Lines in the Sand: Negotiations in Fidelity

  Debra Bennett-Woods
  Regis University

How might one interpret the conception of "scientist as steward of the future"? What does this mean in both moral and practical terms? The word steward is generally defined in the narrow terms of rather mundane roles, including airline attendant, ship's provisions officer, property manager, elected union representative, and household servant. Its origins in Middle English translate to "hall keeper."¹ However, we also find the list of related words to include keeper, caretaker, guardian, and protector. These terms raise the bar of expectation to roles we imbue with trust, confidence, and an optimistic dependence. We assume such a steward to possess competence, honesty, integrity, and loyalty, even in the face of personal or professional sacrifice. In return, we allow ourselves to give over certain aspects of control. We open ourselves to the possibility of disappointment and even harm should our steward fail in his or her duties. When we assign someone as steward of our future, representing all that is possible for us, we are making a great leap of faith based on the highest level of trust. We are entering a relationship of fidelity in which the steward holds great power over our current and future well being.

One can certainly argue that the scientist, as steward, operates under a burden of fidelity to those he or she serves. However, fidelity is not a simple matter. While the scientist's role is often narrowly defined in terms of the systematic search for empirical knowledge, reality is far more complex in the moral dimension. Scientists have multiple -- and frequently conflicting -- loyalties to colleagues, employers, sponsoring institutions and funding sources, corporate partners, professional organizations, and the general public. Scientists are also citizens, encumbered by additional loyalties to self, family, community, and the institutions of society as a whole.² These multiple, and often conflicting, loyalties confront scientists on a routine basis, yet they remain largely unrecognized at the interface of science and the common good.

Competition for funding, pressure to succeed in the short term, the politics of science, job security, economic gain, and other personable incentives are powerful pressures that are not always acknowledged in light of moral demands. Following regulatory mandates is more often viewed as a practical barrier rather than a moral obligation to the institutions of society. Funding proposals are constructed with more attention to the political agenda of the funding source than the likely benefit of taxpayers or the eventual consumers of the research outcomes. University and private-sector partnerships are increasingly undermining the traditional culture of shared knowledge as patents increasingly limit access to research findings. The rapid transfer of basic science to market application has pitted short-term, personal economic returns against careful assessment of risks and benefits.

While outright scientific misconduct is recognized and publicly discouraged as an ethical infraction, scientists are not often encouraged to reflect upon their work in the moral light of conflicting loyalties. When they are, the dialogues of scientific justification are largely utilitarian and rest on the assumption that knowledge itself is an unqualified and morally neutral good. A further assumption is that the application of knowledge, in particular technological applications, represents progress -- also an unqualified good. Science is a core value of a technologically advanced society, and tremendous faith is invested in scientists to use their findings in ways that serve a greater good.

Most of us, scientists and non-scientists alike, believe humankind has largely benefited from advances in the natural sciences, which have led to increasingly control over the natural forces that drive the external world. However, science has always had its detractors, people who foresee the negative implications of scientific discoveries. Yet, once a technology arrives, it rarely gets put back in the box unless a more effective technology appears to supplant it. Revolutionary leaps in technological capabilities have historically resulted in significant alterations to the human condition, upending and reconstituting social and cultural realities in the process. Enabled by the technologies that have come before, the pace of discovery and progress has increased and continues to do so, challenging our ability to sufficiently assess and adapt to the new realities. It also raises the questions of whether or not society as a whole must be safeguarded from the untoward effects of scientific and technological progress and, if so, who should be appointed as guardians charged with this lofty task?

If most scientists assume the attitude that "I'm a scientist, I do science. Let the politicians and the ethicists worry about that," then they are poor candidates as stewards of the future.³ On the other hand, scientists are also citizens, and, as such, they are equal stakeholders in the impacts of science on themselves, their families, their communities, and society as a whole. Professional codes of ethics in science and technology make clear the expectation that scientists and engineers behave as moral agents. However, what is missing is a platform on which conflicting loyalties can be made explicit and integrated into the everyday practice of science and engineering.

Are we putting too many eggs in one basket if we entrust scientists with the primary stewardship of our future? With respect to nanotechnology, the National Science Foundation's answer to this question is to give a small percentage of science funding to social scientists to study the amorphous social and ethical implications of nanotechnology, ostensibly assigning the social scientists and humanists as "interpreters," providing another layer of stewardship within the halls of science. However, in their bid to achieve the rigor and respect of the physical sciences, it could be argued that social scientists and ethicists have made themselves largely inaccessible to the general public and relatively impotent in most decision-making processes. In addition, they are subject to the same conflicting loyalties as their science and engineering colleagues.

Perhaps the answers really rest in the nature of stewardship itself and the need for mutuality in relationships of fidelity. Society owes the scientist a similar duty of fidelity. We cannot sit passively and praise science for what makes our lives better and more secure while, at the same time, criticizing science for untoward and unwanted side effects. Scientists do not work in a vacuum. Rather, they respond to popular culture, market forces, funding imperatives, and political agendas that are driven by demands well outside of the scientific enterprise. In order for them to be effective stewards of our future, we owe them the support of and input from an informed, engaged, and morally aware public dialogue that makes its way into socially motivated and responsive funding decisions, appropriately timed and well-considered dissemination of knowledge, and regulatory efforts that are not driven primary by knee-jerk political agendas, narrowly self-serving corporate agendas, or vocal-but-largely-minority voices at the extreme margins of such debates. In short, it is our reciprocal duty of loyalty to the scientist that enables and safeguards the trust we place in him or her by helping to draw the lines in the sand that guide practical and moral reflection within the scientific enterprise.

Deb Bennett-Woods, Ed. D., is an associate professor and the Director of the Department of Health Care Ethics in the Rueckert-Hartman School for Health Professions at Regis University. She is also a Fellow of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society. Her current teaching and scholarly interests emphasize the area of emerging technologies, with particular attention to the health care industry, and she is currently authoring a book entitled Nanotechnology: Ethics and Society, forthcoming in late 2007. This commentary was presented at the Nano and Bio in Society Conference, held in Chicago in March 2006 during a session entitled "Politics and Future of the Human Condition."

¹ As defined in the American Heritage Dictionary (1973).
² Vivian Weil echoes this concept in her essay, "Engineering Ethics and the Four Types of Obligations to Which Engineers are Responsible: The Public, Employers, Clients and the Profession," in Science and Technology Ethics ((2002). Raymond E. Spier (Ed.). Routledge: London. pp. 59-88).
³ Consider the observation of Joel Garreau (2004), author of Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies - and What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday). When describing his interviews with program managers at DARPA, he notes, "What you don't get is much of a sense of introspection... If you ask Kurt Henry, who's trying to regrow arms that are blown off, about the meaning of what he's doing, he replies with a grin, 'That's above my pay grade. That's not my department'." (pg 43).