contact@onbelief.orgCan Science by Itself Provide Us with a Way to Live?
It would be extremely naive to assume that the science and its emergent technologies can define how we live. Nor can we safely presume that rationality or its expression through science can even begin to guide our motivation in the formation of provisional moral axioms. We can of course as a society produce a pragmatic assessment of the value of such axioms without ever hoping to produce a definitive controlled test in the manner of applied science. In addition we need no fixed determinant of such pragmatic tests. We might appeal on one occasion to the minimisation of harm or on another to the maximisation of happiness or some principal of utlity that we see fitting in a particular instance.
Despite our limited ability to analyse our moral precepts we should not descend into metaphysics and teleology or worse still a combination of those characteristics with the philosophical neo-conservatism of MacInyre in 'After Virtue'. Instead we should at least try in a faltering fashion to adopt the experimental and evaluative approach of science. If a morality centered on individualism or the assumptions of the Scottish Enlightenment, for example, is found to be wanting then our project must change. In provoking such a change we do not expect to encounter a permanent or universal truth merely another way of being ( see a critique of Macintyres view of 'emotivism' at "Political Philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre".) We should regard the morality of any given culture as a set of ethical hypotheses that can only be seen to have value only in the light of experience. That experience is of necessity relativistic to our understanding and exploitation of the world acquired through science and technology and therefore is not fixed in character but has a dynamic quality.
The tremendous power of science and technology changes our way of being and the way in which we understand the world and so undoubtedly influences the way in which we formulate moral hypotheses. It is therefore sensible to be wary of the changes that science can bring to our culture. In this situation we need a social construct of morality since our behaviour and motivations only have real import in connection with interpersonal relations.
As science and its accompanying technologies develop it is desirable that social codes and structures adapt and change in an iterative and reciprocal fashion. It is equally important that they do not have a one way relationship since we would end up with a morality of what is possible rather than what is desirable. Science therefore ignores these evolving codes at our peril and our society should not operate as if the moral restraint of science is undesirable. Similarly we should not indulge in meta-analyses of what is desirable and exclude from our thinking the scientific and practical culture of our times.
Consider the effect of technology on human population size, for example, and the ramifications of that increase. Situations of plenty will change to become one where shortages assume new importance. Moral precepts then have a new relevance in that dynamic. Science and technology, like politics and religion, need to be contained within a wider more interactive framework of ideas.
Sadly we must consider the naivety of scientists who fail in their ethical meta-analysis. Dawkins, to take one prominent example, wrote in 1997,"Science is actually one of the most moral, one of the most honest disciplines around" and later "as zealous bigots, we scientists are mere amateurs at the game" (see source >). I beg to differ. The amoral blindness of a small minority of scientists has a greater destructive potential than all of the ravings and genocide of all religious bigots throughout the whole of human history. To examine the physical destructive power of a weapon in the absence of a sociological or ethical meta-analysis conerning its use is madness. Consider what happened in the late 1940's after Europe and the East had been devastated by believers in the Third Reich and the Emperor. A highly intelligent, very educated but completely witless and amoral group of physicists developed the fusion bomb. In so doing they present us with the possible spectacle of horror on an unprecedented scale at the hands of crazed apocalyptic believer presidents, maniacal dictators of the Korean variety, or simply countries such as Israel, Pakistan, or India threatened by their neighbours. If that is not enough, consider the behaviour of deranged biologists and chemists in producing biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. (For further reading at Wikipedia see Chemical weapons, Fort Detrick, Building 470, Porton Down, Soviet program of biological weapons)
Even President Eisenhower became aware of how the "military industrial complex" could become a danger to US Society.
(Theme continued in the response below)
"The core of science is not a mathematical model; it is intellectual honesty," said Sam Harris (see video >). One has to wonder what new depth of depravity this "intellectual honesty" will take us to in future. The 'belief' that unrestrained science is inevitably good for us is demonstrable folly. Many scientists proceed in their work without reference to morality. In short that is why in purely practical terms it is amoral and often in the context of our time potentially immoral. For much of the time this lack of analysis will have no immediate impact on the rest of us. However when it does we should be very watchful.
