Bioethics is a sub-branch of ethics, so one would expect its practitioners to be ethically exemplary. But one of America’s leading bioethicists has expressed his doubts.

Bioethics is a sub-branch of ethics, so one
would expect its practitioners to be ethically exemplary. But one of America’s
leading bioethicists has expressed his doubts. Franklin G. Miller, of the Department of Bioethics of the National
Institutes of Health, complained this week about plagiarism of his work by
other scholars. “If my experience is not unusual, then the field of
bioethics scholarship may be in serious trouble. The fact that plagiarism
occurs within ethics scholarship is ironic, though particularly deplorable.”

In his brief article in Bioethics Forum, he recalls two instances. In
one, another scholar copied 20 or so slides from one of his presentations and
failed to acknowledge who created them. In another, a co-authored paper lifted
several paragraphs from one of his articles as well as borrowing its central
argument. He concludes:

“It is a sad state of affairs if bioethicists of all people can’t adhere
scrupulously to the norms of scholarship, especially the most elementary
ethical rule of refraining from misappropriating the work of fellow scholars.”
~ Bioethics Forum, Feb 22

” disclosure: headline taken from “Lobachevsky”, by Tom Lehrer

Michael Cook
bioethics
plagiarism
professionalism