7 - The science of ethics

Summary

Ethical theories (as introduced in Chapter 2) begin with descriptions of behaviors that are considered moral and seek to explain why they are so considered. As such ethical theories also provide perspectives on the norms incorporated into science as a social institution, mapped out in the sociology of science (Chapter 3). Additionally, theories provide different frameworks for examining and promoting institutional norms in the practice of science (Chapters 4, 5, and 6). But the relationship between ethics and science can also be reversed. It is possible to ask not only what ethics has to say about science, but also what science has to say about ethics. Science can be used to try to respond to the “why” question about behavioral norms. The present chapter thus considers efforts to use, for example, decision science, evolution, and psychology to give scientific explanations for human behavior and some associated moral beliefs. Thus, whereas the previous three chapters focused on the ethical assessment of issues related to the practice of science, the present chapter turns to considerations of how science can be used to give an account of these practices.

Setting the stage: sexual harassment among scientists

In a 2009 issue of the peer-refereed scientific journal PLoS ONE, Min Tan (from the Guandong Entomological Institute, Guangzhou, China) and colleagues published a study of the practice of fellatio among fruit bats. According to the paper abstract:

Oral sex is widely used in human foreplay, but rarely documented in other animals.… The short-nosed fruit bat Cynopterus sphinx exhibits resource defense polygyny and one sexually active male often roosts with groups of females.… Female bats often lick their mate’s penis during dorsoventral copulation. The female lowers her head to lick the shaft or the base of the male’s penis but does not lick the glans penis which has already penetrated the vagina. Males never withdrew their penis when it was licked by the mating partner. A positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male’s penis during copulation and the duration of copulation. Furthermore, mating pairs spent significantly more time in copulation if the female licked her mate’s penis than if fellatio was absent.