University of Leicester
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Ethics as Lived Practice. Anticipatory Capacity and Ethical Decision-Making in Forensic Genetics

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journal contribution
posted on 2022-09-23, 09:03 authored by Matthias Wienroth, Rafaela Granja, Veronika Lipphardt, Emmanuel Nsiah Amoako, Carole McCartney
Greater scrutiny and demands for innovation and increased productivity place pressures on scientists. Forensic genetics is advancing at a rapid pace but can only do so responsibly, usefully, and acceptably within ethical and legal boundaries. We argue that such boundaries require that forensic scientists embrace ‘ethics as lived practice’. As a starting point, we critically discuss ‘thin’ ethics in forensic genetics, which lead to a myopic focus on procedures, and to seeing ‘privacy’ as the sole ethical concern and technology as a mere tool. To overcome ‘thin’ ethics in forensic genetics, we instead propose understanding ethics as an intrinsic part of the lived practice of a scientist. Therefore, we explore, within the context of three case studies of emerging forensic genetics technologies, ethical aspects of decision-making in forensic genetics research and in technology use. We discuss the creation, curation, and use of databases, and the need to engage with societal and policing contexts of forensic practice. We argue that open communication is a vital ethical aspect. Adoption of ‘ethics as lived practice’ supports the development of anticipatory capacity—empowering scientists to understand, and act within ethical and legal boundaries, incorporating the operational and societal impacts of their daily decisions, and making visible ethical decision making in scientific practice.

Funding

Communication and Society Research Centre

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia

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contract CEECINST/00157/2018

History

Author affiliation

School of Law, University of Leicester

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

GENES

Volume

12

Issue

12

Publisher

MDPI

issn

2073-4425

eissn

2073-4425

Copyright date

2021

Available date

2022-09-23

Spatial coverage

Switzerland

Language

English