science and ethics

[Athena]

I thought she held a Law book.

To the best of my knowledge, her book is not defined, but if we consider logos, The Law, and democracy as the way to gain knowledge of The Law, then it is quite beautiful to say she holds the Law book. This would be quire metaphysical I think.

Some really good things I have been said in this thread, and I have not given each post the attention they deserve. Forgive me. I promise to increase my effort to read and understand what everyone is saying.

[Athena]

Science is value neutral, in principle. Torturing prisoners to gain knowledge about medicine can be perfectly valid science. Immoral sure, but potentially scientifically sound. In general, formal rationality (of which science is one example) is not concerned with values. The goal is to know what is in the objective sense. Science is about epistemological questions. Ethics is about what should be. Ethics is about value questions.

So sayeth the Critical Theorists.

Auschwitz was a rational place, but it was not a reasonable one. It was rational in that it was efficient and sophisticated for its given task. It would not have been practical or even seriously conceivable except for the technologies of modern science. Furthermore, except for the modern belief that thought and practice can be identical (a belief that is the basis of technology), the translation of Hitler’s nightmare image into practical reality would have been inconceivable.

The power of modern reason is that it feels itself honor bound to take everything seriously. This openness to everything is the result of our peculiar skepticism, in which we are reverent about nothing. The modern feels not only that everything is possible but also that all things possible are practical. The destruction of the Jews had always been imaginable. With Hitler it became practical. The skepticism of scientific reason sapped our critical reason. Our obligation to take the awful seriously meant that we were not free simply to condemn. Our social scientists and philosophers felt that there was something terribly wrong at Auschwitz, but their methodologies, their rational procedures, did not allow their personal revulsion to be turned into scientific principle. Their methods required neutrality. Revulsion was reduced to value judgments. Since moral values were viewed as irrational, and the irrational has no place in the scientific mode of thought, our social scientists had to be open to the suspicion that there was nothing demonstrably wrong with Auschwitz.

Not only was nothing sacred, but all things had possible merit. Reason denied itself the right to an a priori revulsion at Auschwitz. Modernity’s reason led us into a fully unreasonable condition in which the common sense of the humane tradition had to be denied. It was this unreasonable rationality, this modern paradox, that was the great concern of the Frankfurt School.

http://www.jahrbuch2003.studien-von-zei ... school.HTM

No torturing people to get information is not perfectly valid science but is a war crime. I suggest you read about the witch trails to increase your knowledge of why torturing people is not a good way to get information from them. But thank you for demonstrating why education in history is very important, and the problem we have as a result of ignoring that subject, in favor of technology for military and industrial purpose.

It is kind of surprising to see someone using the reasoning of the horrors or Auschwitz as good reasoning. Well before modern science, a German aristocrat fed slaves a good meal and them had them walk. Then he cut them open to see how the exercise effected the person's digestion. This disrespect of human life is intolerable. Something that would be perfectly obviously if you were the slave or the Jew. We have laws against such behavior and humanity is doomed if ever agree these laws are not necessary. The moral should be, don't do to others what what you would not have done to you, because it is only by believing that oneself will never be a victim of such inhumanity that one could possibly believe it is acceptable.

But thank you for confirming my concern about the wrong of replacing the education we had with the German model.

[Athena]

I will repeat our Statue of Liberty holds a book for literacy and a torch for enlightenment. Public education in the US and Britain were based in literature for the purpose of making good citizens. Vocational training was not added until we mobilized for the first world war, and the old education was not completely replaced until 1958. Every generation we get further away from the old education, things get worse, making what said about the inability to maintain social control appear true and unavoidable, but how knowledgeable are you of the education that brought us up to 1958 and the reason people thought liberty was possible? Do you really want to argue that liberty is not possible? That we have no choice but to accept a police state? Then how do we justify any of our wars?

I'm not making an argument about the future because I want that future. It's a future I fear might occur merely on a speculative idea of population growth of nations under the rules by which enlightenment thinkers envisioned. So far, you haven't addressed that argument. You might ask yourself why large countries tend toward authoritarian rule. In any case, I hope I'm wrong about the conclusions that I'm drawing. I'm hoping that your better understanding of humanity can find ways to stave it off, if you think the argument has merit, or if not, that you can locate significant flaws with it.

