IB Theory of Knowledge Essay

The Ethical Boundaries of the Natural and Social Sciences

Prescribed Title 6: If we conclude that there is some knowledge we should not pursue on

ethical grounds, how can we determine the boundaries of acceptable investigation within an area

of knowledge? Discuss with reference to two areas of knowledge.

Candidate Number: 000251–0077

9 March 2022

Word Count: 1599

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The central enigma that plagues humanity is our insatiable desire for knowledge, to further

our understanding and appreciation of the world. The natural and human sciences have granted

us bodies and methods of knowledge which aid in our inquiries into the laws that govern natural

world and in our knowledge of ourselves and each other, acquiring knowledge to be applied for

humanity’s benefit. However, we must draw a line at how intrusive we can be—we must inquire

as to how far we can take inquiries to stay ethically principled. In our quest for knowledge, we

must not arbitrarily harm and injure other persons, disregarding moral consideration, as that is

contradictory to the altruistic modus operandi of the sciences. We also must not disregard the

intrinsic and utilitarian value of the preservation of our resources, life, and in the protection of

things of cultural value. This essay will explore the ethical limits in our pursuit of knowledge in

the natural and human sciences in defining persons and their rights, and in the consideration of

the values of knowledge, life, and preservation.

In evaluating ethical bounds, we must define the line of unethicality. The main driving force

that delineates that realm of the ethically permissible and condemnable is the subject of harm:

the disregard and violation of a person’s agency, autonomy, and right to life, causing undue

physical, mental/psychological, and social harm. In IB Philosophy, after going over the Harm

Principle by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, we discussed how one’s actions are justifiably

amenable by society and/or government when such actions affect another and violate the other
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persons’ sovereignty over themselves—one’s own person is sovereign to oneself alone, only if

the consequences are dealt solely to oneself. To justify this claim, we can draw upon our own

experiences in life: when someone forces us to stop doing something, like writing in your own

diary, merely because they felt like doing so, we take offense to that and see that as unnecessary.

However, if someone was writing all over your bedroom walls, we would see that as vandalism,

and we thus should hold the prerogative to stop that person. We can thus see how actions whose

consequences deal in only the person themselves, we should not interfere for that is offensive to

them and to us if someone were to do that to ourselves; however, other people should be able to

interfere with another or ourselves if that other or ourselves are impacting other people, as then

we are the ones offending others, as we take offense when others’ actions impact us in a way we

do not will. Thus, the ethical boundary is defined by the rational ideal of keeping from violating

the autonomous sovereignty of other persons in experimentation.

On the same stem, we must define what a person is. A person is a being with agency and a

part of our moral community. We may initially think, as I did when asked this question in IB

Philosophy, that persons are solely synonymous with humans. However, this thought experiment

was proposed in class: how about Superman? Is Superman not a person since he is not human?

This brings up a predicament to our definition as I consider Superman a person in how we view

and treat him. In a more realistic situation, do apes not deserve our moral consideration? They
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have shown how they hurt, have social cues, and how form human-ape bonds. Humanity is

derived along the same genetic lineage of apes. It is improbable to me that we should not grant

them our moral consideration; we cannot just define humans as being the only beings worthy of

moral consideration based upon our prejudiced intuitions and bias towards our own species. We,

as a community, must logically approach the question of what deserves our moral consideration.

After my experience in IB Philosophy, I have come to adopt the cognitive and utilitarian

criteria for personhood, which can be utilized to include non-human persons in our moral

consideration in the ethical bounds of our pursuits of knowledge. A person is a being that holds

the five criteria of cognition: consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity to

communicate, and self-awareness. In a more utilitarian aspect, it encompasses the criteria of

being sentient—or being able to suffer, which is also covered in the “consciousness” criterion—

and having a concept of time—or being able to have wants and desires for the future, which can

be included in the “self-motivated activity” or “self-awareness” criteria. Using these definitions

in the natural and human sciences, we can strictly and properly identify those agents which

deserve our moral consideration.

