The ethical challenges facing science have taken on added exigency in the 21st century, posing both external and internal threats to the continued progress and viability of the scientific project. The interminable debate around questions of ethics in science have not yielded practical solutions in response to these challenges, and most approaches today are characterised by solutionism and disregard for the long view. This paper explores pragmatic ways to foster the necessary conditions to responsibly solve novel ethical-practical problems, by centring the self-appropriation of individual participants in the social ecosystem underlying scientific endeavour. With reference to Bernard Lonergan’s conception of the underlying structure of human cognition and his critical realist approach to ethics, as well as the practical wisdom of Paul Ricoeur, this paper outlines an ethical approach in which recognition respect acts as a key operator in responsible decision-making, in the context of a sustainable moral scientific community oriented towards the good of order, to counteract the harmful long-term effects of bias.
Alexander McCall
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