific practice
How working in controversial fields affects workers' professional commitments
How practitioners express, or mute, ethical matters in their work
Links between professional ethical challenges and professional identity
The impact of contingent working arrangements on professional values
How epistemic uncertainty impacts ethical decision making
