5 
revised Guidelines were to be implemented as published. I will treat each 
of these below. 
Science, Technology, and Social Value 
A central feature of the traditional or "technocratic” view is that 
scientists and technologists are involved in activities which are removed 
from the realm of values, or else ought to be guided by values which are 
safe or conventional. The argument supporting the claim that science and 
technology are value-neutral usually includes an admonition that normative 
differences are really political and hence must be left to politicians 
and the political processes. I believe, on the contrary, that values are 
inescapable elements of any exercise of choice or decision-making, and since 
the conduct of research in an area like recombinant DNA is of such concern to 
members of the public and is to be regulated by the political processes, the 
assessment of the potential impact of such research and decisions concerning 
the direction of such research are permeated by opportunities for choice and 
hence issues of social value. 
A concern for values is not merely the realm of philosophers or theo- 
logians. In fact, each of us in our daily lives is constantly dealing with 
issues of value. Values relate essentially to the process of labelling 
things "good" or "bad," or placing them somewhere along the spectrum between 
these two extremes. A social value is an affective conception of the desir- 
able drawn from experience. No matter what individuals or institutions say 
their values are, values are really only made manifest by the actual pro- 
cesses of choice that an individual or institution undertakes. 
For example, in the area of biological and medical practice, one of the 
oldest and most profound ethical admonitions is to primarily observe the command 
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