Environmental Ethics, Uncertainty, and Preservation Policy: The Case of the Florida Scrub

这项研究使生物学家和哲学家能够审视与科学有关的两个伦理问题。在抽象层面上，他们将考虑哪些伦理原则与生态学家对可能对环境政策产生影响的不确定科学结果的解释有关。具体地说，他们将考虑生态学家应该如何将这些原则应用于当前的政策问题，即保护独特而罕见的佛罗里达灌木栖息地。研究人员开始完成对涉及生态概念和结论的规范性假设的分析。在这个项目中，他们将考虑如何解决伦理原则之间的冲突，通过发展二阶原则并检查使用这些原则的替代、合理的后果。他们将通过研究佛罗里达灌木丛栖息地保护的案例来检验这一程序的结果。由于该案例在环境上具有重大意义，但在生物学上具有不确定性，因此如何解释与保护有关的研究的伦理约束可能适用于环境伦理和公共政策的许多情况。这项研究有三个目标：检查生态学家在解释和传播其结果时的伦理义务；在有问题的情况下，确定生态学家应该如何解释他们的结果的规范性假设；并评估在特定情况下对解释和传播采取特定立场的后果。研究结果应阐明公众和专业人士关于科学伦理标准和科学对公众的义务的辩论。

This research enables a biologist and a philosopher to examine two ethical issues related to science. On the abstract level, they will consider what ethical principles are relevant to ecologists' interpretations of uncertain scientific results that might have consequences for environmental policy. Concretely, they will consider how ecologists should apply these principles to a current problem in policy, preservation of the unique and rare Florida scrub habitat. The investigators begin having completed an analysis of normative assumptions involved in ecological concepts and conclusions. In this project, they will consider how conflicts between ethical principles can be resolved, by developing second-order principles and examining alternative, plausible consequences from their use. They will test their results from this procedure by examining the case of the preservation of the Florida scrub habitat. Because the case is environmentally significant but biologically uncertain, the ethical constraints on how to interpret research relevant to its preservation are likely to be applicable in many situations of environmental ethics and public policy. The research has three objectives: to examine the ethical obligations of ecologists in interpreting and disseminating their results; to identify the normative assumptions in alternative positions on how ecologists ought to interpret their results in problematic cases; and to assess the consequences, in a specific case, of taking particular stands on interpretation and dissemination. The results should illuminate public and professional debates about ethical standards for science and scientific obligations to the public.