1. Introduction

As science and technology have come to play greater roles in modern society, more attention is being paid to the ethical issues of scientific practices. What helped to shape this phenomenon are the recent social changes since the middle of 20th century. Scientific activities have been performed in bigger scales and in more complex ways than ever, and various problems that were unimaginable in the past have come to the fore. With increasing negative influence of scientific research in the form of military weapons and environmental pollution, social responsibility of scientists has been brought up to the table. Accordingly, it has been proposed and has become convincing that individual scientists and scientific institutions should understand and cope with the relevant ethical issues, and that governments, non-governmental organizations, and the general public should be concerned about and take an active hand in the ethical practice of science. This chapter deals with the problem of how these ethical issues of science are discussed and practiced in South Korean society.
 

2. Science Ethics Education

Article 71 of <Science Agenda-Framework for Action> (hereafter <Agenda>) emphasizes that "the ethics and responsibility of science should be an integral part of the education and training of all scientists," and article 50 states that "the basic principles of peace and coexistence should be part of education at all levels." Also article 41 of <Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge> (hereafter <Declaration>) articulates, "science curricula should include science ethics, as well as training in the history and philosophy of science and its cultural impact." All these articles tell us that education in science ethics should be regarded as an important element in higher educational institutions of university level and above, where young scientists-to-be are educated and trained.

At colleges and graduate schools in South Korea, however, education programs in science and engineering ethics are not actively implemented. A survey on general education curricula for science-technology studies (STS), conducted from 26th August to 29th August 2001 via internet web page search, shows that only 16 colleges out of 90 are giving classes on science and engineering ethics. Moreover, those classes are highly concentrated on limited areas: among the 16 colleges, most (12) of them are giving classes on environmental ethics and bioethics. Computer ethics is taught at 4 colleges, and engineering ethics at 3 colleges. Few classes deal with diverse aspects of science ethics. Established lectures are not open for a large number of students, with only one or two classes being given for each subject of study. And few colleges make it a requirement for most students of science and engineering departments to take those courses.

One exceptional area is medical ethics on which medical colleges have established many courses. A good many medical colleges are giving classes on medical ethics and the number of those colleges is gradually increasing: from 7 out of 31 colleges in 1990 to 20 out of 37 in 1996. In 1999, however, only 15 medical colleges out of 41 offered the classes titled as 'medical ethics' in the regular medical courses while, in other colleges, ethics-related classes were usually offered in the premedical courses. What is worse, most of the classes are taught by lecturers who do not specialize in medical ethics. There is much to be desired in comparison with the situation in the United States where 126 medical colleges out of 127 adopted medical ethics as the regular course. The level of seriousness can be well illustrated with the result of a survey on the attitudes of medical practitioners to medical ethics. At this survey, doctors were asked whether they had been taught medical ethics as a part of their medical education program and only 23.8% of the respondents answered yes.

Although science and engineering ethics, other than medical ethics, is taught poorly and sporadically in general, the attempts by some colleges are worthy of note. Yeungnam University is a good example, offering 11 lecture courses on 'science & engineering ethics' as an elective subject for freshmen of the college of engineering. Seoul National University offers 11 classes on 'biomedical ethics' attended by more than 500 students. Dongguk University at Seoul opens 6 courses titled as 'technology and society', dealing with engineering ethics and sociology of science and technology.

One recent phenomenon deserves our attention. There are some efforts, as a part of reform of engineering education up to the international standards, to include courses for non-technical grounding (professional ethics, communication capability and understanding on social issues) in engineering education. In particular, if the Accreditation Board for Engineering Education of Korea (ABEEK, http://abeek.or.kr), established in August 1999 after the model of ABET of the United States, gains official approval by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, it is likely that lecture courses on history of technology, technology and society, and engineering ethics will be set up at the increasing number of colleges.
 

3. Studies on Science Ethics

Article 72 of <Agenda> adopted by the World Conference on Science provides that "research institutions should foster the study of ethical aspects of scientific work." In South Korea, however, studies on ethical implications of scientific work are not actively pursued.

Rather exceptional areas are medical ethics and bioethics. Medical ethics has been studied since the 1980s by medical professors and ethicists interested in the subject. The Korean Society for Medical Ethics Education, established in 1997 mostly by medical practitioners, publishes Korean Journal of Medical Ethics Education semiannually since 1998. Bioethics has been studied in earnest after the first Ph.D degree was conferred in 1996. The Korean Bioethics Association (http://home.hanmir.com/~koreabioethics), organized in 1998, publishes the semiannual journal Bioethics since 2000.

One noteworthy instance is that the Center for Functional Analysis of Human Genome (http://211.174.254.76) recently began to give research grants to ELSI (Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications) program. This program, which is supposed to be continued for several years, is expected to serve as the strong stimulus for the study of bioethics.

