Paper 6
Ethics and Politics of Science, Technology and Medicine
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from
Section A and three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal
weighting.
Begin each answer on a separate sheet.
Write legibly and on only one side of the paper.
Answers must be tied up in separate bundles, marked 1, 2, 3, etc.
according to the number of the question.
Attach a completed coversheet to each bundle and complete a master
coversheet listing all questions attempted. It is essential that you write
your examination number and not your name on the coversheet and on
each bundle.
You may not start to read the questions printed on the subsequent
pages of this question paper until instructed to do so by the
invigilator.
Page 2 of 2
SECTION A
1. Do values influence technological change in the same way they influence
scientific change?
2. Colonial legacies are irrelevant to the ethical and political issues raised
by science, technology and medicine. Discuss
3. What, if anything, would be wrong with technocracy?
SECTION B
4. Should we organise our approach to global warming around carbon or
climate?
5. What was scientific about scientific management?
6. Are the values that commonly inform technological change the ones that
should?
7. “Science is an elaboration of everyday operations – the home, the
school, the shop, the bedside and the hospital present scientific
problems as truly as does the laboratory” (John Dewey, 1938). What are
the implications of this claim for sociological studies of scientific
knowledge?
8. Does the sociology of scientific knowledge undermine the truth claims of
science?
9. “The loss of one’s life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. The
loss of one’s life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects,
and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future” (Don
Marquis, 1989). Does this explain what is wrong with abortion?
10. Explain the significance of the phrase “walking on two legs” to science
policy in Maoist China.
11. Which aspects of scientific debate, if any, should be opened up to nonscientists?
12. “Consent is like a magic power which can make any impermissible action
permissible.” Discuss with reference to medical research.