That is not to say that theory and application cannot be separated into ethical categories. They can be, but those categorizations are always going to be somewhat skewed by the researcher, because no human being is capable of perfect neutrality. To assume that one can research for the sake of purse science really does involve imaging that scientists are not human beings with their own personal motivations. Moreover, this is not an issue that developed in the post-atomic world. Even before the use of the atomic bomb, scientists were motivated by personal motivations that kept them from being completely neutral. Therefore, it might be better to consider the ethics of scientific discovery from a viewpoint that includes the inherent morality of a discovery. For example, chemotherapy could be used as a weapon with very disastrous results, because its side-effects are devastating and can even be fatal. However, chemotherapies are developed with the goal of saving lives. It would be ridiculous to prohibit or discourage the development of new chemotherapies on the grounds that they could be used as weapons. On the other hand, while it may seem responsible to discourage something like the advent of nuclear weaponry, the fact that its invention led to the creation of nuclear energy and might actually be indirectly responsible for saving a number of lives cannot be discounted.
The ethics surrounding the issue of weapons development are so complicated that it is difficult to label my position on them as either inherently deontological or consequential. From a deontological perspective, this activity would be ethical as long as the researchers' motives were good. However, deciding whether a motive is good is so inherently biased that it seems impossible to apply that perspective to weapons development. After all, it was good for Americans to be the first ones to develop nuclear technology, and the use of atomic weaponry may have reduced the total number of deaths during World War II (though...
Science and Morality Science and the Concepts of "Right" and "Wrong" Many people argue that moral concepts allowing us to distinguish between right and wrong come from religion, humanities, philosophy, law, and ethics -- but not science. Science, they argue, does not deal with morality because it does not make any value judgment. According to them, science can only tell what is possible but not what is right or wrong. And even
Science and Fiction The film Moon (2009) depicts the story of a man who is on a three-year mission on the moon mining helium-3 for people back on Earth. He is residing by himself and accompanied by a robot named GERTY. A couple of weeks before he gets to return to his family back on Earth, he starts to see things that are not there, including a teenage girl that he
Moral ratings of each picture in the pair were given on a seven point Likert scale, and the five highest and five lowest rated photos were retained and paired with control photos for the second phase of the study. The second population of 111 subjects (35 males and 76 females) in this second phase were asked which person in each paid of pictures they would prefer to share a
Then morality is relative, not absolute (Kreeft) Weaknesses One weakness of moral relativism consists of the consequences of not having moral constraints (Kreeft 2003). Correct or good morality, if valid, should always have good consequences. Incorrect or bad morality should always have bad consequences. The fact is that all wrong or immoral acts and attitudes bring on "good" or pleasant feelings. Moral relativism has never produced people worthy of praise. It
Moral Philosophy Can desires and feelings be in accordance with or contrary to reason? Are they under the control of, or guided by, reason? Compare, contrast, and critically evaluate the answers of Aristotle and Hume to these questions and their arguments in support of those answers. David Hume is one of the most significant philosophers of the 18th Century. Hume is skeptical about moral truths, and he ascertains that ethics comes from
Moral Messages in Children's Literature I chose four children's classics: Charlotte's web (1952) by E.B. White, and other three children's fairy tales, two by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm (Cinderella and Snow white and the seven dwarfs) and one by Charles Perrault (Sleeping Beauty). These were among my personal childhood favorites. Looking back on all four as an adult, I see many similarities, but also many differences, in these books' inherent moral
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