Except for medical ethics and bioethics, however, there have been little research efforts in South Korea on various issues of science and engineering ethics. Little is known about the research works performed in other countries, either. What is expected to be a starting point of the discussions on research ethics is the scheduled publication of a book on various issues of research ethics by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development.
 

4. The Role of Scientific Organizations

Article 41 of <Declaration> and article 75 of <Agenda> recommend that scientific professions establish a code of ethics on their own and article 75 of <Agenda>, in particular, puts an emphasis on the roles of scientific organizations during the process. Also, "scientific institutions are urged," according to the article 74 of <Agenda>, "to comply with ethical norms and to respect the freedom of scientists to express themselves on ethical issues and to denounce misuse or abuse of scientific or technological advances." From these articles, it is suggested that scientific institutions should play important roles in enforcing ethical practices of scientists.

In other countries, many scientific institutions have been actively involved in establishing codes of ethics, organizing committees on ethical problems, and supporting education & research on science ethics. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in 1979, conducted a survey of its 241 affiliated member societies as a part of the Professional Ethics Project (replied by 178 societies, 74%). Among the 150 societies which replied to the question of whether ethical rules were adopted in the society, 42% of them (25.1% of the total) had rules to deal with ethical practices of individual members: 46 societies (30.7%) had ethical rules of their own and 17(11.3%) complied with the rules of their parent society. This proportion is expected to have increased for the last 20 years, since a number of societies have established new codes of ethics (for example, American Society for Microbiology, American Physical Society, and American Mathematical Society, which did not have ethical rules in 1979, established codes of ethics in 1988, 1991, and 1995 respectively).

Again in the autumn 1999, AAAS conducted another survey of 126 societies which were expected to develop ethics activities related to the conduct of research. Among 46 societies which replied (37% of total), 34 (74% of all respondents) had codes of ethics. 57% of the respondents, not only having developed codes of ethics, engaged in or planned to engage in various activities to encourage research integrity - setting up relevant programs in annual/regional meetings, organizing ethics committees, contributing columns/articles to professional journals and newsletters, publishing papers on research ethics, holding workshops, and running discussion groups.

In South Korea, however, Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies (KOFST, http://www.kofst.or.kr), a counterpart of AAAS in Korea, made inquiries to its affiliated member societies, at the official request of the monitoring board, whether they had codes of ethics and ethics committees in April and May 2001, never to receive a single reply. Furthermore, monitoring of the internet web pages of 10 major science & technology societies including Korean Physical Society, Korean Chemical Society, Korean Society for Molecular Biology, Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea, and Korean Society of Civil Engineers showed that none of them had ethical guidelines or codes of ethics. From these preliminary surveys, it is assumed that codes of ethics are not introduced to most of scientific societies in South Korea. The only exception so far is 'the code of ethics for doctors' recently established after 3 years' research and discussion by the Korean Medical Association, which is not an affiliated member of KOFST. As for ethics committees, only a small number of medical societies such as Korean Society of Fertility & Sterility have set up the committees within their organization. Even in the societies whose provisions state the establishment of ethics committees, however, the programs are not always put into active operation.

Not just at the level of individual societies, but also at the level of higher institutions or supporting agencies, South Korea is lagged behind in science ethics. AAAS in the United States, which established the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (CSFR) as early as in 1976, has been attentive to the ethical aspects of science. In 1980s it started to operate the Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program (SFR&L, http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/sfrl/sfrl.htm) and supported the quarterly newsletter Professional Ethics Report. By contrast, although KOFST announced 'the creed of scientists and engineers' in 1980 as a guideline of practices, the creed was composed in so abstract terms without substantial meaning and had so little follow-up measures that even the existence of the creed is barely known. Korean Academy of Science & Technology and National Academy of Engineering of Korea are not paying much attention to the ethical issues, while their US counterparts, National Academy of Science and National Academy of Engineering came to be concerned about ethical issues in 1990s and collaborated in publishing a report Responsible Science in 1992.

Hence, it might be no exaggeration to say that, in contrast to the foreign cases, scientific institutions in South Korea play no part in the issues related to science ethics.
 

5. Perceptions of Individual Scientists on Ethical Issues

Article 21 and 22 of <Declaration> specify that individual scientists, in their practice and application of science, "should have a special responsibility for seeking to avert applications of science which are ethically wrong or have an adverse impact," which means that scientists should always take into account the ethical issues of science while doing their research.

Extensive surveys or in-depth interviews with scientists are essential prerequisites for monitoring of the perceptions of scientists on ethical issues, which have never been carried out in South Korea. Several constraints of this monitoring prevented our performing such surveys or interviews, thus making it difficult to understand current status.

