Several months ago I attended the Advisory Committee on Acoustic Impacts on Marine Mammals. The committee is an arm of the Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), the administrative body of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). This act was passed by the US Congress in 1972, and is the companion (with differences) to the Endangered Species Act. The MMPA is distinct, however, in that it explicitly protects some marine mammals as both individuals and groups. This has highlihted the ethical issues swirling around marine anthropogenic impacts. It has also strained the credibility of those who want to deny ethics a place at the public policy table. For more on the MMC, MMPA and its ‘Sound Program’, see http://www.mmc.gov/.
The Advisory Commitee was set up to explore the impact of military and commercial ‘sonification’ on marine mammals. Many marine mammals ‘see’ using sonar, and the human use of sonar can prove disorienting, damaging and even lethal. While there is general agreement on this, specific scientific data is still being gathered.
This has led to an internal, somewhat implicit, struggle on the MMC. Should it base its judgements on risk analysis and wait to find out the impacts of sonification on marine life? Or should it act with precaution and take steps now to mitigate reasonably foreseeable negative effects? To help clarify such issues, I was asked to provide public testimony and written comments on the ethics that underwrites animal based research. You can read my written statement to the MMC below.
cheers, Bill
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Advisory Committee on Acoustic Impacts on Marine Mammals
US Marine Mammal Commission
Plenary Meeting Three, San Francisco, CA
27-29 July 2004
Dear Members of the Advisory Committee, Ladies and Gentleman.
Thank you for this opportunity to address the US Marine Mammal Commission’s Advisory Committee on Acoustic Impacts on Marine Mammals.
For the record, I am Bill Lynn (William S. Lynn, Ph.D.), Senior Ethics Advisor of Practical Ethics (www.practicalethics.net). Practical Ethics is an independent research, education and consulting practice dedicated to the well-being of people, animals and nature. I am here at the kind invitation of some of the environmental groups serving on this committee. My purpose is to help advise and facilitate a dialogue on ethics and marine mammal research.
I have two documents with me here today. The first is my prepared remarks, and the second is a resource list on the subject of research ethics and marine mammals. I will keep my verbal comment quite short, and ask the advisory committee to accept these two documents into its records.
I would like to begin with a caveat. I am not a marine scientist, and I will not presume to tell you how to practice marine science. That would not only be arrogant and foolish, but violate my deeply held commitment to honouring the insights and skills of colleagues from diverse fields of study. Rather, as someone trained in ethics and the human/social sciences, my purpose is to help clarify those elements in the overlapping domains of ethics and science, what we often call ‘research ethics’. I think I can be of most help in this regard by stepping back from the details of your discussion of acoustic impacts, and share a few thoughts on the whys and hows of research ethics. I mean these comments to be suggestive, not conclusive, and hope they may serve as a point of departure in future discussions. My take home point here is that ethics is indispensable to science of any sort, as it helps to ensure both the integrity and responsible use of research. Ethics helps science not only in its search for best practices during research, but in articulating the best uses of the knowledge gained from research. This is all the more important when we are speaking of research that may directly help or harm people, animals and their habitats.
When it comes to discussions of research ethics, we often labour with two misapprehensions. The first is what has come to be called the fact/value dichotomy. In this dichotomy science is associated with facts, reason, empirical truth and objective modes of analysis. Ethics on the other hand is associated with values, emotions, personal and social preferences, and subjective modes of interpretation. Facts and science are therefore ‘real’, while values and ethics are at best, not quite as real.
The reality of research ethics, however, is very different from the picture painted in the fact/value dichotomy. Science and ethics are in point of fact, mutually informing. Science is replete with moral norms (truth and trust being the two most important). Moreover, science has (or should have) a powerful voice in ethics, helping us distinguish and choose better from worse values to inform how we ought to live and meet our ethical responsibilities to others.
The second misapprehension is that ethics is a rigid or ideological worldview. There are people who use ethics to shame others, or score debating points. But this is not the tradition of ethics at its best. At its best, ethics is an exploration of ‘how we ought to live’ (Socrates in Plato’s Republic, Book 1:352d), a conversation about the values that ought to inform our beliefs and behaviour. Ethics may be informed and enriched by religion, spirituality, personal experience or social custom, but it is not reducible to these sources. Instead, ethics is a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary dialogue that uses reason and evidence in its search for those values that promote the health and well-being of people, animals and nature.
