论“社会实验”的特征及其伦理建构路径

On the Characteristics of “Social Experiment” and Its Ethical Construction Path

科技引入社会的理想结果是稳定于人类社会所期望的状态。当前,具有社会变革效应的新兴技术其潜在风险、道德问题与困境往往是在社会中应用方才显现,这使得技术对社会的嵌入有了“社会实验”的特征。近来,西方学者提出了“负责任社会实验”的科技治理理念:通过探究“社会实验”的道德合理性来为不确定技术的应用提供行动规范,但前提是要明晰实验的实践特征,才可能得出新的实验伦理规范。新兴技术引入社会是对客观世界的改变,这种意义上的“社会实验”区别于追求规律性知识的自然科学实验,因而“负责任社会实验”得以可能,既不能完全移植后者的实践范式,也不适用传统实验伦理原则。本文的重点是要揭示“社会实验”的特征,根据实验设计的三个必备要素:场景、目的、过程,与传统科学实验展开比较,进而尝试提出“社会实验”伦理规范的建构路径。

The ideal result of the introduction of science and technology into society is to be stable in the desired state of human society.At present,the potential risks,moral problems and dilemmas of emerging technologies with social transformation effects often appear only after their application in the society,to make the embedding of technology into the society have the characteristics of “social experiment”.Recently,western scholars have put forward the scientific and technological governance concept of “responsible social experiment”:by demonstrating the moral rationality of “social experiment”,we can provide action norms for the application of uncertain technologies.However,the premise is to clarify the practical characteristics of the experiment,so that new experimental ethics can be obtained.The introduction of emerging technology into society is a change to the objective world.The “social experiment” in this sense is different from the traditional scientific experiment that pursues regular knowledge,so the “responsible social experiment” is possible,neither completely transplant the latter’s practice paradigm nor apply the traditional experimental ethical principles.The focus of this paper is to reveal the characteristics of “social experiment”,compare it with traditional scientific experiments according to the three essential elements of experimental design:scene,purpose and process,and then try to put forward the construction path of ethical norms of “social experiment”.