Ethics and the products of science

As humans unravel the biochemical foundations of their nature and as they come to a clearer understanding of both their own origins and the very origins of the universe itself, it has become possible to ask whether ethics is really a subject apart from science and, if it is, to query whether it is capable of resolving the moral dilemmas that arise as people consider the products of modern science and the uses to which they might be put. This chapter will begin by considering a significant scientific challenge to the very possibility of ethics itself. It will then turn to consider how the moral dilemmas raised by modern science might be resolved. Finally, an important approach to the resolution of moral dilemmas will be applied to some of the difficult problems relating to modern scientific products.