If my argument has merit, there's one possible way I can think of that would help keep democracy alive. Keep nations small. Form breakaway jurisdictions. Put a lid on globalization of financial interests, possibly by adopting international rules that require nations to exchange goods only along lines of jurisdiction. Fight corruption by restricting cash flow across jurisdictions through approved channels that don't pass through individuals. Keep banks and insurance companies small. Basically, the idea is create smaller institutions that are manageable. It is the corruption of power that I believe is the issue I'm attacking and if the extent of power is limited, perhaps it can limit the corruption. Don't know whether any of this will work, though, but it does allow countries like Norway to have a net surplus, unlike just about every other major economy in the world.

Within the U.S., the same strategy could take place, wherein the states, or groups of states, themselves could be given more power to regulate themselves, restricting the size of the federal government, limiting the jurisdiction of banks and so-forth.

I'm just throwing darts here, but my fears persist. Washington D.C. and much of the conclaves of the east coast is not unlike the nobility that surround the throne. They think of themselves as the center of the world around which everything of importance goes on. It, and the power it holds, is the very globalization of the ego. That it has very little understanding of the world outside of itself will probably not serve it well in the long run, but it's not likely to make the world better or more enlightened in the near future anyway. Democracy, in my view, is hanging by a thread.

Just read the comments by Grover Norquist about Romney. Paraphrasing. It doesn't matter much who Romney is, as long as he's willing to go along with Congress, the Ryan budget, and the Norquist pledge not to raise taxes ever and to push for more tax cuts. It's really difficult to imagine an educational system that works toward the enlightenment of the people without funds. Perhaps they think we should go back to days when school teachers weren't paid at all.

James

We must study logos, The Law and morality, and any civilization that does not, will self destruct. Right now the US is self destructing, because of ignorance of logos, The Law and morality. My energy level is too low to give you a better answer right now. If you want to know what I am talking about, look for information about liberal education. Pay attention to Cicero's understanding of God. If we are ignorant and make the wrong decisions, we experience the consequences.

I have a problem with the mythology of religion, however, if we interpret the bible abstractly then it makes a lot of sense. An abstract understanding would be, we are the body of Christ. Our population can be huge, without a problem, if we are well educated in The Law, and therefore govern ourselves with good laws. Good manners, and living by principles, go a long ways in making it possible for us to get along, but we no longer carry this information. Without it we function at the level of animals and this becomes a problem. Technology is not what separates us from the animals.


Gangs are small and attempt to be self regulating, but are not a good model for civilization. We had a good model when we had liberal education, but have forgotten it, in part because of religion, and in part because of education for technology for military and industrial purpose. We educated for a technological society with unknown values, and left moral training to the church. Huge mistake! So now we have people who argue Auschwitz could have been a model for good science if the people left go of human values? Our challenge today is figuring out what our values should be, without the wisdom of the past. This has us in serious trouble.

[angelina]

Science is mathematics, so it has no ethics. But it give us true result. Our calculation or calculation process may wrong, but science is always true.

I agree..science is mathematics,it give exact results.All the Universe and everything is going in through Scientific theories only.

[Gregorygregg1]

I'm just throwing darts here, but my fears persist. Washington D.C. and much of the conclaves of the east coast is not unlike the nobility that surround the throne. They think of themselves as the center of the world around which everything of importance goes on. It, and the power it holds, is the very globalization of the ego. That it has very little understanding of the world outside of itself will probably not serve it well in the long run, but it's not likely to make the world better or more enlightened in the near future anyway. Democracy, in my view, is hanging by a thread.

The original idea of representative democracy may have been much like the Platonic idea of government by the wise. The problem is that it takes some understanding of wisdom to know who to choose as a representative. It comes down to egos with money buying the votes of politicians (and what egos are bigger than those?) giving us "the very globalization of ego". We have gone from rule by consent to rule by money. In other words, from a society based on the philosophical concept of the will of the people, to one based on the capitalist economy, which is the epitome of ego.

[Marshall]

"We have gone from rule by consent to rule by money."

I agree, when I was growing up there was a kind of balance between business, unions, and government. People took education seriously. There were oppressed minorities but at least the white middle class had some kind of democratic capitalism. There was the McCarthy period but decent people stood up against it and eventually prevailed. There was xenophobia but also substantial immigration and upward mobility.

