A Framework for Systematic Analysis of Ethical Issues in S&T Policy

The ethics of public policy is a branch of applied ethics. Having a look at policy process, it tries to provide analyses on different types of ethical challenges involved in that process and the ways that could resolve those challenges. Issues and problems discussed in the literature of the ethics of public policy are diverse and wide-ranging and a framework has not been proposed yet to systematically regulate that diversity. After providing a review on those diverse issues and themes, this paper proposes a systemic model of public policy and applies the model to regulating ethical themes and issues related to policy process. The framework developed in the paper classifies ethical problems relevant to policy into five main categories: ethical issues arising before decision-making, ethical issues arising after decision-making, ethical issues related to economic-social-institutional structures that affect policy-making, ethical problems arising from the activities of stakeholder groups, and finally, ethical issues related to ideas and normative frameworks in the minds of policy-makers.