• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.1 no.2 s.2
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• pp.291-309
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• 2001

Let us critique the common notion that ethical examination retards the development of science and technology. First, I shall reformulate such a notion in the following statements: 'To survive the competitive society, we must develop science and technology before others do. It will cost too much time to examine ethically the influence of developing science and technology. Therefore, we cannot but suspend the ethical matters until we have developed science and technology.' I will then show that even if we reconstruct the above argument in a deductively valid form, the second premise is not necessarily true and that we cannot accept the conclusion because the meaning of 'competing for better lives', in the first premise, is diverse. Especially if we are to take into account all the areas of ethics and base them upon the autonomous ethics of democratic societies, it cannot be concluded that ethics is an enemy of developing science and technology. In addition, I will argue that our moral considerations must be based upon autonomous ethics in order to make the development of science and technology contribute to enhancing the desirable science culture. In the midst of making the above argument, it is proposed that the title of the 1aw of bio-ethics be changed, for it has a mistaken implication that acting against ethics results in legal punishments.