History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Maarten Mentzel
University of Leiden, Netherlands
Issues of Power, Risk and Ethics in the Biotech Debate
In public debates on biotech, generally the most vigorous resistance is observed towards applications for which the benefits for the public are relatively small or unclear. The public gets the impression that companies are merely pressing their own interests, and becomes very suspicious about the risks; this suspicion in turn reinforces ethical arguments as well. When the (potential) benefits are more significant, such as for the developments of new medicines, surveys suggest that the resistance against biotech tends to be lower.
This seems to imply that the public debate, even more than its surface content suggests, is shaped by the interplay of issues of power, risk and ethics, seen in terms of the interests and concerns of citizens. Through this 'filter' of narrowed concern, less direct issues such as those related to globalisation or the third world tend to have less direct impact in western societies. Moreover, distrust towards institutions becomes a crucial factor.
In this arena of power, risk and ethics, trustworthiness of institutions is a prerequisite for a credible public debate that could provide public legitimacy of innovations in biotech. From the sociological contours of this arena some of the combined measures in the procedural as well as in the argumentative sphere can be inferred that will be necessary for establishing this trustworthiness.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006