Enlightenment

روشن‌شدگی

روشن‌شدگی

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Science and immoral activities - Note

دوشنبه, ۲۸ تیر ۱۳۹۵، ۰۸:۵۷ ق.ظ

Historically, some scientific results have been used to justify some sort of immoral actions and decisions, individually, in society, or globally. Based on this some argue that doing science when its results reasonably can be misused is not justified and have to be abandoned. Although I do agree that science in its nature is not completely value-neutral but I do not believe that we should avoid doing science when we have rational justification for believing that the outcomes will be misused. Thinking otherwise may imply at least two fallacies: the ‘One-sidedness Fallacy’ and ‘Perfect Solution Fallacy.' 

In the one-sidedness fallacy, we present only one side of the facts which favours our claim and serves well our needs while we disregard other facts that may refute our claims. It means we have not said enough to justify our claim or to refute the objections. Therefore, the facts that support the other side might be much stronger that we have provided. In other words, in this fallacy, it does not mean that our facts or claims are wrong, but it means that they are not complete and enough for concluding that our claim is right. In this case, although there were some (or even many) scientific results which have been used to facilitate and justify some sorts of immoral activities, on the other side, there were many other scientific findings and results that removed discriminations and corrupt activities. To compare, science helped human more than what it has been used inappropriately to justify discriminations.  

Also, avoiding doing sciences because of its implications may suffer the ‘Perfect Solution Fallacy’. In this fallacy, we compare actual and real situations with idealised (and even improbable) circumstances and alternatives. In other words, it is the tendency to create a false dichotomy with one option very advantageous but in the same time completely impossible or unreal. In this case, it is ideal to live in a world that all sciences will result in further human flourishing and elimination of discriminations and to live in a world that any scientific achievement never will be used against human moralities. However, it is not real at all to be able to ‘restrict’ science and the scientific method. Firstly, because in many cases we do not know what will be the final result of a particularly scientific approach and research and in some case we only realise it only at the very end of the process. Secondly, although there might be some inappropriate ‘implications’ and ‘usage’ of some scientific results, they may be the early stage of further finding that those finding will serve human needs much bigger that we may think at this stage.

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