"We have gone from rule by consent to rule by money." By FAT money, in particular. And to a large extent, it is rule by money that is SECRET. Being ruled this way represents a loss of dignity and of a kind of collective honor. How to regain a sense of moral purpose? Join Common Cause, and MoveOn? They too need money to operate and they'll ask for donations. Maybe that's all right. It's not like they're flooding the media with attack ads.

Would it make sense for me to look for a bumper sticker? like one that says "Turn off paid speech"

or "When fat money talks, turn it off." Just speculating. I've never had a political bumper sticker. My only stcker plugs the local community chorus--amateurs who like to sing four-part harmony. Somehow that seems funny to me, in the present situation.

[Athena]

I will repeat our Statue of Liberty holds a book for literacy and a torch for enlightenment. Public education in the US and Britain were based in literature for the purpose of making good citizens. Vocational training was not added until we mobilized for the first world war, and the old education was not completely replaced until 1958. Every generation we get further away from the old education, things get worse, making what said about the inability to maintain social control appear true and unavoidable, but how knowledgeable are you of the education that brought us up to 1958 and the reason people thought liberty was possible? Do you really want to argue that liberty is not possible? That we have no choice but to accept a police state? Then how do we justify any of our wars?

I'm not making an argument about the future because I want that future. It's a future I fear might occur merely on a speculative idea of population growth of nations under the rules by which enlightenment thinkers envisioned. So far, you haven't addressed that argument. You might ask yourself why large countries tend toward authoritarian rule. In any case, I hope I'm wrong about the conclusions that I'm drawing. I'm hoping that your better understanding of humanity can find ways to stave it off, if you think the argument has merit, or if not, that you can locate significant flaws with it.

If my argument has merit, there's one possible way I can think of that would help keep democracy alive. Keep nations small. Form breakaway jurisdictions. Put a lid on globalization of financial interests, possibly by adopting international rules that require nations to exchange goods only along lines of jurisdiction. Fight corruption by restricting cash flow across jurisdictions through approved channels that don't pass through individuals. Keep banks and insurance companies small. Basically, the idea is create smaller institutions that are manageable. It is the corruption of power that I believe is the issue I'm attacking and if the extent of power is limited, perhaps it can limit the corruption. Don't know whether any of this will work, though, but it does allow countries like Norway to have a net surplus, unlike just about every other major economy in the world.

Within the U.S., the same strategy could take place, wherein the states, or groups of states, themselves could be given more power to regulate themselves, restricting the size of the federal government, limiting the jurisdiction of banks and so-forth.

I'm just throwing darts here, but my fears persist. Washington D.C. and much of the conclaves of the east coast is not unlike the nobility that surround the throne. They think of themselves as the center of the world around which everything of importance goes on. It, and the power it holds, is the very globalization of the ego. That it has very little understanding of the world outside of itself will probably not serve it well in the long run, but it's not likely to make the world better or more enlightened in the near future anyway. Democracy, in my view, is hanging by a thread.

Just read the comments by Grover Norquist about Romney. Paraphrasing. It doesn't matter much who Romney is, as long as he's willing to go along with Congress, the Ryan budget, and the Norquist pledge not to raise taxes ever and to push for more tax cuts. It's really difficult to imagine an educational system that works toward the enlightenment of the people without funds. Perhaps they think we should go back to days when school teachers weren't paid at all.

James

You did so much thinking, I hate to pop your bubble, but small towns have plenty of corruption. It is not the size of the population that matters, but the education of the population. For centuries that only institution of education was the church and the only education available to the masses was theology. True since the time of Sumer there have been schools for scribes. People have learned trades from those who practice the trade, but what unified a civilization was religion. For the masses it was religion that explained everything, and check out what religion teachers. In the west we are most familiar with the God of Abraham religions, and this God has favorites, and He violates the laws of nature, and His favorite people can own slaves and have kings. We are preconditioned for a patriarchy that is also a hierarchy, so we repeat it.

I also think we repeat it because it is our nature to do so. How many of us are attending city council meetings? How many of us visit our state legislature and participate in government at that level? Why not? For most of us the real work of politics is boring and they are other things we rather do, and we are glad to leave governing to those who want to do it.