The barbaric animal experimenters of 19th century Britain were as culpable as the scientists of the 20th century who did not let morality stand in the way of their personal motivations. It is noteworthy that in Britain it has been necessary to enact legislation to restrict animal experimentation rather than let scientists impose their own self regulation (see Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, Animals Scientific Procedures Act 1986). Of course some scientists are not alone in having a long history of being cruel to animals as the need for other acts of the British parliament have attested. ( Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822, Cruelty to Animals Act 1835, Cruelty to Animals Act 1849). Nevertheless it is alarming when great scientists such as Claude Bernard were motivated to act cruelly in pursuit of scientific objectives. Is the cruel scientist any better than the cruel farmer both of whom have pursued careers at the expense of animals? Like other believers the cruel scientist would appeared to have concluded that the revelation of 'truth' takes precedence over a balance of moral considerations. The belief that in animal based research the alleviation of human suffering on a massive scale takes precedence over imposition of suffering on a relatively small number of animals has strong parallels in the ancient practice of animal sacrifice to Gods for the betterment of human welfare. Clearly there is a distinction between those who are deliberately cruel for the sake of it or those who do so as a matter of entertainment and those who are cruel as a bi-product of their actions. The fact that one can be rationalised scientifically is more alarming that it is reassuring for it implies that there can be a permissible logic of cruelty. (For further reading at Wikipedia see Brown Dog affair). What then are the restraints on this logic?
It would be a very worrying development if the awesome power of science were to become the amoral 'new religion' of the future.
In his lecture "The Religion of Science" Dawkins says "Science is not a religion, but it does some of the things over which religion once felt a certain droit de seigneur. Not morality, I must add. I shall not talk about morality at all today, mostly for lack of time." It would be silly to to not welcome the general point that Dawkins makes about the advantages of the explanatory power of science over religion in producing functional descriptions of the way things are and behave. We should also welcome the acknowledgement of a lack within science as an overarching view of the world. You will no doubt have noticed however how Dawkins and some fellow scientists are so elevated that they cannot even spend time discussing philosophical or moral issues. They do so at our peril.
Response from Dave: (Also reproduced on the responses page 2)
You stated that ' A highly intelligent, very educated but completely witless and amoral group of physicists developed the fusion bomb.' At least you got the 'highly intelligent, very educated' bits right;-) You then go on to state 'One has to wonder what new depth of depravity this "intellectual honesty" will take us to in future. The 'belief' that unrestrained science is inevitably good for us is demonstrable folly. ' There's no such thing as 'unrestrained 'science (even in wartime) so how can there be a belief in it?
Commentary on the Response: I agree that there are many financial, political, social and legal constraints on the practice of science and so science does not operate in a social or political vacuum.However, I ask you what internal or external moral constraints have operated on those who have produced weapons of mass destruction. I include in this the nuclear scientists of the UK, France, USA, the Soviet Union and Pakistan who have produced WMDs or exported or shared destructive nuclear technologies. I would argue that the scientists who willingly participated in these projects and fostered their ambitions on an enormous industrial scale at vast public expense had in practice no constraints. We are also aware how nuclear scientists, even someone with the towering intellect of Albert Einstein, wrote several letters to convince American politicians how it would be possible to build a fission bomb. So not only were scientists participants they were co-conspirators. Following building of the fission bomb scientists were then given every encouragement to undertake further peacetime "experiments" by political elites of these countries in the building of "nuclear fusion bombs". Edward Teller for example has a particularly ignominious role in the course of events in the US. In the UK we then saw the hiding of expenditure on nuclear missile programs from the British parliament. We saw the obvious lies, now exposed for what they were, that the British civilian and military nuclear research programs were independent of one another. The present worry over Iranian political intention with the generation of nuclear power is born of our own experience where we exploited our capacity to make WMDs for they were indeed one and the same project. Worse still we now have the public acknowledgement of plutonium exports from the UK to the US and have every reason to assert that they were for military purposes. British politicians then did not seem to care what the plutonium was used for when it left our shores (see parliamentary answer). Where were the intellectually honest UK scientists in all of this? Were they hiding behind the walls of their laboratories, then going home to their families, to be followed by a relaxing game of badminton or a drink in the local pub. On what basis were these scientists and engineers acting? Did they do so merely as an extension of a laboratory based investigation? Were the nuclear tests in the pacific merely scientific investigations on a large scale? Did they 'believe' for example that they were doing some social good? Perhaps they did not really care about their effect on the world. Similarly were those who conducted 'experiments' in exposing native peoples and our service personal to radiation at detonation also participating in some benign restrained scientific exercise? ( one source )
Is the amoral scientist restricted to physics and engineering? Sadly not. In terms of the new biology, for example, we have already seen Monsanto trying to market reproductively disabled (sterile) and trait-restricted seeds to world farmers ( See Terminator Technology, and Monsanto at Wikipedia, Ban Terminator, Biotech Giant Monsanto Revises Pledge on 'Suicide Seeds' at Greenpeace UK). It remains to be seen whether or not external restraint can be brought to bear on Monsanto. Belief that economic power granted by science validates our actions is clearly dangerous.
When molecular medicine 'comes of age' as a technological discipline based on molecular biology where will the internal restraint of intellectually honest scientists leave us? Should we really ignore the example of unrestrained nuclear science?
On the Nature of Belief
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