A “Science of Ethics”?

Abstract

hank you for inviting me to speak this evening. Sigma Pi Sigma is an important organization with much potential as yet untapped to serve society. Since service has been a strong aspect of my own career, I particularly admire Sigma Pi Sigma's emphasis on " Service " as one of its four themes. We need more science colleagues who are willing to learn about effective service and to take the time to serve well. One of the consequences of America's tendency to under-produce scientists is that they do not spill over into other careers where science knowledge would be useful but is not essential. So we rely on volunteers from the ranks of science researchers and students and teachers to bring technical skills and knowledge into the broader operations of society, and particularly of government. There are many opportunities to do this in Washington, and I encourage everyone to look into the variety of summer fellowships and internships that place service-minded scientists in government offices. Michael Faraday, who was famous for his popular science lectures, said you should never begin with an apology. So I will not apologize for speaking about ethics, a field far beyond my expertise. I am comfortable with this declaration because so many others who choose to talk about ethics seem to have no more expertise than I do, so I am in good company. I will also confess at the outset that I do not think " science ethics " differs from any other kind of ethics, nor do I think there is a unique " government perspective " on ethics. But there are some things to say about ethics in its relation to both science and government , and I will try to be clear about them in my remarks. ETHICS IN GENERAL Like physics, ethics has a theoretical part and an experimental part—or a philosophical side and a practical side, and they ought to work together. When talking about ethics and science, the philosophical part is important because the status of truth in ethics is so completely different from truth in science. From the science perspective, ethical standards are arbitrary. That is, there is no empirical test for them. So they are neither true nor false. As a practical matter, however, ethical principles that people everywhere have adopted throughout history have certain commonalities such as the Golden Rule of treating others as you …