TY - JOUR
T1 - Entering the social experiment
T2 - A case for the informed consent of graduate engineering students
AU - Fisher, Erik
AU - Lightner, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
In neither of these cases is there an explicit or implicit role of research practitioners regarding the potential societal dimensions, context, or outcomes of their work. A notable exception to this is the National Science Foundation’s “Broader Impacts Criterion” (BIC), which explicitly requires National Science Foundation research proposal authors to address the “broader impacts” of their proposed research. A glance at the text, however, indicates that broader impacts can include education and outreach activities that are attached to, but not integral to, the content or outcomes of the research. Moreover, when there is mention made of outcomes that are related to the eventual social function and use of the given research, there is an apparent bias towards positive outcomes. In other words, while the BIC requirement theoretically provides an opportunity for proposal authors to consider the potential controversial outcomes of their work, there is no reason for them to link the technical work with such considerations. Thus, BIC would seem the most likely candidate for linkage, but in fact it requires neither of these, and it therefore pays no attention to the moral integrity of researchers beyond their responsibility to make a case for the “beneficial” social relevance of the activities of the proposed research.
PY - 2009/7
Y1 - 2009/7
N2 - Taking up the notion of engineering as social experimentation, this paper argues that engineering research laboratory directors have a responsibility to inform graduate engineering students who participate in their research projects of the potential broader social dimensions of those projects. Informing engineers-in-the-making of the broader social dimensions of the research they are learning to conduct would help ensure their future capacity to act as ethically responsible social experimenters. The paper also argues that graduate engineers have a right to be informed participants in activities that may have broader social dimensions than are recognized by formal research evaluation or educational processes. The process of obtaining the informed consent of graduate engineering students, if implemented effectively, would thus help ensure both their capacity to act as moral agents and their own moral integrity. Since the eventual outcomes of research can be uncertain, complex, and contested, most traditional institutional frameworks-such as principle-based codes of conduct and risk-benefit frameworks-provide an insufficient basis to inform engineers and citizens. Rather, we recommend an ongoing discursive process that explores a number of different actors, contexts, and scenarios, and that evolves with the social context of the engineering research in question. While this may seem burdensome to the engineering research process, it can be integrated directly into the group research meetings and mentorship activities that typically already go on. Moreover, it can actually be seen to benefit engineering practices.
AB - Taking up the notion of engineering as social experimentation, this paper argues that engineering research laboratory directors have a responsibility to inform graduate engineering students who participate in their research projects of the potential broader social dimensions of those projects. Informing engineers-in-the-making of the broader social dimensions of the research they are learning to conduct would help ensure their future capacity to act as ethically responsible social experimenters. The paper also argues that graduate engineers have a right to be informed participants in activities that may have broader social dimensions than are recognized by formal research evaluation or educational processes. The process of obtaining the informed consent of graduate engineering students, if implemented effectively, would thus help ensure both their capacity to act as moral agents and their own moral integrity. Since the eventual outcomes of research can be uncertain, complex, and contested, most traditional institutional frameworks-such as principle-based codes of conduct and risk-benefit frameworks-provide an insufficient basis to inform engineers and citizens. Rather, we recommend an ongoing discursive process that explores a number of different actors, contexts, and scenarios, and that evolves with the social context of the engineering research in question. While this may seem burdensome to the engineering research process, it can be integrated directly into the group research meetings and mentorship activities that typically already go on. Moreover, it can actually be seen to benefit engineering practices.
KW - Education
KW - Engineering Ethics
KW - Governance
KW - Informed Consent
KW - Nanotechnology
KW - Social Experimentation
KW - Synthetic Biology
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U2 - 10.1080/02691720903364167
DO - 10.1080/02691720903364167
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:74249105241
SN - 0269-1728
VL - 23
SP - 283
EP - 300
JO - Social Epistemology
JF - Social Epistemology
IS - 3-4
ER -