Why are waiting for someone to provide us a job? I owned a small business and come income tax time, I realized I didn't know as much as I needed to know. This again is boring stuff. It is like politics. It is easier to be an employee that be responsible for a business.

To be ethical is to accept responsibility, and I am saying we don't do that, so we have corruption, but there is a solution. That solution is education for democracy and for all business to adopt the democratic model. Industries relationship with the community needs to be democratic, so an industry is less likely to get away with corruption and harming the environment. And scientist need education for good moral judgment and to be regulated by the people.

[Athena]

"We have gone from rule by consent to rule by money."

I agree, when I was growing up there was a kind of balance between business, unions, and government. People took education seriously. There were oppressed minorities but at least the white middle class had some kind of democratic capitalism. There was the McCarthy period but decent people stood up against it and eventually prevailed. There was xenophobia but also substantial immigration and upward mobility.

"We have gone from rule by consent to rule by money." By FAT money, in particular. And to a large extent, it is rule by money that is SECRET. Being ruled this way represents a loss of dignity and of a kind of collective honor. How to regain a sense of moral purpose? Join Common Cause, and MoveOn? They too need money to operate and they'll ask for donations. Maybe that's all right. It's not like they're flooding the media with attack ads.

Would it make sense for me to look for a bumper sticker? like one that says "Turn off paid speech"

or "When fat money talks, turn it off." Just speculating. I've never had a political bumper sticker. My only stcker plugs the local community chorus--amateurs who like to sing four-part harmony. Somehow that seems funny to me, in the present situation.

I very much believe this is in part the change in public education. We went from education for independent thinking and good moral judgment, to amoral education and "group think". Please clearly understand this is a move from education for independence to education for relying on authority, and when this change was made, moral training was left to the church. We now have no understanding of democracy and its relationship with God and morals, and we are in serious trouble.

[Percarus]

Can science be ethical? Why and why not?

I want to argue there is are problem with science being ethical. The number one problem is the restrictions put on discussions of science. Science forums are held to a standard set by science, not by people in general, and certainly not by religion. These are public forums. One can only imagine how discussions go when only scientist are present.

I heard the people who worked on the Manhattan Project cheered and celebrated when they got reports on the success of their bomb. Some time later some of them realized the human meaning of what happened, the devastation, and the people killed and injured. We did not publically discuss the right or wrong of the Manhattan Project. Today, we can post the research of bird flu with the intent of making a biological weapon, but should not mention movies triggered by such science, and get into an ethical discussion of where science is taking us in these threads. By necessity science is very restricted and open and loose discussion would ruin the intent of science, which needs to be clear and precise.

Might we have a problem with today's reality?

Ok, I am resorting to a book as I type this, my sacred book of ethics. Abstaining from classical novel ethical guidelines and schools one school in particular holds my interest pertaining to ethics in science, that is, let us examine ‘Engineering Ethics’ summarized...

Engineers have a variety of responsibilities (in this case let’s assume engineers are akin to scientists), they have to make sure their inventions are safe but yet bears profit (bears results in other words). However, sometimes they have to be situational in nature when concerning factors of revenue and public relations as these matters may be more important to safety itself. It is an equilibrating factor that is based on demands by society and hence can also hold financial validities – what drives scientists around is the demand for their work and hence can result in great atrocities for the sake of further funding for the ultimate ‘greater good’. There are various factors in engineering ethics that need to be examined when drawing the fine line – I will try to very briefly cover some as I type.

Gene Moriarty points out that many engineers do not, as a matter of fact, utilize ethical theory when making decisions (I would be one exemption) with ethical ramnifications. Instead issues are approached intuitively by characters as emphasised by virtue ethics and accrued learnt lore. What makes a good scientist is when he/she has a strong ethos and that is reflected in some companies, not all, especially not Nestle (as my brother vouched after he quit working for them). Moriarty argues that the core virtues of objectivity and care should be practiced by all engineers and scientists to make them establish good decisions.

Mike W. Martin, on the other hand, tackles the issue of whistleblowing (prevalent throughout the realms of science and engineering), particular when safety is concerned. I am aware that talk has been made in this thread in regards to nuclear bombing – I wonder if there is any evidence of whilstleblowing before and after the incident. Companies see this as an act of disloyalty but what is ironical is that it is the scientists duty to do so, mayhap at the cost of his/her job – tough uh! He also highlights another consideration, that is the individual’s rights as a person and his responsibilities to family and others around the workplace.

