The Social Responsibility Of The Scientific And Technological Workers In The Field Of Food Technology

Along with the socialization of science and social technicalization advancement, the ethical problems caused by science and technology are also increasing. It has attracted broad attention from both scientific community and society. The Scientific and Technological workers are one of the main powers to apply science and technology to the society. So the author focuses on the study of Scientific and Technological workers.The term “Scientific and Technological workers” is frequently used in our social life. It usually refers to scientists, researchers, science and technology personnel, etc. Scientific and Technological workers are born with the professionalization of science and technology work. They devoted themselves to the development, spreading, application activities of scientific and technological knowledge systematically, using science and technology as object. The fact that science and technology has both humanistic value & social attributes, interactive effect in between science & technology and social life, plus the increasing ethical problems following rapid development of science & technology, requires that Scientific and Technological workers to take their social responsibility in application of science & technology. Their social responsibilities are universal. The greater the social function of science and technology, the greater the social responsibility of Scientific and Technological workers. It’s obvious that each individual Scientific and Technological workers’ has his/her social responsibility. Therefore, the study of social responsibility of Scientific and Technological workers is quite necessary.In recent years, many of China’s many food safety incidents were related to improper use of science and technology. Food is the necessities of life, as the basic guarantee of human survival and reproduction. Safety is the most important and the most fundamental value of food and it’s also the requirement of the value of life first. From the perspective of bioethics, to ensure the safety of food is to respect life. Food safety has become the focus of current social problems. Food technology is an important part to guarantee food safety. It provides people with high nutritional and delicious food by heating, sterilization, storage, distillation technology. There are two sides of food technology: its ultimate purpose is to benefit humanity while its safe use is related to people’s life and health. Proper use of food technology can satisfy the need of survival and enjoy demand of people. Improper use of food technology will endanger people’s health and life. For example, the melamine incident, nitrite poisoning, the clenbuterol event and tonyred events caused a large number of casualties.After the occurrence of the food safety incident, social concerns mainly focus on three aspects: the lack of social responsibility of food production and distribution enterprises, the lack of government supervision and the lack of food safety awareness of consumers. The social responsibility of Scientific and Technological workers, who play a key role in the invention, application and popularization of food technology, was always ignored. The author thinks that Scientific and Technological workers as the main body of food technology invention and application should not be ignored in the prevention of food safety incidents. Therefore, this paper focuses on the social responsibility of the Scientific and Technological workers in the field of food technology, trying to probe into the internal relation between Scientific and Technological workers and the field of food technology, emphasizing the social responsibility of Scientific and Technological workers in the field of food technology and hopes to establish and optimizing an effective mechanism to guarantee food safety.This paper consists of five parts.The first part mainly introduces the background, purpose and meaning, domestic & abroad research status and the methods used in the study. The topic, purpose and meaning of this article are based on the current situation of food safety and the necessity of research on the Scientific and Technological workers’ social responsibility. After study of the research status on this subject at home and abroad, the author found that in the field of food technology, the research of social responsibility of Scientific and Technological workers is insufficient. In order to raise people’s awareness on the social responsibility to food science and technology personnel, this article attempts to analyze the content of the social responsibility of Scientific and Technological workers, the symptom and the reason of the lack of the social responsibility of scientific and technological workers, and potential solutions from the perspective of philosophy of science and technology, using the methods of literature study, inductive & deductive and linking theory with practice,The main content of the second part is the “food technology”, “science and technology workers” and “social responsibility” definition and analysis, mainly focus on two aspects. One is the characteristics and functions of food technology. The other one is the concept and the main content of the social responsibility of the Scientific and Technological workers. The ultimate purpose of food technology is to benefit humanity. Food safety is closely related to human survival, so food technology must not be used to harm human health and life. Responsibility ethics requires Scientific and Technological workers to take responsibility in the invention & application of technology. The social responsibility of the Scientific and Technological workers lies in six aspects: to respect for life & maintain the dignity of the people; to explore Science & pursuit scientific truth; to spread science knowledge and lead to correct understanding of science; to care for the application of science & technology and identify & assess risks; to comply with the code of ethics and to influence or participate in science and technology decisions.The third part will analyze the symptoms & the influence of the lack of social responsibility by science and technology workers in food technology field from three aspects: technical invention, technology application and popularization of science and technology, combining safety incidents caused by improper use of food technology. Science and technology workers are responsible for food safety incidents consequences whether the incidents were caused by their activities directly, or related to their activities, or predictable by them, or could have been avoided by them.The fourth part will explore the reason that science and technology workers in food technology field lack of social responsibility from four aspects: the life value consciousness, neutrality science & technology value theory, utilitarianism and legal supervision. First of all, the life value weakening is the major cause of science and technology workers lack of social responsibility. Second, neutrality science & technology value theory is an important factor to cause the science and technology workers social responsibility awareness deviation. Third, the influence of utilitarianism caused a superficial consciousness on social responsibility. Fourth, the lack of government supervision provides an opportunity for illegal use of food technology.The fifth part provides four possible solutions to solve the problems in response to the reasons that lead to science and technology workers in the field of food technology lack of social responsibility. First, to strengthen the consciousness of life value and set up the initiative concept of responsibility. Second, to change neutrality science & technology value theory. Third, to establish a social responsibility education system for scientific and technological workers in food technology. Fourth, to strengthen the supervision and management of the science and technology workers behavior in food technology and improve the legislation of science and technology. To reinforce science and technology workers’ social responsibility from building an internal responsibility awareness & strengthening external constraints, thus to regulate the behavior of science and technology workers.