Science and Ethics on a (very) Shaky Foundation

Sandra Greer, Elements of Ethics for Physical Scientists. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 2017, pp. xi + 239, US$50.

I am very much in favour of scientists, especially science students, having some

exposure to the ways in which ethics can inform the practice and application of
science. I am not chauvinistic about this kind of work being the exclusive province of
philosophers – an appropriate stance for a former editor of this journal! - but I do (of
course) think that anyone who writes about or teaches science and ethics must have
sufficient understanding of philosophy to do a good job. However, the author of
Elements of Ethics for Physical Scientists, who is a retired professor of chemical
engineering and clearly well-intentioned, is not, on the evidence of the first two
chapters of this book, qualified to write about science and ethics. I am in fact at a loss
to know how a prestigious university press – and one with a distinguished philosophy
list – came to publish it at all. I will give an outline of what the book hopes to achieve
and then substantiate this criticism.

The book is intended to be textbook. Each chapter is organised into short sections
which give expositions of ideas and potted summaries – Summary :What is Ethics? is
seven lines long – and then there are discussion questions, case studies and inquiry
questions, with references and further reading. For the record, the difference between
a discussion question and an inquiry question is that the latter requires outside reading
while the former can be addressed on the basis of what is in the text. The matters
discussed include both issues internal to the scientific community, Chapter 4 is about
Dealing with other Scientists, and about applications of science, Chapter 6 is called
The Scientist in Society. The book is said to be aimed at physical scientists, and since
bioethics still dominates the field as a whole, that is a good idea. Greer believes that
some groups have been underrepresented, such as women and minorities, that some
topics have been neglected, such as science and policy and science and weapons
research, and there has, as yet, been no relations established between philosophy of
science and science and ethics. Some of this is correct: while there is good deal
available on women in science, less has been written about (other) minorities, not
much at all has been written about science and weapons research (I am about to write
my third encyclopaedia entry on the subject and will still mostly refer to myself), but
there is lots on science and public policy. It is not so much the organisation and
selection of topics and issues with which I will take issue, but the basis on which their
discussion proceeds.

The first section of the first chapter of the book on What is Ethics, is called “The
Philosophy of Ethics”: one talks either of ethics or of moral philosophy, not
philosophy of ethics – this is just a minor quibble but it suggests that Greer is not
(very) familiar with the subject. There are said to be two main theories of ethics.
Theory 1 states “We should act to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number”.
This is said to be utilitarianism and is attributed to Bentham and Mill and identified as
consequentialism – correct so far. The ‘good’ is understood in Mill’s conception of
happiness. This is backed up by a quotation from Mill’s Utilitarianism from an
edition published in Great Books of the Western World, but here, as elsewhere
throughout the book, there is no page reference, so one cannot check the quotation or
see its context. Theory 2 states “We should act only in ways that we should want
everyone else to act” . This approach is said to be the “famous categorical imperative
of Kant”. The confusion really begins here. Theory 2, like the categorical imperative
(of which this is a gloss of one version thereof) is a guide for construction moral rules,
it is not a rule or principle itself, and so not actually a moral theory. And it is clearly
compatible with Theory 1: why should we not want everyone to act in such way as to
produce the greatest good for the greatest number? Greer mentions Kant’s principle of
treating people as ends not means, but does not explain what that means nor how it
follows from the imperative.

There are two kinds of moral theory: those that are consequentialist in that it is the
consequences of actions that determine whether the actions in question are right, and
those that are non-consequentialist which do not see the consequences of acts as
solely determining their rightness. Utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism and
Kantianism is variety of non-consequentialism. Greer should have made this
distinction at the outset and then given her examples. As we will see in a moment,
although Greer claims to be adopting Theory 2, what she ends up with is not (a
version of) Kant’s ethics. In my opinion, Kantianism is not a good basis for an applied
ethic, unless one is bent on formulating a system of bioethics from a religious
perspective, and is looking for principles that will forbid abortion, euthanasia, and so
on. It is not easy to decide how much time to spend on moral theory in a text, or set of
lectures, on science and ethics, but more that the two pages that Greer devotes to the
subject is surely necessary. As I have said, she plumps for a version of the Theory 2,
which she interprets as a search for universal rules which she says may conflict and
may not be generally agreed on. However, the point of the categorical imperative is to
arrive at rules that are universally agreed on and which do not conflict: it is supposed
to reveal ‘perfect duties’. Greer, it seems, is after a set of prima facie duties, not
absolute ones.