Through ethical committees and the use of the pioneering research into the conscious

autonomy of other creatures, with also the logical skills granted to us by ethical and

epistemological philosophy, we can clarify and clearly define the ethical boundaries by which
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we, as a human community, interact with each other and the world around us in an ethical way.

Legislation could also be put forth to enforce these ethical guidelines put forth by ethical

committees, all the while being subject to constant review and is transparent to the public.

Otherwise, if we were to conduct science in an unethical manner, it would run contradictory to

the goal of the sciences to serve as a benefactor in increasing our knowledge of the world and

being applied to aid us in our daily lives, thus making null our progressions in the sciences.

In the natural sciences, such as in chemistry and biology, we must then abide by these

ethical guidelines in our experimentation as set by ethical committees. In my IB Chemistry class,

we discussed a US experiment in testing the atom bomb during a brief history lesson when

reviewing enthalpy. Despite living in a sea of nitrogen, the reason why the atmosphere does not

explode is due to the bonding in N2 requiring tremendous amounts of energy for combustion.

However, one of the main worries regarding the atomic bomb was that it could generate enough

energy to combust the entire atmosphere, killing all oxygen-breathing life. The scientists

working on the project were trying to confirm through calculations—but experimentation

continued, anyways, and it was detonated. This is an example of unethicality in the natural

sciences—those working in the Manhattan Project grossly disregarded the entire world’s right to

life in the careless experimentation of the atom bomb, without the theoretical backing that the

detonation of the atomic bomb would not have wiped out all life. The wanton harm makes this
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experiment distinctly unethical. Knowledge has inherent value as we enrich ourselves and the

relationship we have with the world; however, such worth is overridden when the cost of

knowledge is the threat of harm to other persons, especially the threat of death, even if it was just

a chance and did not occur in the end. The autonomy of others was forgone in the scientists not

being transparent with their worries and still going through their experiment, despite their

knowledge of the chance that it could wipe out all life, leaving the world ignorant and without

concretely resolving their worries about their own actions’ consequences.

In the social sciences, like psychology, the same guidelines against wanton harm, as utilized

by the natural sciences, must be used. In AP Psychology, we discussed the procedures and

outcomes of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The Stanford Prison Experiment involved the

gathering of volunteer participants in a simulated prison environment. This is within ethical

guidelines as it respects people’s autonomy through the gathering of volunteers, getting consent

from the people to be experimented on. However, the actual methodology of the experiment was

problematic. Volunteers were “arrested” by actual police and sent to the site of the experiment.

They were separated into groups of “prisoners” and “guards”, creating a hierarchy of power with

the guards having prerogatives over the prisoners. Although the guards were barred from

physical punishment, the methods by which they controlled the prisoners were psychologically

damaging. Despite this all being roleplay, the altered mental states that the subjects underwent
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led to severe mental distress throughout the experiment before it was finally abandoned. This

was unethical. Although there was consent from the volunteers to be experimented, the way that

the researchers allowed the experiment to continue, allowing mental harm to be done to people,

was immoral. The researchers’ disregard for their subjects’ well-being, and their enforcement of

the mentally damaging hierarchy they built, proved detrimental and was unethical in their

allowing for undue harm to come to people. Following the Harm Principle, the researchers’

disregard for the well-being of the experimented people and allowing for harm to come to them,

wantonly, is unethical. The undue harm in the experiment thus undermines the value of the

knowledge provided and is contrary to the entire altruistic purpose of the social sciences.

Therefore, regarding our inquiries in the natural and social sciences, the ethical boundary

that is most logically required is regarding the prohibition of wanton harm done unto persons.

Persons can include non-humans and are defined through their cognitive abilities and a utilitarian

lens. Harm against people that should be prevented includes that regarding one’s physical, social,

and emotional/psychological well-being, and in respecting one’s right to autonomy. We should

not forgo these principles in pursuit of knowledge, despite knowledge’s inherent value, as the

harm that can come about undermines the altruistic value of knowledge—it also runs

contradictory to the modus operandi of the sciences in being benefactors in bringing about utility

through deepening our worldly understanding and in its application.