With respect to research ethics itself, there are two domains of significance that should be kept in mind. The first is the internal domain, that is, the methods of research and the production of scientific knowledge. We often hear this domain referred to in terms of ‘professional ethics’ or ‘codes of conduct’. Ethics in the internal domain helps ensure the integrity of research. While there are many ways of defining this integrity, it basically serves to uphold two core moral values of science — truth and trust. When speaking of truth, we are referring to the collection, analysis, interpretation and communication of research. With respect to trust, we are thinking about the practice of collegiality and the avoidance of conflicts of interest. Along with upholding truth and trust as core values, ethics also helps us define best practices for implementing those values in research. Common examples of best practices that promote truthfulness include prohibitions against plagiarism, falsification of data, or the manipulation of research results. Best practices that promote trust include guidelines on avoiding and/or disclosing conflicts of interest rooted in material self-interest, the prior restraint of knowledge, or organizational culture that encourage self-censorship.
The second domain is external, and refers to the use of scientific knowledge, especially applications of its theories, methods and associated technologies. We often hear this domain referred to in terms of ‘animal welfare’, ‘environmental ethics’ or ‘social justice’. The reason for this external domain is that science, for better or worse, has direct and indirect impacts on the health and well-being of people, animals and nature. These impacts have consequences at a number of distinct if interconnected scales — individual, population, species, and community — in both natural and social systems, in geographic space, and historical time. Ethics helps elucidate the best uses of science by noting how the research practices and knowledge products of science produce more or less well-being in the world. This is not an easy assessment to make, requiring the wisdom of many fields, as well as the insights of many individuals. Even so, it is necessary if science is to preserve its integrity and credibility in a wider social environment.
Even when we have a firm appreciation of ethics’ domains of significance in science, we can fail to incorporate this knowledge into wildlife policy and management. The reasons for this are partially rooted in a well-intended if fallacious focus on ‘sound science’. Sound science is supposed to be the empirically grounded, theoretically rich, and methodologically rigourous basis for wildlife conservation and environmental management. Using sound science we can model natural processes and determine rational plans of action within acceptable margins of risk. Thus we tend to approach animal welfare and environmental issues as technical problems that can be fixed with the right combination of knowledge and technique.
While I heartily endorse the use of rigourous science as a foundational element in policy and management, it is a mistake to place our faith in science alone. Questions of animal welfare and environmental protection are not only or primarily about science. This is a keystone point. Instead they are frequently confusions and conflicts over the values our society should be trying to promote. The ongoing national debate over the disposition of wildlife in terrestrial and aquatic military zones is a case in point. It raises value-laden questions about our compassion for sentient animals, our commitment to preserving endangered species and the integrity of ecosystems, and our legitimate concerns for national security. Science strives for causal knowledge about the systems affected by disputes over values, and this is very helpful. Nonetheless, it is ethics that provides us the moral knowledge to make discriminating judgments between those values we ought to promote or reduce in importance.
A related reason is the potential for ‘values gridlock’. As noted above, some of the stickiest problems in wildlife research have little or nothing to do with empirical data, quantitative models, or management techniques. Instead, they are deeply rooted ethical conflicts over whether and how to coexist with a diverse array of marine life, with all its accompanying needs, some of which are not aligned with human priorities. To resolve such problems, we must face our conflicting values directly. This involves a process of identifying the moral values at stake, clarifying how those values are served (or not), and evaluating possible courses of action consistent with our ethical sensibilities. This is a point of importance when identifying and pursuing research agendas. We must be mindful to address the ethical questions up front when setting research agendas, rather than treating them as an after thought. More specifically, ethical considerations should be considered during all phases of research design and implementation. This should include a consideration of alternatives methods and mitigations when invasive and/or potentially harmful methodologies are being entertained.
To conclude, I am not advocating that we throw the baby out with the bath water. Both science and ethics are powerful tools for understanding our place and our responsibilities in the world. They are especially important when discussing issues as complex as that before this committee. What I would suggest, instead, is an integrated approach, one that combines both science and ethics in the search for the best practices and outcomes in marine mammal acoustics research and conservation.
William S. Lynn, Ph.D.
Senior Ethics Advisor
Practical Ethics
williamlynn@practicalethics.net
www.practicalethics.net
