science vs. the rest of things



所有跟贴·加跟贴·新语丝读书论坛http://www.xys.org/cgi-bin/mainpage.pl

送交者: apate 于 2005-1-13, 09:08:21:

回答: 孩子对母亲尽管了如指掌还是应该敬畏的. 由 fagus 于 2005-1-13, 05:52:00:

insofar as i understand, science is always in the process of undoing the mythopoeic mode of language, especially such metaphorical uses like "Mother Nature." as i quoted earlier, Bacon wanted to subject nature and *her* children to the service for the scientific *man* (sic) and to become *his* slave. this way of speaking about human-nature relatinship is probably not what either Prof. He or Mr. Fang would like to retreat to, although they may share Bacon's idea that the natural world is knowable through human reason.

but there is a lot more to a good life and a good society than just scientific knowledge and human reason. when it comes to the actual application of scientific knowledge and technologies, all Mr. He (paragraphs #6-8), Mr. Fang (paragraph #5), and Mr. Wang (see Fang, ibid.) in fact point to the same crucial issue, i.e., the public deliberation of the costs and benefits as the result of some proposed intervention through scientific methods. in such cases sci-tech experts certainly have a say, but insofar as public policy is concerned, not all the consequences - good or bad, intended or unintended - can be solved by or attributed to pure (natural) scientific methods. for, besides reason, there are also political power (ethos) and moral sentiments (pathos):

first, ethos. if as Mr. He suggested (paragraph #6) some degree of "environmental destruction" is needed, a consequent and legitimate public issue is who in the community should - or should not - suffer negative impact from such destruction. as long as such negative impact is irreversible or if reversible at all is beyond the telarance of social members' wait, this question is not capable of being solved by purely scientific methods. because it is a public issue, the way in which costs and benefits are distributed in the affected community is in part the result of negotiation of political power.

by the way, it is noteworthy that not only costs but also benefits need to be distributed in a fair and just manner. again, who is in the position to decide the distribution of benefits or costs - whether fairly and justly or not - is in part a matter of political power. because scientists and technological experts have rather different concerns than policy-makers and community members, it is crucial to keep channels of public deliberation open and reasonable.

second, pathos. as i mentioned earlier, everyone has the inalienable right to the exercise of personal conscience. on a personal level, therefore, it is totally legimate for one to feel sadness, anger, and the like at such destructions as cutting trees, killing animals, blowing up mountains, etc. the expression of such moral sentiments (and aesthetic evaluation) should not be rediculed as "anti-science" if it takes place in the proper domains (e.g., family) of life. in the public domain (e.g., in the form of Op-Ed), such moral sentiments are still legitimate if they are based on the recognization of facts (e.g., instead of distorting facts) and are expressed in a civil manner (e.g., hysteria). but the rule of publicity is such that such speakers voluntarily submit their moral and aesthetic values in the marketplace of ideas and in competition with other moral and aesthetic values.

third, back reason (logos). what moralists really need to do is, like their scientific counterparts, to come up with a more sophisticated, autonomous, coherent, and systematic set of vocabulary of moral philosophy, instead of relying on misleading cliches(doxa), such as "the awe of nature." no one else can help if the moralist or the scientist does not present his or her own argument in its strongest possible manner. in this sense, Prof. He's article is disappointing, for he could have made his argument a lot stronger.

in short, the "human-centered" argument has far richer implications to better understand human-nature relationship. to reduce the sense of "human-centered" to logos and/or "the interest of human development (He, paragraph #8) is highly problematic, because, besides such logos and interest, humanity also involves ethos and pathos - which should be taken into consideration as well when we think about human-nature relationship.



所有跟贴:


加跟贴

笔名: 密码(可选项): 注册笔名请按这里

标题:

内容(可选项):

URL(可选项):
URL标题(可选项):
图像(可选项):


所有跟贴·加跟贴·新语丝读书论坛http://www.xys.org/cgi-bin/mainpage.pl