Ethical Dilemmas in Geosciences. We Can Ask, but, Can We Answer?

The choices of a geoscientist while carrying out his/her activity are always accompanied by ethical implications, because they can have a strong impact on the population, the natural environment, the economy, the landscape and the cultural resources of the affected area. It is not uncommon for a geoscientist to be faced with ethical dilemmas that are problems with a difficult solution, since options to solve such dilemmas will have negative consequences. How does one make a choice in these circumstances? What is the ethical duty of geoscientists and what has to be their professional attitude? In which cases do they have the duty to take action or the duty to not act (duty of omission)? A brief review of the concepts formulated by philosophers in reference to ethics can serve to provide some answers to the above questions and to understand how geoscientists can best serve society.

Bobrowsky P., Cronin V.S., Di Capua G., Kieffer S.W., Peppoloni S. (2017). The Emerging Field of Geoethics. In: Scientific Integrity and Ethics with Applications to the Geosciences, edited by L.C. Gundersen. Special Publication American Geophysical Union, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Fieser J. (2017). “Ethics”, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/, accessed 18 October 2017.
Flew A. (1979). A Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Pan Books in association with The MacMillan Press. p. 134. ISBN 0-330-48730-2.
Grassian V. (1992). Moral Reasoning, Prentice Hall.
Kant I. (1764). Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. Trans. John T. Goldthwait. University of California Press.
Kohlberg L. (1982). Moral development. In: Broughton J.M. & Freeman-Moir D.J. (Eds.), The Cognitive Developmental Psychology of James Mark Baldwin: Current Theory and Research in Genetic Epistemology, Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.
Kohlberg L., Levine C., Hewer A. (1983). Moral stages: a current formulation and a response to critics. Basel, NY: Karger. ISBN: 3805537166.
Peppoloni S. and Di Capua G. (2017a). Ethics, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-12127-7_115-1. In: Bobrowsky P.T. and Marker B. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology, Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series, Springer International Publishing, ISBN: 978-3-319-12127-7.
Peppoloni S. and Di Capua G. (2017b). Geoethics: ethical, social and cultural implications in geosciences. Annals of Geophysics, 60, Fast Track 7, doi: 10.4401/ag-7473.
Piaget J. (1932). The Moral Judgment of the Child. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., ISBN: 0029252407.
Popper K.R. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. 2002, Routledge, ISBN: 978-0-415-27844-7.
Smith P. (2007). An Introduction to Gödel’s Theorems. Cambridge University Press.
Wall T.F. (2003). Thinking Critically About Moral Problems by. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, ISBN: 9780534574239.