Efforts against stem cell hype stuck in the logic of overpromising?: An essay on hype-conducive ways of doing ethics

Abstract

Studies on hype have had a strong focus on the role of science, media and markets in overstating potential benefits or risks of emerging science and technologies. Less attention has been paid to the role of ethics in creating or sustaining hype or alarmism. This research article focuses on how bioethical approaches as well as bioethicists’ relationship towards science contribute to stem cell and organoid hype. How (if at all) may ways of doing ethics fuel exaggerated expectations and could ethics be done differently? Understanding hype-conducive ways of how ethicists engage with science and technology is of relevance not only for the broader ethical community but also for technology assessment and science and technology studies where an increasing interest in normative dimensions of their object of study has been observed.