I find it difficult to separate teaching scientific ethics from the practice of science or indeed from the teaching of ethics in general. To teach bioethics critically means challenging cherished and popular beliefs.

Most important among these beliefs is that modern science is necessarily a reflection of reality, that its product is nothing but truth. Science can be and has been socially constructed, just as any other institution is. A scientific community reflects the values of the society that produces and supports it. A sexist and racist society will produce a sexist and racist science in spite of the claims of the scientific community to objectivity. In fact, the rhetoric of "scientific objectivity" is so integral to the mission of science that those scientists who actively question the social uses of science or the power relations which determine its direction, risk being classified by the scientific community as no longer "objective."

"Objectivity" has become a code word for the political, ethical, and social passivity of those scientists who have tacitly agreed to accept a privileged scientific or social position in return for their political silence. Members of the public who take on the ethical and social responsibility that most scientists refuse, are usually dismissed as uninformed alarmists. A critical issue is treated as an expression of popular anxiety. Experts are called in to calm the public rather than to articulate the grounds for concern. In other words, a society attempts to produce scientific knowledge serving its perceived economic and political interests.

Science has become a major social investment, to be funded by the state. This investment has been reproduced in universities and private corporations. Funds for science follow social priorities established by existing relations of power. An ethical critique of science might be used as a tool to determine what would be required to liberate science from the power structure and return it to the service of humanity.

In many ways, a discussion of bioethics is, in effect, a discussion of social ethic,. Whether or not we usher in the age of genetic engineering is no more a scientific decision than whether or not we develop nuclear arms. Such decisions are defined in part by profitability and in part by the uses anticipated.

A few biologists and bio-ethicists have warned society for a considerable period of time of the consequences that some manipulations of nature will have on future generations. That these warnings have been systematically ignored or diffused is testimony that those who depend most on exploitation affecting the ecosystem are only concerned about whether they individually outlive the resources they exploit.

If our moral obligations include unborn generations, we should not present a dying planet to its future inhabitants. Such a catastrophe can be avoided only if we learn from history and extrapolate into our future in all decision making. The possibility of nuclear annihilation of many life forms; destablization of the ecology; breakdown of the ozone layer; depletion of non-renewable resources; pollution of air and water; overpopulation; decreasing capabilities to provide food, water, and energy worldwide; and the systematic destruction of the rain forests; each creates a crisis. The very system that produces these crises also prevents their solution.

The victimization of people by their own institutions must be challenged. The balloon payment for the high standard of living in America (and for the excessive wealth of some of its members) is about to come due. The ecosystem has been overtaxed and will not withstand continued exploitation. The establishment has, it is true, set up a variety of agencies to protect the environment. Yet, at the same time, the establishment has also set in motion machinery the by-products of which systematically destroy our resources and threaten life on the planet. This is the same mentality that requires cigarette packages to state that smoking is hazardous to health while providing money to subsidize the tobacco industry.

Merely presenting the data to those who occupy positions of economic or political power does not cause social change. Some hazardous technologies are staunchly defended by economic and political power because technology in general has become such an integral part of their very existence. But the same technologies, legitimized by their alleged ability to "better human life," often have byproducts that reduce the quality of life at an even faster rate.

In teaching bioethics, it is useful to adopt the practice of analyzing science historically to discover patterns. These patterns demonstrate the role of science in society historically, the uses to which science has been put, and the flaws in the scientific establishment's view of reality. One can then analyze science philosophically to discover how little philosophers and scientists have interacted and therefore how little they have learned from each other. Recently, a few have deviated from that pattern (e.g., Thomas Kuhn, Everett Mendelsohn, and Paul Feyerabend as philosophers and John Farley and Michael Ruse as historians). Their kind of interdisciplinary blend is, I think, essential to getting closer to how science actually functions within the scientific community and within society and how it has performed its legitimizing role.

It is important to note in all of this that teaching itself is only legitimate in the existing society in its role of reifying the status quo. The real anomaly of the myth of "free educational institutions in a free society" is that such an institution could only exist in a society not founded on exploitation. Freedom to teach dissenting ideas in this society has been minimal and mostly illusory. One is free to teach anything within well defined limits so long as it does not have any "undesired" effects. Teaching bioethics critically involves walking a fine line.

Perhaps more threatening than nuclear war (which overtly threatens everyone, exploiters included) to the long term survival of the planet (life forms intact) are the biological threats: What is the critical threshold of the ecosystem to the increasing breakdown of food chains by species extinctions, or the reduction in oxygen normally provided by the rain forests that are now being systematically depleted? Might the weak link be a genetically engineered world replacing the one produced by natural selection?

Of course, the world might not endure the other insults long enough for the genetic: engineers to do any serious harm. Nonetheless, what is already on the drawing boards of a few people shows an audacity roughly comparable to that of last century's eugenecists. These genetic engineers consider themselves more insightful about complex ecosystems than natural selection's millions of years of trial and error. Not many such people need "boldly go where no one has gone before" in order to create problems for us and future generations (as has been so amply demonstrated historically). The main difference between the present and the past is that with the aid of our technology, we now possess a much greater capacity to destroy.

Since the status quo cannot be defended ethically, practically or rationally, change is mandated. It is necessary to treat the concept of social change broadly. We must begin by debunking the myths of human nature that dominate current ideology (including sociobiology) and to resurrect the concept of malleable human nature that allows for the needed social change. We are all accustomed to the notion that we want our children to be shaped by "good influences." What are the material conditions within society that produce those "good influences" for society? What are the material conditions that produce mentally and physically healthy individuals? What are the conditions that generate in them cooperation, support, sharing? What conditions would teach them ethical sensitivity to the environment instead of the greed, competition, and dishonesty that this society has created?

We must challenge the exploiter's "right" to destroy planetary life, a "right" legitimized in part by the human institution of free enterprise. To sit idly by and watch a civilization find new ways to die is not an option for an enlightened, ethically aware person.

The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at the Illinois Institute of Technology was established in 1970 for the purpose of promoting education and scholarship relating to ethical and policy issues of the professions.

EDITOR: Michael Davis
STAFF: Rebecca Newton
EDITORIAL BOARD: Thomas Calero, Martin Malin, Vivian Weil, Michael Davis

Opinions expressed in Perspectives on the Professions are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions or the Illinois Institute of Technology. Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Ill. 60616.