科技时代的新伦理问题

武夷山

Science, Technology, andHuman Values杂志2012年第6期发表英国爱丁堡大学人口健康科学中心Martyn Pickersgill的文章，The Co-production ofScience, Ethics, and Emotion（科学、伦理与情感的共同生产），原文见http://intl-sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/12/0162243911433057.full.pdf+html。文章提到一个关于“偶然发现”（accidental findings）的小例子。

这里说的偶然发现，不是指科研中的Serendipity，而是指不经意间了解到了其他情况。例如，家长带孩子作常规扫描，不是为了检查脑部，而操纵体检仪器的医生发现孩子脑子里有一个像瘤的东西。按照现在的规矩，这位医生是不能说出去的，除非有话语权的专家最终决定将有关情况告诉家长。因为，如果这个信息轻率透露出去，孩子以后上医疗保险或人寿保险就得交更多的钱，考驾照时也许会遇到麻烦，等等。可是，看见孩子脑图像的这位医生就会很纠结。

这种情况，在科技不发达的时代是没有的。科技时代，出现了很多新型的伦理学问题，转基因食物上的大辩论只不过是新时代中新伦理问题的一个缩影。如何应对新伦理问题？现在世界上没有人知道答案，我国的应对状况则更糟。

假定我是一个直觉特别灵的人，“料到”某架飞机可能坠毁，那么，明明知道有位朋友会登机，要不要劝阻他？如果劝阻成功，但是飞机并未失事，我从此就要被别人视为大忽悠；如果不劝阻，飞机果然出事了，我会不会谴责自己一辈子？前述那位医生的纠结与此是类似的，因为牵涉到很大的不确定性，不知道脑子里长了似乎是瘤子的孩子以后是否百分之百要犯病。

Martyn Pickersgill专攻科学、技术与医学社会学问题。2011年，他主编了题为《神经科学的社会学反思》的著作，他与人合编的著作《知识、技术与法律：诘问Nexus》也即将问世。

该文摘要如下：

The concept of “ethical research” holds considerable sway over the ways in which contemporary biomedical, natural, and social science investigations are funded, regulated, and practiced within a variety of countries. Some commentators have viewed this “new” means of governance positively; others, however, have been resoundingly critical, regarding it as restrictive and ethics bodies and regulations unfit for the task they have been set (or have set themselves). Regardless, it is clear that science today is an“ethical” business. The ways in which formal and informal ethical discourses and practices—what might be called “regimes of normativity”—structure scientific work and the meanings it is ascribed with have, however, been underexplored. This article attends to how science and ethics articulate; how they are, in many ways, co-produced. Exploring these processes of co-production casts into sharp relief the essential emotionality of science; the relationships investigators have with their colleagues, work, and research participants pulse with emotion, potentially shaping in important ways the very kinds of knowledge that laboratories produce.