The Monkey

Of course it should, what else should guide it?

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My Last.fm

The Unfan

Logic and reason. Both are also notably amoral agents.

Guybrush

Well, most moral theories are based on logic and reason. Or at least logic and reasoning done by philosophers. The role of emotions have been downplayed in comparison, something several feminist moralists have been complaining about for a while now (example Virginia Held).

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The Monkey

So if it's considered logical and reasonable to murder all the handicapped in the society for the sake of science (say, study their brain or something), we should do it? Unless you considerer doing that illogical or unreasonable, in which case you equate these two terms with ethics anyway.

In fact, by saying that "logic and reason" should guide science, you yourself have taken a moral stance in regards to what science should be working at and what goals it should try to achieve. In decision we make we apply our morals, as guided by our ethics. Indeed, the very decision to be conducting science in the first place is a moral decision.

Ethics if the backbone of every human society and transcends all aspects of it. To think that science should be excluded from this is not only impossible (considering that it would be an aimless search for nothing), but if attempted would lead to a practice that can only be described as outright nihilistic.

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Molecules

i think you mean ethics. and if you leave out our basic judeo-christian ethics you end up with stuff like this

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The Monkey

Yes, the crusades, the inquisition and African slavery are all proof of a great system of ethics.

Any religious text that advocates the execution of homosexuals and the selling of your daughters as sex slaves to protect some strangers should under no circumstances be used as a moral guideline.

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Now another stranger seems to want you to ignore his dreams as though they were the burden of some other

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Molecules

I agree, and i'm not advocating archaic religious fundamentalism, merely making the point that our notions of good and evil, our legal system and subliminal beliefs can in large part be credited to the influence of those religions, the ten commandments, the J-C work ethic of 'you'll be rewarded for slaving your guts out and never questioning authority' etc

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sleepy jack

Those kind of ideas were around long before the bible.

The Unfan

If they consent I don't see what the moral issue is. I know that is a fairly extremist stance and am willing to take all the flack that comes with it. If someone is capable of consenting to something, and does so, why should that be of any third party's concern?
I consider taking away someone's rights against their will to be unreasonable. I never said that I was ethicless, but rather I believe that ethics are subjective. My ethics should not determine the ethics of others, and my ethics probably aren't correct for everyone.

garbanzo

no.

science is empirical. ethical philosophy is not. objective moral standards do not exist.

objectivism assumes that a thing's qualities are inherent in the thing itself. but moral values do not exist out there in the world. this is not to say they are purely subjective; rather, they subsist in the uneasy space between subject and object. they arise from a dialectical relationship between us and our experiences of the world.

stem cell research, cloning, and everything else simply are. intrinsically, they are neither good nor bad. so why should our experiental moral values get in the way of the progression of our knowledge and understanding of the world around us?