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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul Torek)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.philosophy
Subject: observation and value; science and ethics
Message-ID: <2164@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Dec-84 19:37:58 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2164
Posted: Sat Dec 29 19:37:58 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Dec-84 05:27:27 EST
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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From:  Ken Arndt  
> "It is important to realize that science does not make assertions about 
> ultimate questions - about the riddles of existence, or about man's task
> in this world.  This has often been well understood.  But some great
> scientists, and many lesser ones, have misunderstood the situation.  The
> fact that science cannot make any pronouncements about ethical principles
> has been misinterpreted as indicating that there are not such principles, 
> while in fact the search for truth presupposes ethics."
>                - Karl Popper,( the rock star??) , DIALECTICA 32:342

From: Gordon A. Moffett	...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam
> This makes sense to me, but why does "the search for truth [presuppose]
> ethics"?

It figures Moffett would pick on the one thing that Popper got right.  The
search for truth presupposes that knowledge is valuable; that scientific
inquiry is worth doing.  It also presupposes that there is something which
we ought to believe -- and believing is an action.  And science can make
pronouncements about ethics, contra Popper; the health sciences can and
should deal with human benefit and harm (what constitues a benefit or harm
is a value judgement), and behavioral sciences can (at least in principle)
indicate what actions one would perform if one were rational, informed, and
free (i.e., what actions are right!).

From:  Rich Rosen
> The use of absolute right/wrong was used in the context of absolute 
> good/evil, in a moral sense and not an observational sense.  And I'm 
> sure Paul [Dubois, I think it was--pvt] knew that when he wrote what he 
> did.  (Since many of recent articles addressed this point.)  

Can this dichotomy between the moral and the observational hold any water?
Can there be -- as I think Rosen wants to suggest -- an "absolute right/
wrong" in science without implying a similar cognitivity for ethics?

				--The aspiring iconoclast,
				Paul V Torek, umcp-cs!flink
	(until 1/11, then back to	ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047	)