BAMOS
Jun 2020
17
presents risks to important principles of academic freedom.
Such principles, first articulated in 1940, have the fundamental
goal of preventing the pursuit of truth from being stymied by
narrow economic or political interests. Encouraging scientists
to excessively moralise may risk politicising science, or create
chilling effects that undermine academic freedom.
In the case of military research however, principles of academic
freedom are of unclear relevance. Here, academic freedom
justifiably encounters hard limits set by national security
priorities. In Australia, academic freedom is constrained by
the Defence Trade Controls Act, which restricts the transfer of
goods, software and technology outside of Australia through
a strict system of export licences. These licences are granted
selectively by Defence Export Controls, a division of the
Australian Department of Defence, based on criteria that are
substantially political: joint military research may be permitted
with Australia’s allies, but not our competitors.
Under Australia’s governing legal framework, research
relationships with arms manufacturers are therefore inherently
political, and cannot be defended solely in terms of academic
freedom. Instead, they arguably represent a politicisation of
scientific institutions. This politicisation isn’t necessarily wrong:
indeed, it is inevitable if we want military science to exist within
our universities at all. However, if modern science requires
international collaboration, we must carefully assess whether
our international research relationships could be undermined
by partnering our universities with companies like Lockheed,
who are willing to supply weapons to controversial conflicts like
that in Yemen.
Conclusion: Pedagogic Responsibilities?
Engaging with the ethics of Lockheed’s presence in our field, and
Australian science more broadly, has personally been extremely
difficult, and I have struggled to develop a clear understanding
of my civic and professional responsibilities. Trying to apply
concepts like "do unto others" or "greatest good for the greatest
number" have left me feeling confused and deeply ashamed.
Would engaging with these issues have been easier if I had
studied the ethics, law or politics of science in my formal
education? At no point in my mathematics or science degrees
was I required, or even prompted to consider, these topics,
although such options may have existed as electives. I don’t feel
adequately prepared to make meaning from any of this, and the
high school and university students, or even post‐docs, working
with companies like Lockheed may be similarly unprepared.
Is this something universities can or should address? Stanford
University requires all undergraduate students, regardless of
degree, to take at least one course covering “ethical reasoning”
and one course covering “social inquiry”. The latter category
includes a subject titled “Technology and National Security”,
which may have better prepared me to confront these issues.
Incorporating subjects like ethics into a science education has
risks. Stanford’s ethics professors stress that their role is not to
prescribe particular conclusions to students, but rather to raise
student's capacity for ethical discourse and reasoning, and
this approach may mitigate risks to scientific objectivity and
academic freedom.
Regardless of the details, a situation where Australian science
students and researchers collaborate with arms companies,
but are unequipped to reflect on or openly discuss the ethics,
is to me unacceptable. If we wish to conduct highly politicised
science, with extremely high moral stakes at our universities,
then students and researchers must be prompted, if not
required, to openly engage with the ethics. The challenge is to
find ways to do this that do not undermine core scientific values
and culture. The scientific tradition of public, ethical reflection,
exemplified by organisations like the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists and individuals like John Von Neumann, has perhaps
never been more important than it is today.