Ethics for life sciences engineers
BIO-508
Chapter 3
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Description
One of the ways in which our ‘intuitions’ influence our decision making is through emotions. Research in both biological and social sciences has highlighted that emotions play a major role in shaping our thinking process and affecting our decisions. In ethical decision making, there has been some research on emotions which arise with respect to feelings of justice/fairness, harm, responsibility, social belonging, and professional competence of engineers and scientists. These ‘moral emotions’ include Compassion, Guilt and Anger.
The specifics of life sciences engineering – working with vulnerable populations or animals for example – may give rise to empathetic emotions such as distress-at-another’s-distress and compassion, as well as to shame or guilt. Emotions like these can make people more aware of ethical risks and can motivate ethical actions. But they can also give rise to biases or imprudent judgements. Each emotion will be explored to identify contexts in which it might arise, how it influences thinking, information which it may convey, and appropriate strategies for using or regulating the emotion in ethical decision making.