Social responsibility in science, technology, and medicine

"In this book, Paul T. Durbin presents a scholarly plea for social responsibility on the part of technical professionals. Examples chosen include biomedical researchers, computer professionals, nuclear experts, and ecologists, as well as medical educators, technology literacy educators, and media professionals. Even academic philosophers are urged to shoulder social responsibilities. While the language of social responsibility is not totally lacking in contemporary discussions of the ethical obligations of technical professionals, it is given a new urgency here." "The background of the discussion is an increasing number of calls, by leaders of professional societies, urging their members to shoulder greater social responsibilities associated with contemporary social ills. What these calls seem most often to lack is a sense of urgency, a demand for activism on the part of technical professionals. The book aims to attack this failing head-on." "A second part of the book attempts to answer philosophical objections to this sort of plea as a way of dealing with urgent contemporary issues. One sort of objection comes from radical critics saying that nothing can be done. But there are man