For an ethics of promising, or: a few kind words about James Watson.
This essay questions some of the limits that both science studies and bioethics have assumed in their engagements with technoscience, and genomics in particular. It argues that these disciplines have privileged an "ethics of suspicion" regarding technoscience, and argues that this is ill-suited to promissory sciences such as genomics. The essay begins to develop elements of an "ethics of friendship" toward genomics, using examples from toxicogenomics and behavioral genetics, to suggest what an ethics of promising might involve.
Department of Science and Technology Studies, Sage 5408, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180, USA. fortum@rpi.edu
Mike
M
Fortun
D001675:Bioethics; D026822:Ethicists; D036281:Genetic Research / Q000941:ethics*; D005824:Genetics, Behavioral; D023281:Genomics / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D010684:Philosophy; D012586:Science / Q000941:ethics*; D013672:Technology / Q000941:ethics