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The Scientist—Technician or Moralist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

George Simpson*
Affiliation:
City College of New York

Extract

The position that science is a technique establishing the means to achieve any stipulated end has now fanned out and been defended by social scientists as well as by natural scientists. It is the thesis of this paper that the bifurcation of science and morality derives from the social status of both science and scientists today, and involves, wittingly or unwittingly, an uncritical acceptance of dominant social values. Science is thus not non-moral, as is claimed, but rather appropriates conventional morality. Certain conditions have brought about this role for science and scientists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1950

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References

1 Horkheimer, Max, The Eclipse of Reason, p. 135.

2 Lundberg, George, Can Science Save Us?, p. 29.

3 Journal of Political Economy, February 1948.

4 “Free Society,” Philosophical Review, Jan. 1948.

5 Phil. Rev., Jan. 1948.

6 Op. cit.

7 Op. cit.

8 Op. cit.