The scientist’s code of ethics

Few echoes of the controversy over the nature of science will be found in this article. An earlier generation agonized over the question: “Does scientific inquiry tell us anything about values and moral obligations?” and reached a very skeptical conclusion. Fifteen years ago studies of the language and logic of science appeared to many scientists and philosophers to have settled the question: you could not logically leap from assertions about what is and what is possible to assertions about what ought to be. Then came war and the Manhattan project, and many who had accepted the divorce of science and ethics were frightened into reconsidering the matter. If science had nothing to say about values and duties, so much the worse for science. There ought to be a connection between science and ethics. Whatever the semantic difficulties, something needed to be done to prevent a suicidal use of scientific knowledge. Since 1945 there have been many conferences, many symposia, reconsidering the relation of fact to value, the relation of science to ethics. Despite the ingenuity of these discussions, I find them, on the whole, inconclusive and disappointing.

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