Asking “What Is Science?” from an Ethical Point of View

In previous pages I tried to elucidate two essential points: firstly, that in his article of 1988, as well as in some of subsequent publications, Agazzi tried to substantiate the idea of liability of science—naturally, only in some respects—to ethical scru­tiny.

Now I shall try to develop my own conception of the interrelations between science and ethics. I am going to suggest that the ethical agenda can come into sci­ence not only from outside, but from inside as well. This means that the ethics of science will be presented as one of the fields of science studies. I suppose that my approach is complementary to that of Agazzi.

Sure, ethics of science operates within the range of modalities that belong to the sphere of moral judgments. This determines one dimension of a two-dimen­sional space, another dimension of which is formed by cognitive judgments.

So, the ethics of science studies the phenomena occurring in science. One can be even more definite: the ethics of science is a form of science studies. It studies precisely science (of course, seen from a specific point of view).

Since we recognize the ethics of science as a form of the science studies we admit at least the possibility of a corresponding subject-matter existing within sci­ence. In other words, there exist moral judgments and assessments inside science, and these judgments and assessments as such deserve scientific investigation.

There are many different types of activity connected with the production and circulation of scientific knowledge in society (the so called “knowledge society”) which are the privilege of scientists. This privilege makes them responsible for the production of scientific knowledge, its translation to the general public as well as to the next generations, and of its various practical applications.

Here is an example. The educational context considerably influences the cognitive activity in science (for more details see Petrov 2006; Yudin 1986: 186-189; Frolov and Yudin, 1989; Yudin 2010: 387-468). This means that any newly obtained frag­ment of knowledge should fit into a textbook. The corresponding norms of cogni­tive activity (which, besides technological, have also ethical sense) help realize this condition. This condition itself can be subjected to ethical assessments. It goes with­out saying that in usual everyday practice these norms require no special awareness or reflection; they are “internalized” and act, so to speak, automatically. Reflection becomes necessary when changes occur either in the way the cognitive activity is organized, or in the system of education, or in the way they interact. Such changes may put to question the normative determination and call for its correction or revision.

Nowadays interrelations between science and society become rather complex and multifaceted. They require, among other things, more and more legal and ethical regulations: hence the need for the ethics of science. It provides special knowledge about scientific activity, including knowledge about the variety and effectiveness of different means for its regulations. This type of knowledge distin­guishes ethics of science from all other fields of the science studies.

Here a question arises: what defines the place of the ethics of science as con­trasted to the methodology of science, sociology of science and other disciplines which study science?

I think that the question “What is science?” unites all these fields of the science studies.

No matter how important these problems are, the methodology, sociology and ethics of science should go farther than that. The wave of discussions (which has been constantly on the rise within last decades) goes on identifying newly recog­nized critical points in scientific development as well as in the impact of science on humans and society. These discussions clearly demonstrate that the question “What is science?” has acquired new dimensions. The philosophy of science of the past ages considered it to be settled, or at least, admitting of a straightforward answer; the task was to formulate the adequate criteria of demarcation between science and non-science (metaphysics, in the first place). This desire to identify pure science and the emphasis on what distinguishes science from other spheres of mental activity and action are characteristic of the philosophy of science of the preceding periods. It contrasted science to other spheres of human thought and action rather than look for correlations, ties and cooperation.

Today, however, there is a need to elaborate intensively and qualitatively, in many fields, new approaches to the science studies.

The openness of this question means that there is no (and there cannot be any) predetermined answer to be identified, explained and clothed in suitable wording. The answer is the result of disputes, criticism and self-criticism of different con­ceptions and views. Each of them is, inevitably, partial and one-sided. It fails to reflect science in its entirety and contemporary science especially, as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.

The most important point is that our searches for an answer presuppose an understanding of the radical changes that science has brought into the world. The very boundaries between science and non-science are not fixed, they change with the course of time. They are, besides, the zones of intensive interaction between science and the phenomena that determine it; this interaction strongly affects both science and the life of humans and society.

In these circumstances the answer to the question “What is science?” leaves the sphere of purely academic interest and assumes practical importance. Today’s phi­losophy of science faces the task of comprehending what science is in general and what science is today. This comprehension outlines the scope of people’s expecta­tions for science and, consequently, humans’ positions, decisions and actions con­cerning some of the most significant spheres of their existence. What I have in mind here is not the prediction of specific scientific results but foresights of the general trends and general structures of the cooperation between science, society and its culture.

Nowadays the concept of science has become one of the basic concepts of con­temporary culture as understood by Erick Yudin (1978). This is the case because science has assumed an extremely important, many-sided and rapidly expanding role in social life. To enable the culture of today to define itself and to clarify its major problems, we need an analysis of the concept of science (i.e. an answer to the question “What is science?”), realized through the varied manifestations of sci­ence. At the same time the efforts of the philosophy of science to answer this ques­tion are precisely the efforts to formulate a rational and thoughtful attitude towards science and towards everything connected with it in one way or another.

It is very important that one-sided and narrow answers are not taken as the final answers, and thus block further search. The position represented by M. Foucault, M. Douglas and their rather numerous followers is prone to this shortcoming. They equate science and power or, to be more exact, they regard science as an instrument of domination. Research based on this premise shows many inter­esting, essential and previously ignored aspects of the real existence of science. Nevertheless, I think that those who are inclined to absolutize this view, to regard it as the only one rather than an addition to other opinions, commit a grave error. Ours is an age which has demonstrated the negative effects of a one-sided and once popular stand which resembles in many ways the position we are discussing. Here I refer to the interpretation of science as a means of domination over nature.

If we commit ourselves to purely analytical purposes we will probably be able to reduce research activity as a whole, human activity in general and interpersonal relations to the pattern of domination /subordination. This operation, however, will undoubtedly provide a bleak and monotonous picture of reality.

Let us discuss a simple example. I publish an article. This fact can be inter­preted as an attempt to impose on my colleagues my own understanding of sci­entific findings or, even more, my will.

The domination/subordination approach cannot explain the distinctions between the desire to impose one’s will on others contrary to their own will, the desire to prove one’s point with arguments open to critical assessment, or the desire to communicate.

When examining the question “What is science?’’ as the pivot of the philosophy of science it is advisable to bear in mind another point of view. Those adhering to it hold that the question is senseless since in reality we are dealing with a multitude of different sciences which have little in common, rather than with one science. It is not my task here to disprove such a position. I would like merely to point out that in practical terms the search for an answer is more important than the answer itself. The eternal task of the philosophy of science, its debt to culture, is to formulate con­tinually the ever new definitions of science, to criticize and reassess them, to make them more profound and more in line with a rapidly changing reality.

I think that this task also determines the place of the ethics of science in the realm of science studies. Though concentrating on certain critical points, the ethics of science is still concerned with science as a whole and not just with its individual aspects or fields. To be sure, the ethics of science has its own view of science: it provides nothing more than a projection of the multi-dimensional phenomenon of science onto the ethical plane. The methodology and sociology of science, like any other fields of the science studies, produce their own projections of science. No one of them offers an integral image. To be integral this image requires a combina­tion of all these projections.

This means that ethics, methodology and sociology of science should cooper­ate. Significant achievements of this cooperation can be expected not at the level where the ready research findings obtained in one of these fields are applied to other fields. The cooperation which urges constant revision of the initial prem­ises in the study of science and recognition of their limited and one-sided nature is much more fruitful. The only road to the multifaceted and integral image of the whole without which we cannot improve our theoretical constructs or (what is more important) orient ourselves in the world in which science exists, lies in matching all these projections in our imagination.

3