As part of this wider approach, an Institute for Social Inventions' working party has drawn up a new and shorter version of the Hippocratic Oath (see below), aimed not at doctors but at engineers, scientists (pure and applied) and the executives who employ them. As Professor Weeranmantry remarks: 'the idea of an ethic for science goes all the way back to Francis Bacon. In Bacon's work, New Atlantis, scientists took an oath for concealing inventions and experiences which they thought fit to keep secret.' An Institute working party member, Peter Lewis, adds that history provides a notable precedent of ethical behaviour by a scientist. This is the example of Leonardo da Vinci, who (despite offering many of his military inventions to the Duke of Milan and other patrons) suppressed his work on submarines 'on account of the evil nature of men, who would practise assassination at the bottom of the sea.' By Leonardo's action the world was spared submarine warfare for 300 years. Peter Lewis acknowledges that scientists have tended in the main to see their work as an amoral and dispassionate search for truth, but considers that in recent decades a growing number have begun to ask themselves if the scientific method cannot be amended so as to incorporate an ethical component. 'Anyone who is bound by an oath such as the one we propose,' writes Lewis, 'has a powerful curb placed on their behaviour. If I break the rules, even if I have concealed my transgression from other people, I will know what I am, and I cannot escape from that knowledge.'
'I will strive to apply my skills with the utmost respect for the well-being of humanity and the integrity of the natural world. Dr Hart argues that the clause about respect for all the earth's species would present a difficulty for biologists and others.)
The response has been encouraging, even from other continents. For instance, most of the key staff at Auckland University have signed and they have ordered hundreds of copies for their students. The Pugwash Conference in London had a working party on this theme and Unesco are showing signs of interest.
Professor Meredith Thring, chairman of the Institute's working party and author of 'Man, Machines and Tomorrow', writes: 'No one wants pointless restriction, but too many scientific developments are posing moral problems by being big enough to involve survival or destruction. Not to face up to defining morality now will put mankind on a level with the concentration camp officials of the Second World War: 'It was not my job to think. I was only obeying orders'.' The wording of the Oath is of course very general and is applicable to thoughful professionals of all sorts. The expectation is that it will provide an ethical framework for the more detailed Codes of Practice within each discipline.
Eventually, such an Oath may help reduce the social standing of technologists working in armaments and similar dubious areas - and, once aroused, there are few forces on earth more powerful than social pressure.
Probably the most important issue of them all, as far as gaining acceptance for the Oath goes, is what happens to scientists or engineers with ethics, if they obey the Oath, make a stand and lose their jobs. If the Oath became part of a profession's graduation ceremony, there might be some pressure the professional association could bring to bear on the employer. Robert Jungk and his colleagues in Austria have looked at this problem, and their initial suggestion was that any scientists leaving their research jobs for ethical reasons could receive 'conscience money' through an insurance scheme; but this turned out to be too costly. What they developed instead was a fund which people could pay into, that would finance alternative scientific institutes, to provide jobs for 'refugee' scientists. There are now four or five such institutes on the continent.
- Copies of the Oath are available on cream card for 50p in stamps (single copy) or L7 for 100 from: The Institute for Social Inventions, 20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA (tel 081 208 2853; fax 081 452 6434).
- In the States, parchment copies of the Oath are available from the American Engineers for Social Responsibility, PO Box 2785, Washington DC, 20013-2785, USA.
- Also available is 'The Book of Oaths' a booklet describing most of the known ethical codes for scientists, L3-95 incl. p&p from the Institute.
- See also Professor C.G. Weeramantry's book 'The Slumbering Sentinel', Penguin, 1983.
- Re the pope and the crossbow, see 'Masters, Princes and Merchants', by John W. Baldwin, Princeton, 1970, Vol 1, page 223.
A voluntary student pledge of social and environmental responsibility, begun at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, in 1987, has been incorporated at 18 graduation exercises, including those at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The 20 word pledge states simply:
'I pledge to investigate thoroughly and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job opportunity I consider.'
Nelson, one of the pledge's proponents, says that the pledge lets students 'make a commitment to themselves' about what values they do and don't want to promote.
'The pledge is inviting because it's not too dogmatic. Every student can decide for himself or herself what is required to satisfy the pledge.'
The pledge 'makes students think,' says Matt Nicodemus, co-author of the original pledge at Humboldt State. 'It lets students think not only about what job they don't want but also what kind of job they do want. It's a plan for social change.'
Nicodemus says he disagrees with critics who dismiss it as a meaningless symbolic gesture. If enough campuses around the world embrace the pledge and incorporate it in their graduation exercises, 'we can have some very material consequences on the world.'
Matt Nicodemus, Graduation Press Alliance, Box 4439, Arcata, CA 9521, USA (tel 707 826 7033).