Abstract
Drawing on what has been so far discussed, this chapter turns face on to the task at hand and proposes a set of ethical principles of science communication. After reviewing existing effort to move science communication down the path of ethical principles, this chapter discusses ethics in an applied setting to make a case for why principlism and relational ethics are especially helpful in making headway into an ethics of science communication. The chapter then proposes four principles for an ethics of science communication, namely Utility (of the information communicated), Accuracy, Kairos and Generosity. These are each described and defined with reference to previous chapters.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Reflective equilibrium is the balanced outcome of reasoning between theoretical principles and specific particulars. John Rawls suggested we go back and forth between principles (e.g. equality suggests we should all contribute similarly in taxes) and our intuitions or moral judgements about related particular cases (e.g. some people will remain incredibly wealthy not matter how much they pay in taxes because they were born wealthy while others, partially because of their background, are unlikely to ever be very wealthy, so making them pay the same seems intuitively wrong). According to Rawls, we should revise our views about what is ‘right’ accordingly until we reach equilibrium.
Bibliography
Austin, W., Bergum, V., & Dossetor, J. (2008). Relational ethics. In Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (pp. 748–749). Los Angeles: Sage.
Beurer-Zuellig, B., Fieseler, C., & Meckel, M. (2009). A descriptive inquiry into the corporate communication profession in Europe. Public Relations Review, 35(3), 270–279.
Bostrom, N. (2011). Information hazards: A typology of potential harms from knowledge. Review of Contemporary Philosophy, 10, 44–79.
Edwards, S. D. (2011). Is there a distinctive care ethics? Nursing Ethics, 18(2), 184–191. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733010389431.
Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care: Personal, political, and global. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand.
Keohane, R. O., Lane, M., & Oppenheimer, M. (2014). The ethics of scientific communication under uncertainty. Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 13(4), 343–368. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594x14538570.
Priest, S., Goodwin, J., & Dahlstrom, M. F. (2018). Ethics and practice in science communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Seethaler, S., Evans, J. H., Gere, C., & Rajagopalan, R. M. (2019). Science, values, and science communication: Competencies for pushing beyond the deficit model. Science Communication, 41(3), 378–388. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547019847484.
Spitzer, S. (2017). Five principles of holistic science communication. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/04/12/five-principles-of-holistic-science-communication.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Medvecky, F., Leach, J. (2019). What Are the Guiding Ethical Principles of Science Communication?. In: An Ethics of Science Communication. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32115-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32116-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)