HINTS ON ECOTOXICOLOGY AND ETHICS

摘要

Ethical aspects are intrinsic to practically all branches of applied sciences but particularly to ecotoxicology and to environmental sciences. Such aspects are often overlooked because they are confounded into the technicalities of designing and performing the experiments and of analyzing and interpreting the data. In other situations the ethical aspects are intentionally ignored because short-term local economic interests dominate over the corresponding long-term ones and ethical considerations. Discussion on the relation between philosophy and ethics is avoided in the present talk. Instead, several examples ranging from the behaviour of the first European settlers in America to the uses of contemporary technology are given, revealing the diversity of situations in which ethical considerations are - or could be - applicable. Some relevant personal experiences of the author from Greece and abroad are also presented and discussed.