The question of engineers’ obligations to the public is then taken up by Taft Broome Jr – he states that scientists/engineers’ primary duty is to the public – the question is if there are many practising engineers/scientists who actually have studied Ethics, it ought to be a moral imperative that is for sure. Engineering itself is considered a field of science, and so in speaking no ethical atrocities should ever take place but at the same time the health and welfare of the public can never be guaranteed, as a result engineers hold acceptable culpable risk in the process.

Eugene Schlossberger is a theorists that discusses science ethics in the context of trade, secrets and patents which poses questions in regards to intellectual property rights as organizations thrive due to monetary issues. Stealing is wrong, of course, and many of the ethical considerations contained on my very comprehensive book of ethics deals with aspects pertaining to conflicts of interest, efficiency, safety, and information disclosure. In conclusion I would argue that the realm of science is well covered by ethics, the problem is ‘stupid’ individuals themselves. Peace, not war... :-)

[owleye]

You did so much thinking, I hate to pop your bubble, but small towns have plenty of corruption. It is not the size of the population that matters, but the education of the population.

I didn't notice this before. What you write here doesn't "pup my bubble". I made no mention of small towns. I'm assuming that human populations have already entered into nation-states, one in which democratic principles have wrested control from a period once held by monarchs, during an enlightened era of our history. What I'm fearing is that with rising populations democratic principles are being swept away. I agree that corruption is everywhere, large and small, within each of us. And I agree that moral force (say in the form of the good part of our conscience) can be valuable, but corruption is magnified when power is magnified. The question is whether or not there can be checks on corruption, whether powers are enabled that check each other. The original idea of the U.S. Constitution was that power is not centralized. My fear is that with rising populations, accompanied by diversity, the reaction by governments will be to authoritarian rule. Authoritarian rule pits the government against the people, creating a two-tiered justice in which the people are judged, sentenced and put away by a different set of rules than are applied to the government itself, one which is granted immunity for the commission of crimes that ordinary people are brought to justice on. The U.S. has a larger number of folks incarcerated than any other nation, by far, all the while granting immunity to itself (as well as those large corporations that help enforce its rule). Whether you are a Big Bank, a Big Oil, a Big Pharma or a Big Telecom, or a fat cat anywhere, you aren't going to be prosecuted, period. Of course, all this authoritarianism is done in the name of "protecting" the people. In other words, it's a protection racket. (American exceptionalism has turned a once proud nation given its constitution to one that is degrading with each passing day. America, of course, was never perfect, but it seemed to progress in hopeful ways, amending the constitution in progressive ways. Those days are gone, in my view, and we are in a deep decline, despite that there are progressive voices trying to get a hearing out there. I put the stamp on that decline beginning around 1980 or so, with the advent of Reagan, despite that he may have been what the country needed at the time. The problem was that it gave a huge boost to the financial interests that had been infecting the populace in various ways since the post war era in the late '40s. Financial interests received a big blow from Roosevelt. Since then, they have worked to retake all the ground they lost and have for the most part succeeded.)

James

[Ursa Minimus]

Science is value neutral, in principle. Torturing prisoners to gain knowledge about medicine can be perfectly valid science. Immoral sure, but potentially scientifically sound. In general, formal rationality (of which science is one example) is not concerned with values. The goal is to know what is in the objective sense. Science is about epistemological questions. Ethics is about what should be. Ethics is about value questions.

So sayeth the Critical Theorists.

Auschwitz was a rational place, but it was not a reasonable one. It was rational in that it was efficient and sophisticated for its given task. It would not have been practical or even seriously conceivable except for the technologies of modern science. Furthermore, except for the modern belief that thought and practice can be identical (a belief that is the basis of technology), the translation of Hitler’s nightmare image into practical reality would have been inconceivable.

The power of modern reason is that it feels itself honor bound to take everything seriously. This openness to everything is the result of our peculiar skepticism, in which we are reverent about nothing. The modern feels not only that everything is possible but also that all things possible are practical. The destruction of the Jews had always been imaginable. With Hitler it became practical. The skepticism of scientific reason sapped our critical reason. Our obligation to take the awful seriously meant that we were not free simply to condemn. Our social scientists and philosophers felt that there was something terribly wrong at Auschwitz, but their methodologies, their rational procedures, did not allow their personal revulsion to be turned into scientific principle. Their methods required neutrality. Revulsion was reduced to value judgments. Since moral values were viewed as irrational, and the irrational has no place in the scientific mode of thought, our social scientists had to be open to the suspicion that there was nothing demonstrably wrong with Auschwitz.