In the next section, after stating the two moral theories, Greer says that the rules in the
system she will adopt are values. This is at best careless. Rules may mention or
express values, but rules are not themselves values. Values are action-guiding because
they are important, and if they are important enough, they can constitute, or be
expressed in, moral rules. But there are two ways that this can be done, which can be
illustrated by one of Greer’s two core values, truth. One can ‘honour’ truth, for
example, by always speaking the truth, or one can ‘maximise’ truth by acting in such
a way that as many people as possible tell the truth and this is compatible with not
telling the truth – “if you always tell the truth, you will never get into trouble!”. The
other core value is life. It is less clear what one is to do with this. In bioethics, one can
see how these two ways of formulating rules based on life as a value might play out.
Thus, ‘maximising life’ might be understood to mean preserving as much (human)
life as possible, and so for example proscribing euthanasia, while ‘honouring life’
could then mean helping the terminally ill die with dignity. When we step outside
bioethics, how to set up rules about life becomes less clear.

Having a moral system based on values can either be consequentialist or non-

consequentialist, depending on how it is set up, and surely it should be set up at the
outset to guide future discussion of the substantive topics that follow. However, in
summing up her moral system, Greer says this “It is a (sic) provisional and
experimental. It may not always work as stated: some steps may not make sense in a
given case, or may be taken in a different order. There may be times when a mixing of
utilitarian ideas with this deontological system may be useful” (p.8). This does not
inspire much confidence, and coupled with other remarks about disagreements
between the experts in regard to the correct approach to ethics, it gives the impression
that there are really no firm judgements to be had. This is not good pedagogy.
Students, especially science students, need a secure base on which to work, and the
last thing one wants is for them to believe that they can just take whatever view they
fancy when it comes to ethical issues. In my experience in teaching science and
ethics, the best approach is to set out one moral system in some detail at the
beginning, explain why it is a good system, note that there are alternatives, and get on
with the substantive issues. Controversy and discussion then focusses on the issues
and not the moral system.

Things do not improve when we move to Chapter 2, on philosophy of science. Here

Greer writes “Science requires that we make observations and experiments on the
external world…Once observations are in hand, we can proceed to devise models by
inductive reasoning: the generalization of particular observations to a general
statement” (p.16). Every reader of this journal will (should?) know that this empiricist
account of the scientific method became extinct in philosophy of science more than
half a century ago. Greer is aware that induction has problems and identifies four,
three of which are attributed to Alan Chalmers, or Chalmer as he is called on p.18. No
explanation is given as to why Chalmers’ views are canvassed, who he is or why he is
worth taking seriously, nor are proper references, complete with page numbers, given
to his book. In spite of a section on falsifiability, which is said to be not essential but
still useful to scientific progress, Greer sticks with inductivism as the scientific
method, though this is now acknowledged to have problems. She thinks she needs a
chapter on the philosophy of science so that she can address topics in research ethics,
such as the questions about the fabrication of data, in Chapter 3. But it is enough to
point out that scientists routinely make observations and perform experiments to
introduce such matters. There is no need to say that these are used as premises in
inductive inference - there is no mention of induction in Chapter 3 where she talks
about some elements of experimental practice.

I do not have much space left to talk about the substantive chapters which follow in
any detail though I can say that they are not as controversial and the opening chapters.
But I will say a little about science and weapons. Greer gives a very brief overview of
some of the weapons research that scientists have conducted in the last century,
mainly in the context of the two world wars. Nuclear weapons are mentioned in this
context, and Greer says that Heisenberg was in charge of the German atomic bomb
project. There was really no such project, as Heisenberg made a mistake in his
calculation of the sizes of critical assemblies (these vary with their geometry) and he
concluded that a bomb was not a practical possibility. Apart from this minor point, her
exposition is fine as far as it goes. There is no mention of Richard Rhodes classic The
Making of the Atomic Bomb in the further reading or the references, which is the best
book about the role of science in nuclear weapons research, though she does refer to
his subsequent book on the development of thermonuclear weapons. Having criticised
Greer a fair bit, I am relieved to be able to say something positive: I do like some of
her cases studies, discussion questions and inquiry questions (here and elsewhere in
the book). She asks if there is a moral difference between applied and basic weapons
research, if working on defensive systems is preferable to working on offensive
weapons, whether working on weapons of mass destruction should be forbidden, etc.
and although the inquiry question that enjoins student to begin by reading Goethe’s
Faust may be a bit of a challenge, I think these would work well.

It is unfortunate that the book is undermined by the first two chapters. The
responsibility for the publication of the book in its present form lies with the referees
and ultimately the editor. These people have done a disservice to the author, who is
clearly not equipped to write a book on science and ethics, although she clearly cares
about the issues and believes that science students should be exposed to them. I am at
a loss to know how MIT University Press could not have provided Greer with better
guidance, with a co-author perhaps, or simply not published the book at all in its
present form. The lack of proper referencing and proof-reading mistakes provide
further evidence of an alarming fall in standards at this publishing house.

John Forge
School of History and Philosophy of Science,
The University of Sydney.