It can be inferred, though, from the current situation where science ethics is not properly educated or studied and scientific institutions are not paying attention to ethics and social responsibilities, that most scientists will regard 'competitiveness' more highly than ethical consideration. Biotechnology is a good example. Recent trend was clearly revealed by the attitudes of mainstream bio-scientists, which were expressed in the 1998 happening of 'the world-first human cloning experiment' by the Kyunghee University Medical Center and the subsequent debates on cloning and stem cell research. Science & technology promotion policies contributed quite a lot to the shaping of this situation. Policy-makers regarded science & technology only as the tool for productivity increase and thus concentrated on 'raising the morale of the scientists', ignoring the duty of enhancing awareness in ethical issues of science.

As ethical problems such as maintaining objectivity in scientific research, mentor-mentee relationship and sexual harassment in laboratories, and authorship in publication have not been put into serious debates in South Korea, it is not easy to figure out what the individual scientists think about these matters. In South Korea where the laboratories are run in highly authoritative manner as in Japan, even when those misconducts do happen, individuals are hardly expected to blow the whistle and take the issue into the open debate. In the year 2000, for example, some professors conducting national R&D projects were accused, by anonymous writers at the bulletin board of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation web page (http://www.kosef.re.kr), of stealing students' research products, misappropriating research funds for students, and diverting the fund into personal expenses, but it led to no further investigation.
 

6. Independent Advice by Scientists

Article 62 of <Agenda>, emphasizing the necessity of scientific advice for informed policy-making, declares that scientists and scientific bodies have "an important responsibility to provide independent advice" for socially important matters. Scientific bodies in South Korea, however, as mentioned above in Section 4, are acting only half-heartedly on the issue of 'social responsibilities of scientists'. Scientific societies affiliated with KOFST rarely do formal examinations and make clear their standpoints about the issues under debate, nor do they encourage their individual members to do so.

Under these conditions, scientific advice is provided by small-scale action groups of various kinds which were organized in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the slogan of 'social responsibilities of scientists'. Scientists in these groups, despite the indifference of mainstream scientists and the financial difficulties, have played extremely important roles of providing independent advice on significant social issues including scientific matters. Most of these groups are engaged in environmental or medical issues. Representative examples are Citizens' Institute for Environmental Studies in the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, Environment & Pollution Research Group, Solidarity for Labor Health, Association of Physicians for Humanism, Korea Pharmacists' Association for Healthy Society, and Korea Dentists' Association for Healthy Society. Though not in these groups, there are a small number of scientists who are concerned about social aspects of science & technology and thus are willing to give support to the civic society groups.
 

7. Government and Non-Governmental Organizations

<Declaration> and <Agenda> adopted by World Conference on Science recommend that governments and non-governmental organizations (NGO) should "organize debates, including public debates, on the ethical implications of scientific work," "establish suitable measures to address the ethics of the practice of science and of the use of scientific knowledge and its applications," develop training programs in ethical issues for scientists, and try to strengthen international cooperation on these matters (article 40 of <Declaration> and article 58, 73, 75, 76, and 77 of <Agenda>). The United States, for example, opened the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) under the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to receive and investigate accusations of scientific misconducts. In Britain, Medical Research Council (MRC) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) established ethical guidelines of research to enforce ethical practice of science. Many other European countries including Germany, France, Denmark, and Norway also have systematic measures to deal with problems in research ethics.

So meager in South Korea, however, is the effort by the government (Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Health and Welfare) and funding agencies (Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, Korea Research Foundation, and Korea Science Foundation) for supporting education & research of science ethics, organizing debates on the implications of science, and promoting international collaboration. One rare exception is the Korean Bioethics Advisory Commission (KBAC, http://www.kbac.or.kr) recently organized under the Ministry of Science and Technology. KBAC, consisting of representatives of humanists, social scientists, biological scientists, medical doctors, religious circles, and civic society groups, served as a cornerstone in examining ethical implications of biological sciences and biotechnology and also preparing a draft for national regulative guidelines based on social consensus.

While the government's performance is far from satisfactory, non-governmental organizations (or semi-governmental ones) other than scientific organizations have been proactive in the issues of science ethics since the late 1990s. Center for Democracy in Science and Technology (http://www.peoplepower21.org/science/), set up in People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, has consistently raised social and ethical questions of contemporary science & technology since 1998, focusing on various issues of biotechnology (GM food, therapeutic cloning, and genetic privacy). Korean Alliance for Biosafety and Bioethics (http://kabb.ksdn.or.kr/), consisting of 17 civic society groups, has been in full activity of monitoring biotechnology research practices since its launch in 1998. Environmental action groups such as Korean Federation for Environmental Movement and Green Korea United have also been actively engaged in the bioethical issues.

On the task of organizing public debates about ethical implications of science, Danishmodel Consensus Conference which was held twice by Korean National Commission for UNESCO is worthy of special note. The Consensus Conference on GM food in 1998 and another one on cloning in 1999 were important attempts to facilitate the conversation between experts and general public and to include public opinion in science & technology policies.