Not only was nothing sacred, but all things had possible merit. Reason denied itself the right to an a priori revulsion at Auschwitz. Modernity’s reason led us into a fully unreasonable condition in which the common sense of the humane tradition had to be denied. It was this unreasonable rationality, this modern paradox, that was the great concern of the Frankfurt School.

http://www.jahrbuch2003.studien-von-zei ... school.HTM

No torturing people to get information is not perfectly valid science but is a war crime. I suggest you read about the witch trails to increase your knowledge of why torturing people is not a good way to get information from them.

Athena,

I suggest you read my post, and the Critical theorist quoted within it, more closely.

I, and the critical theorists, are not in favor of such things. Rather I, and the critical theorists, point out how science has done horrific things in the name of "science". By actually employing the scientific method in terms of pure means ends rationality. They want the knowledge, they get it, by using the scientific method. And if a few mice, or monkeys, or people get hurt along the way, well that's needed for the experiment. The ends justify the means.

I am not arguing for such a stance, but against it. I am saying that science as a practice is pure rationality, not a darned thing to do with ethics or morality. It has to do with epistemology.

It is dangerous when morality is not added to the decision making process. When no one questions the ethics of an experiment, only the effectiveness in terms of knowledge.

So, to return to the very first of the OP: "Can science be ethical?" I say no because it is in the realm of epistemology. But it can be DONE ethically, if ethics are applied to the epistemological process from the start.

[Athena]

Science is value neutral, in principle. Torturing prisoners to gain knowledge about medicine can be perfectly valid science. Immoral sure, but potentially scientifically sound. In general, formal rationality (of which science is one example) is not concerned with values. The goal is to know what is in the objective sense. Science is about epistemological questions. Ethics is about what should be. Ethics is about value questions.

So sayeth the Critical Theorists.

Auschwitz was a rational place, but it was not a reasonable one. It was rational in that it was efficient and sophisticated for its given task. It would not have been practical or even seriously conceivable except for the technologies of modern science. Furthermore, except for the modern belief that thought and practice can be identical (a belief that is the basis of technology), the translation of Hitler’s nightmare image into practical reality would have been inconceivable.

The power of modern reason is that it feels itself honor bound to take everything seriously. This openness to everything is the result of our peculiar skepticism, in which we are reverent about nothing. The modern feels not only that everything is possible but also that all things possible are practical. The destruction of the Jews had always been imaginable. With Hitler it became practical. The skepticism of scientific reason sapped our critical reason. Our obligation to take the awful seriously meant that we were not free simply to condemn. Our social scientists and philosophers felt that there was something terribly wrong at Auschwitz, but their methodologies, their rational procedures, did not allow their personal revulsion to be turned into scientific principle. Their methods required neutrality. Revulsion was reduced to value judgments. Since moral values were viewed as irrational, and the irrational has no place in the scientific mode of thought, our social scientists had to be open to the suspicion that there was nothing demonstrably wrong with Auschwitz.

Not only was nothing sacred, but all things had possible merit. Reason denied itself the right to an a priori revulsion at Auschwitz. Modernity’s reason led us into a fully unreasonable condition in which the common sense of the humane tradition had to be denied. It was this unreasonable rationality, this modern paradox, that was the great concern of the Frankfurt School.

http://www.jahrbuch2003.studien-von-zei ... school.HTM

Sorry I rushed a reply.

That is the best explanation of what I have been trying to communicate. The US replaced its liberal education with Germany's model of education for technology. That is, we are molding the minds of the young, just as Germany did, and to expect a different result is not rational.

So, to return to the very first of the OP: "Can science be ethical?" I say no because it is in the realm of epistemology. But it can be DONE ethically, if ethics are applied to the epistemological process from the start.

When we had liberal education, we educated everyone for good moral judgment without religion, and we stopped doing that. Now my efforts to communicate are overwhelming frustrating, because this change in education so completely dropped the cultural education we once had, and meanings of words are so changed.