The Ambivalence of Protocells: Challenges for Self-Reflexive Ethics
The Ambivalence of Protocells: Challenges for Self-Reflexive Ethics
This chapter deals with the public’s role in decision making about new technologies is a contentious issue. It highlights the difficulty of giving due weight to societal values when making decisions about the future with protocells. It argues that protocells have the potential to be a mighty tool sharing high ambivalence as a feature with other advanced technologies. This chapter shows that ethical considerations are important for protocell research and development due to social and economic interactions of the new technology with humankind, and the idea deeply embedded in society that the whole endeavor need not be condemned if ethics are interlaced with the process of scientific research.
Keywords: protocells, humankind, scientific research, technology, decision making, ambivalence, ethical considerations
MIT Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.