JCOGGSHALL@HAMPVMS.BITNET (Jeff Coggshall) (04/04/88)
In response to Ralph J. Marshall: First of all: There already exists a huge disenfranchisement in society between scientists and non-scientists. The scientific community has been, and continues to be, a sectarian culture, which views itself as autonomous from the concerns of the larger civil society within which it operates. The development and production of technological innovations is, to a large extent, ideologically (and artifically) divorced from societal and ethical concerns. I see this as the primary area which is in need of change: scientists and technicians must integrate societal and ethical responsibility as part of their work - and then everything else will follow idyllically. Maybe. In any case, that sort of consciousness-raising, and view of the cultural role of the scientist must change. > What will happen to our society as a larger and larger section > of the populace is disenfranchised? Some guesses: Between the scientific & nonscientific communitiy you will find increasing Rumour, Mutual Suspicion, Fear, & Hatred. I have heard (and I wish someone would come forth with real information on this) that in the Netherlands somewhere, there are "technology centers," or "science centers," which provide extremely easy, reaching- out type of access to the kind of information which is becoming increasingly necessary to "make it" in these technological times. Jeff
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (04/07/88)
Jeff Coggshall writes, in response to Ralph J. Marshall: > I see this as the primary area which is in need of change: scientists > and technicians must integrate societal and ethical responsibility as > part of their work - and then everything else will follow idyllically. > Maybe. In any case, that sort of consciousness-raising, and view of > the cultural role of the scientist must change. Unfortunately, you are assuming that scientists will agree on the ethical consequences of the various alternatives. This is false. Furthermore, scientists are likely to take into account more of the consequences of the action. Thus we have scientists totally polarized on nuclear energy, genetic engineering, space activities, SDI, and even on such things as nuclear war. To give a somewhat extreme example: should we provide food to the growing populations is the drought-stricken parts of Africa? At first it seems obvious that we should feed starving people. However, are we perpetuating and exascerbating the famine by doing so? I do not see any situation where one cannot argue that apparently ethical actions can have such bad consequences that they cannot be considered, and conversely that apparently unethical actions can have such consequences that possibly one should consider them ethical. I personally have much more difficulty with the latter, but there are situations in I would find myself forced to go along with them. The former occur most of the time. We also are quite ignorant of important properties of nature. Thus, an ethical judgment must take into account _all_ consequences of the action in all remotely reasonable states of nature. There are no simple solutions to the world's problems, and there are no simple comparisons of value systems. Herman Rubin