Part 3: "The Sense of Human Dignity", §6 (p. 63–64)
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)
Context: Tolerance among scientists cannot be based on indifference, it must be based on respect. Respect as a personal value implies, in any society, the public acknowledgements of justice and of due honor. These are values which to the layman seem most remote from any abstract study. Justice, honor, the respect of man for man: What, he asks, have these human values to do with science? [... ]
Those who think that science is ethically neutral confuse the findings of science, which are, with the activity of science, which is not.
“Confusion of sapience with sentience can be ethically catastrophic.”
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David Pearce (philosopher) 28
British transhumanist 1959Related quotes
Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 3
Context: Temperament refers to the mode of reaction and is constitutional and not changeable; character is essentially formed by a person’s experiences, especially of those in early life, and changeable, to some extent, by insights and new kinds of experiences. If a person has a choleric temperament, for instance, his mode of reaction is "quick and strong.” But what he is quick or strong about depends on his kind of relatedness, his character. If he is a productive, just, loving person he will react quickly and strongly when he loves, when he is enraged by injustice, and when he is impressed by a new idea. If he is a destructive or sadistic character, he will be quick and strong in his destructiveness or in his cruelty. The confusion between temperament and character has had serious consequences for ethical theory. Preferences with regard to differences in temperament are mere matters of subjective taste. But differences in character are ethically of the most fundamental importance.
The Times, Sidney Morgenbesser: Erudite and influential American linguistic philosopher with the analytical acuity of Spinoza and the blunt wit of Groucho Marx https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sidney-morgenbesser-5cz8gg8qfvm, September 8, 2004.
“Ethical judgments can be [should be] included in the scope of science”
Cited in: John P. van Gigch (2006) Wisdom, Knowledge, and Management. p. 2
1940s - 1950s, Theory of Experimental Inference (1948)
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)
Context: I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality as it is accessible to human reason. Wherever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism. … I cannot accept your opinion concerning science and ethics or the determination of aims. What we call science has the sole purpose of determining what is. The determining of what ought to be is unrelated to it and cannot be accomplished methodically. Science can only arrange ethical propositions logically and furnish the means for the realization of ethical aims, but the determination of aims is beyond its scope. At least that is the way I see it.
Letter to his friend Maurice Solovine (1 January 1951) p. 120
When the Cathedrals Were White http://books.google.com/books?id=TzwVAAAAMAAJ&q="A+hundred+times+I+have+thought+New+York+is+a+catastrophe+and+fifty+times+it+is+a+beautiful+catastrophe"#search_anchor (1947)
Attributed from posthumous publications
The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 532.
“An ethic isn’t a fact you can look up. It’s a way of thinking.”
Source: More Than Human (1953), Chapter 3, p. 183
Chap. 3 : Freedom and Consequences
1990s, On Ethics and Economics (1991)