Abstract
The question whether a scientist can be responsible for an outcome of her work which she does not foresee, and so is ignorant of, is addressed. It is argued that ignorance can be a ground for the attribution of responsibility, on condition that there are general principles, rules or norms, that the subject should be aware of. It is maintained that there are such rules which inform the practice of science as a social institution.
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Notes and References
For an example of an outcome based on pure science, see my essay “Responsibility and the Scientist” in Bridgstock et al. (eds.) (1998), Science, Technology and Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 42–44.
I will be concerned here just with acts and not with omissions. I take this general causal principle as my starting point. For some further elaboration and defence of this point of departure, see my “Science and Moral Responsibility”, Melbourne Studies in Education. Special issue on Science and Social Responsibility, forthcoming, 2000.
This is the standard way of distinguishing between pure and applied research in science policy, and it will be adopted here—see for instance the definitions given by Harvey Brooks in his introduction to Technology in Retrospect and Critical Events in Science (1968), National Science Foundation, Washington D.C., p. ix. Of course, this should not be taken to imply that there is always a sharp distinction between the two kinds of research such that the elements of a given project can always be easily classified as one or the other. This is especially difficult in the case of industrial research—for an account of the complicated structure of these organisations, see M. Crow and B. Bozeman (1998) Limited by Design, Columbia University Press, New York.
Unless the subject was coerced. There is considerable literature on the conditions under which the subject can be said to be ‘in control’, see especially J. Fischer and M. Ravizza (1998) Responsibility and Control, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
This is Susan Meyer’s position, and it would be Aristotle’s if it were possible to unambiguously interpret Aristotelian ‘voluntary’ action as intentional action. Meyer discuss this at length in her Aristotle on Moral Responsibility (1993), Blackwell, Oxford. Her interpretation is summarised in Chapter 1. Also, philosophers who endorse the Hebrew-Christian moral tradition see intention as necessary for moral responsibility, see A. Donagan (1970), A theory of Morality, Chicago University Press, Chicago, p.122.
Meyer, S. (1993) Aristotle on Moral Responsibility, Blackwell, Oxford, p. 4.
Oshana for one gives very good reasons in favour of this understanding of moral responsibility. See Oshana, M. (1997) “Ascriptions of Responsibility”, American Philosophical Quarterly 34.
Held by, among others, H.L.A. Hart, in the sense of liability responsibility in “Responsibility” (1967), Law Quarterly Review 83, Zimmerman, M. (1988) An Essay on Moral Responsibility, Rowman and Littlefield, Totawa, NJ, and Oshana, M. (1997) “Ascriptions of Responsibility”, American Philosophical Quarterly 34.
The first part of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (Methuen, London, 1957) is devoted to a discussion of bad faith. Mary Warnock thinks “Any evasion of responsibility is an instance of bad faith” Ethics Since 1900 (1960), Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 121. Chapter 6 of this book gives an exposition of Sartre’s view. The idea of corruption of consciousness seem very similar to that of bad faith: “Yet they [persons] can abuse their power to direct attention. A man may avert his attention from something presented to him, not because it is irrelevant from the subject at hand, or insignificant in itself, but because it is disturbing.” Donagan, A. (1970) A Theory of Morality, Chicago University Press, Chicago, p. 139.
Meyer, S. (1993) Aristotle on Moral Responsibility, Blackwell, Oxford, Chapter 5.
Donagan, A. (1970) A Theory of Morality, Chicago University Press, Chicago, p. 130.
See, for instance, Hall, J. (1960) General Principles of Criminal Law, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, pp. 375–394.
Berger, P. and Luckmann, A. (1984) The Social Construction of Reality, Pelican, Harmonsworth, pp. 91–91.
These are the subject matter of books on the ‘ethics of science’. See, for example, David Resnick (1998), The Ethics of Science, Routledge, London
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Forge, J. Moral responsibility and the ‘ignorant scientist’. SCI ENG ETHICS 6, 341–349 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-000-0036-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-000-0036-9