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Journal of Shanghai University (Social Science Edition)

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More Thoughts on Relation Between Science and Ethics

  

  • Received:2011-06-14 Online:2012-07-15 Published:2012-07-15

Abstract:

Basically speaking, those various opinions on the relationship between science and ethics are interested in one question: does science have something to do with ethics? If yes, it is held that science contributes to ethics. If no, it is argued that scientific knowledge and ethics are separate from and independent of each other, i.e., they are fundamentally different, and scientific knowledge never benefits or influences ethics. The two answers both make some sense but are extreme and biased. The relationship between science and ethics is actually dialectical: to science of research activities and social construction, it directly impacts ethics and vice versa; to science as knowledge systems or scientific knowledge, it is hardly affected by but exerts indirect effect on ethics, i.e., ethic codes can not be directly induced or deduced from scientific theories. Scientific theories provide not only some background knowledge and indirect help to the choice and establishment of ethnical codes but also new ethical issues (environmental ethics, ecological ethics, bioethics, gene ethics, cloning ethics, etc.) for people to think and study. Only based on such understanding can we evaluate and analyze the relation in question as well as reasonably criticize the two extreme views of "science governs morality" and "science ruins morality".

Key words: science, ethics, morality, value

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