Part II Paper 6: Ethics and Politics of Science, Technology and Medicine

Paper manager: Stephen John

Also offered as an optional paper in Part IIB of the Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos (HSPS).

Overview

Lectures are held in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

Michaelmas Term

  • Science in Governance
    Anna Alexandrova (4)
    Thu 2pm (weeks 1–4)
  • Ethics and Politics of Science and Medicine
    Stephen John (8)
    Mon 4pm (weeks 1–8)
  • Sociology of Science
    Joshua Nall (2), Rosanna Dent (2)
    Thu 2pm (weeks 5–8)

Lent Term

  • Sociology of Science (continued)
    Alexandre White (4)
    Thu 2pm (weeks 1–4)
  • Climate Change
    Richard Staley (4)
    Mon 4pm (weeks 1–4)
  • Ethical Issues in Mental Health
    Sebastian Rodriguez Duque (4)
    Mon 4pm (weeks 5–8)
  • Issues in Science Communication
    Stephen John (4)
    Wed 12noon (weeks 5–8)

Introduction

Science, technology and medicine play a central role in the modern world. However, there are many on-going political and ethical controversies over the role they ought to play. These include debates over whether, when and how ethical and political values should shape scientific research and practice, and over when and how scientific results and new technologies should be used. Furthermore, these important disputes relate to more fundamental questions about the relationship between truth, values and objectivity. The aim of this paper is to introduce students to both practical and theoretical debates over the politics and ethics of science and to examine their inter-relationships.

Aims and learning outcomes

  • to acquaint students with core issues in ethics and politics of science, technology and medicine;
  • to provide students with an understanding of the principal changes in the practices of science and technology in the modern world that resulted from political pressures;
  • to provide students with an understanding of the arguments for and against some of the central philosophical claims about science and values;
  • to give students guidance necessary for pursuing further research in the area of the paper;
  • to give students understanding of the processes and controversies surrounding the use of science for policy (national and international), technology and medical treatment.

Lectures

Science in Governance

Anna Alexandrova (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

What is the role of science in governance? This course centres on the ideal of technocracy, i.e. the rule by experts. We examine the various attempts to implement this ideal in the 20th and 21st centuries and the intellectual pushback these initiatives received. Topics covered include: cost-benefit analysis, measurement of wellbeing, evidence-based policy, randomised controlled trials, and ethics of scientific advice.

Ethics and Politics of Science and Medicine

Stephen John (8 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

This course considers two important sets of questions. We start by looking at some of the central questions of bio-medical ethics, focusing on different issues from different stages of the life-course: ranging from whether you should be vaccinated, to whether you should be allowed to get drunk, to when you should have children, and, finally, whether you should be allowed to choose how you die. Through this approach, we show how our individual choices are wrapped inside larger social and political structures. We then turn from thinking about ethical issues raised by medical technologies to consider the broader question of how ethical and social values do and should shape science. Many philosophers now hold that science is ineliminably laden with ethical, political or other 'non-epistemic' values. Does that imply that science isn't objective and, if so, what does that imply for the place of science in society, or should we change our view of what counts as objective?

Sociology of Science

Rosanna Dent, Joshua Nall, Alexandre White (8 lectures, Michaelmas & Lent Terms)

This course introduces sociological approaches to science. We start from the basic idea that science depends on the existence of norms and institutions and move to the deeper one that the content of its theories and facts have a location and a standpoint even when those are not visible. We describe basic sociological concepts which help us understand the work of the sciences: how scientists observe and classify the world, how they reach consensus and establish their credibility, the way they organise their communities and perform experiments, the places where they work and the links between them. This discussion provides themes for exploring historical examples of experimental physics, colonial botany and zoology, and the climate sciences.

Climate Change

Richard Staley (4 lectures, Lent Term)

Climate change is a historical science which depends on the analysis of an extraordinarily complex set of interactions, with strong but uncertain implications for our future. This course sets debates on the existence, causes and potential amelioration of global warming in historical context, and explores relations between science and politics in a rapidly developing and urgently controversial field. Analysis of climate change relies on integrating forms of research and argumentative claims that cross disciplinary boundaries between sciences like geology, meteorology, oceanography and geophysics. It has also engaged scientists, the public and policy makers in vociferous debate, leading to the development of novel institutional forms like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, while sometimes appearing to provide merely yet another battleground for traditional interest groups in industry, science and politics. We trace developments from the 1860s onwards and examine several case studies of current research to understand how local research engages global arguments, and how current science is shaped equally by historical context and future projections.

Ethical Issues in Mental Health

Sebastian Rodriguez Duque (4 lectures, Lent Term)

Asking what mental health is and how we should care for it highlights a host of joint ethical and epistemic issues. This course explores the ethical implications of different conceptions of mental health and related implications for what ought to count as mental health care. We will explore emerging debates about the use of AI in mental health care, for example in the use of chatbots to replace or supplement human therapists. We will also explore the emergence of different trends, such as measurement-based care in mental health, and the value-based trade-offs that must be made in health systems trying to use measurement both to deliver care and collect evaluation data. Finally, we will consider issues around diagnosis, self-diagnosis, and over-diagnosis, and the 'life' of mental health and psychiatric terms in social media and online.

Issues in Science Communication

Stephen John (4 lectures, Lent Term)

We are often told that there is a 'crisis of trust' in science, and that more effective science communication is a way of responding to this 'crisis'. But what do we mean when we say that there is a crisis of trust? How might we establish this sort of claim? What factors influence trust in science? Might mis- or dis-trust in science be rational under some circumstances? The first part of this course surveys some answers to these questions; the second asks what they imply for science communication, paying particular attention to debates around the (im)permissibility of 'strategic communication'.

Preliminary reading

Resources for this paper