Small Bruce H, Fisher Mark W
Social Research Unit, AgResearch Ltd, Ruakura Research Centre, Hamilton, New Zealand.
J Agric Environ Ethics. 2005;18(5):495-508. doi: 10.1007/s10806-005-0904-z.
What is the relationship between biotechnology employees' beliefs about the moral outcomes of a controversial transgenic research project and their attitudes of acceptance towards the project? To answer this question, employees (n=466) of a New Zealand company, AgResearch Ltd., were surveyed regarding a project to create transgenic cattle containing a synthetic copy of the human myelin basic protein gene (hMBP). Although diversity existed amongst employees' attitudes of acceptance, they were generally: in favor of the project, believed that it should be allowed to proceed to completion, and that it is acceptable to use transgenic cattle to produce medicines for humans. These three items were aggregated to form a project acceptance score. Scales were developed to measure respondents' beliefs about the moral outcomes of the project for identified stakeholders in terms of the four principles of common morality (benefit, non-harm, justice, and autonomy). These data were statistically aggregated into an Ethical Valence Matrix fo the project. The respondents' project Ethical Valence Scores correlated significantly with their project acceptance scores (r=0.64, p<0.001), accounting for 41% of the variance in respondents' acceptance attitudes. Of the four principles, non-harm had the strongest correlation with attitude to the project (r=0.59), followed by benefit and justice (both r=0.54), then autonomy (r=0.44). These results indicate that beliefs about the moral outcomes of a research project, in terms of the four principles approach, are strongly related to, and may be significant determinants of, attitudes to the research project. This suggests that, for employees of a biotechnology organization, ethical reasoning could be a central mechanism for the evaluation of the acceptability of a project. We propose that the Ethical Valence Matrix may be used as a tool to measure ethical attitudes towards controversial issues, providing a metric for comparison of perceived ethical consequences for multiple stakeholder groups and for the evaluation and comparison of the ethical consequences of competing alternative issues or projects. The tool could be used to measure both public and special interest groups' ethical attitudes and results used for the development of socially responsible policy or by science organizations as a democratizing decision aid to selection amongst projects competing for scarce research funds.
生物技术公司员工对于一个有争议的转基因研究项目的道德结果的信念与他们对该项目的接受态度之间存在怎样的关系？为了回答这个问题，我们对新西兰农业研究有限公司（AgResearch Ltd.）的466名员工进行了调查，该项目旨在培育含有人类髓磷脂碱性蛋白基因（hMBP）合成副本的转基因牛。尽管员工的接受态度存在差异，但总体而言：他们支持该项目，认为应该允许其完成，并且认为使用转基因牛来生产供人类使用的药物是可以接受的。这三个项目被汇总以形成项目接受分数。我们开发了量表，根据共同道德的四项原则（益处、无害、公正和自主）来衡量受访者对于该项目对特定利益相关者的道德结果的信念。这些数据被统计汇总为该项目的道德效价矩阵。受访者的项目道德效价分数与他们的项目接受分数显著相关（r = 0.64，p < 0.001），占受访者接受态度方差的41%。在这四项原则中，无害与对项目的态度相关性最强（r = 0.59），其次是益处和公正（两者r = 0.54），然后是自主（r = 0.44）。这些结果表明，从四项原则的角度来看，对于研究项目道德结果的信念与对该研究项目的态度密切相关，并且可能是其重要决定因素。这表明，对于生物技术组织的员工来说，道德推理可能是评估项目可接受性的核心机制。我们建议，道德效价矩阵可以用作衡量对有争议问题的道德态度的工具，提供一个指标，用于比较多个利益相关者群体所感知的道德后果，以及评估和比较相互竞争的替代问题或项目的道德后果。该工具可用于衡量公众和特殊利益群体的道德态度，其结果可用于制定对社会负责政策，或被科学组织用作在争夺稀缺研究资金的项目中进行选择时的一种民主化决策辅助工具。
