Bilim Ahlakı Normlarının Etik Temellendirilmesi: Bilim İnsanlarının Dışsal Sorumlulukları

Year 2015, Issue: 2, 109 - 124, 01.08.2015

Mehmet Aközer Emel Aközer

Abstract

Bilim insanlarının ahlaki sorumlulukları konusu bilim dünyasının gündemine II. Dünya Savaşı’nı izleyen onyıllarda yerleşmiştir. Bilimsel sahtecilik olgularının 1980’lerde görünür biçimde yaygınlaşması ve toplumda bilime güveni sarsması karşısında, uluslararası ve bölgesel ölçekte lider akademik ağlar, doğru araştırma pratiklerini kodlaştırma yönünde bir tartışmaya önayak olmuşlardır. Bunu izleyen davranış kodları, bilim insanlarının topluma ve insanlığa yönelik ‘dışsal’ sorumluluklarına da çeşitli biçimlerde değinmekle birlikte, esas olarak bilime ve bilim topluluğuna yönelik ‘içsel’ sorumluluklarla ilgili kusurlu davranışlar üzerinde odaklanmıştır. Bu kodlar ayrıca, bilimsel araştırmanın etik standartlarını evrensel etik ilkelere referansla temellendirmekten uzak duran bir etik çoğulculuğu yansıtmaktadır. Oysa böyle bir temellendirme gereği onyıllar önce, o dönemdeki yerleşik bilim ‘göreneği’nin zaaflarının ve Hippokrates etiğinin biyotıp araştırmalarında insan haklarını korumaya yetmediğinin apaçık ortaya çıktığı Nuremberg Doktorlar Davası’nda teslim edilmiş, bunun sonucunda 1947 Nuremberg Kodu’yla Hippokrates etiğine ilk kez bir insan hakları perspektifi kazandırılmıştır. Bu yazıda, bilim insanlarının uluslarararası kabul görmüş davranış kodlarında yazılı ya da varsayılmış dışsal ve içsel sorumlulukları için bütünsel bir etik temellendirmenin zorunluluğu savunulmaktadır. Bu zorunluluğu doğrulayan bir saptama olarak, insan değerini görelileştirme yoluyla bilimsel araştırmalarda insan hakları ihlallerini fiilen meşrulaştırmış bir anti–etiğin, etik düşünmeyi bilimin tekeline alıp felsefi etiği hükümsüz kılmaya yönelik tarihsel bir akıma dayandığı gösterilmeye çalışılmıştır. Bunun karşısında, insanın mutlak içsel değerine dayalı Kantçı etik ile hem hakikate hem de ussal bir varlık olarak insana saygıyı temel alan Popperci epistemoloji, bilim yapmanın ahlaki normlarını – bilimi anti–ahlakın hamleleri karşısında tahkim edebilecek biçimde – etik olarak temellendirme olanağı sunmaktadır. Makalede dışsal sorumluluklar için böyle bir temellendirme önerisi de yer almaktadır

Keywords

Bilimsel araştırma etiği, Etik temellendirme, İnsan hakları, Humboldtcu etik, Doğalcı etik

Ethical Justification of Moral Norms in Scientific Research: Scientists’ External Responsibilities

Abstract

Scientists’ moral responsibilities have become a focus for the scientific community over the postwar decades. International and regional networks of leading academic bodies have responded to a widely perceived increase in scientific fraud and the ensued loss of public trust in science during the 1980s, and initiated a discussion with a view to codifying good practice in research. While scientists’ “external” responsibilities towards society and the humankind have been variously addressed, codes drafted since then mainly dwell on problems of misconduct concerning scientists’ “internal” responsibilities towards science and to the scientific community. They also reflect an ethical pluralism, which declines justifying moral standards in research with reference to universal ethical principles. However, the need for such justification has been first recognized decades ago, during the Doctor’s Trial in Nuremberg, where the shortcomings of the established ethos of science and the inadequacy of the Hippocratic ethics in safeguarding human rights in research had become flagrant, with the resultant Nuremberg Code of 1947 introducing a human rights perspective into Hippocratic ethics. This paper argues for the necessity of an integral ethical justification of scientists’ both external and inner responsibilities, as put down or assumed by internationally acclaimed codes of conduct. Such necessity is validated by the evidence that a historical current to monopolize ethical thinking in the name of science and nullify philosophical ethics lies at the root of an anti–morality that relativized human worth and virtually legitimized human rights violations in scientific practice. Kantian ethics based on humans’ absolute inner worth, and Popperian epistemology rooted in respect for truth and for humans as rational beings, pledge an ethical justification of moral norms in science so as to reinforce the latter against intrusions of anti–morality. The paper concludes with an attempt to such a justification for scientists’ external responsibilities

Keywords

Ethics of scientific research, Ethical justification, Human rights, Humboldtian ethics, Naturalistic ethics

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