The
purpose of this paper is to describe the use of focus groups
to support ethical analysis of pubic interests related to genomics
and biotechnology. The objectives are to describe the moral
dimensions and perspectives of the issues raised by participants,
to assess the information required to support informed dialogue
about the issues, and to describe some necessary components
of ethical analysis of these issues. This represents one stream
of research of the overall project, Democracy, Ethics and Genomics;
Consultation, Deliberation and Modeling.
The
specific topic for this paper is salmon genomics and aquaculture.
Although
ethical debate and the social issues raised by research
and technology cannot be separated from the specific context,
our use of salmon genomics and aquaculture in this paper is
primarily intended to illustrate an approach to ethical analysis
of policy
and social issues that involved qualitative public consultation
methods, in this instance focus groups. Comparing the insights
derived from the qualitative and group-oriented methods to
other approaches such as surveys and deliberative polling will
demonstrate
the different methods’ goals, strengths and weaknesses
for ethical analysis, public dialogue and policy.
CAE
Electronic Working Papers Series
