In part this may be seen as a strong emphasis on those value commitments inherent in scientific activity that stand threatened by present economic and socio-political trends. In part, it can also be regarded as a delineation and clarification of those values that science as a whole should heed to a greater extent and that are necessitated by the social and environmental problems of our time. Thus we envisage that a constructive ethical debate between science and its publics will ensue, based on this new conception. This debate should be conducted with a mutual willingness to self-critical examinations of current practices and ideologies. While ethics and ethical discussions certainly cannot provide an answer to all the current problems, they do offer general normative orientation and facilitate the dialogue with a concerned public.
Good ethics creates trust and commitment, and trust dissolves when ethics become compromised.
There is a great number of specific issues deserving closer attention with respect to their ethical underpinning. In order to highlight some of the issues that raise fundamental and important ethical problems we shall proceed briefly to describe selected examples.