Science and Moral Imagination

Science and Moral Imagination PDF Author: Matthew J. Brown
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987678
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
The idea that science is or should be value-free, and that values are or should be formed independently of science, has been under fire by philosophers of science for decades. Science and Moral Imagination directly challenges the idea that science and values cannot and should not influence each other. Matthew J. Brown argues that science and values mutually influence and implicate one another, that the influence of values on science is pervasive and must be responsibly managed, and that science can and should have an influence on our values. This interplay, he explains, must be guided by accounts of scientific inquiry and value judgment that are sensitive to the complexities of their interactions. Brown presents scientific inquiry and value judgment as types of problem-solving practices and provides a new framework for thinking about how we might ethically evaluate episodes and decisions in science, while offering guidance for scientific practitioners and institutions about how they can incorporate value judgments into their work. His framework, dubbed “the ideal of moral imagination,” emphasizes the role of imagination in value judgment and the positive role that value judgment plays in science.

Science and Moral Imagination

Science and Moral Imagination PDF Author: Matthew J. Brown
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987678
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Get Book Here

Book Description
The idea that science is or should be value-free, and that values are or should be formed independently of science, has been under fire by philosophers of science for decades. Science and Moral Imagination directly challenges the idea that science and values cannot and should not influence each other. Matthew J. Brown argues that science and values mutually influence and implicate one another, that the influence of values on science is pervasive and must be responsibly managed, and that science can and should have an influence on our values. This interplay, he explains, must be guided by accounts of scientific inquiry and value judgment that are sensitive to the complexities of their interactions. Brown presents scientific inquiry and value judgment as types of problem-solving practices and provides a new framework for thinking about how we might ethically evaluate episodes and decisions in science, while offering guidance for scientific practitioners and institutions about how they can incorporate value judgments into their work. His framework, dubbed “the ideal of moral imagination,” emphasizes the role of imagination in value judgment and the positive role that value judgment plays in science.

Moral Psychology

Moral Psychology PDF Author: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262195615
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 607

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Book Description
Since the 1990s, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. These three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists in this emerging, collaboratory field.

Psychology as a Moral Science

Psychology as a Moral Science PDF Author: Svend Brinkmann
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441970673
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
What does morality have to do with psychology in a value-neutral, postmodern world? According to a provocative new book, everything. Taking exception with current ideas in the mainstream (including cultural, evolutionary, and neuropsychology) as straying from the discipline’s ethical foundations, Psychology as a Moral Science argues that psychological phenomena are inherently moral, and that psychology, as prescriptive and interventive practice, reflects specific moral principles. The book cites normative moral standards, as far back as Aristotle, that give human thoughts, feelings, and actions meaning, and posits psychology as one of the critical methods of organizing normative values in society; at the same time it carefully notes the discipline’s history of being sidetracked by overemphasis on theoretical constructs and physical causes—what the author terms “the psychologizing of morality.” This synthesis of ideas brings an essential unity to what can sometimes appear as a fragmented area of inquiry at odds with itself. The book’s “interpretive-pragmatic approach”: • Revisits core psychological concepts as supporting normative value systems. • Traces how psychology has shaped society’s view of morality. • Confronts the “naturalistic fallacy” in contemporary psychology. • Explains why moral science need not be separated from social science. • Addresses challenges and critiques to the author’s work from both formalist and relativist theories of morality. With its bold call to reason, Psychology as a Moral Science contains enough controversial ideas to spark great interest among researchers and scholars in psychology and the philosophy of science.

The Moral Landscape

The Moral Landscape PDF Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143917122X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

An Instinct for Truth

An Instinct for Truth PDF Author: Robert T. Pennock
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262042584
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
An exploration of the scientific mindset—such character virtues as curiosity, veracity, attentiveness, and humility to evidence—and its importance for science, democracy, and human flourishing. Exemplary scientists have a characteristic way of viewing the world and their work: their mindset and methods all aim at discovering truths about nature. In An Instinct for Truth, Robert Pennock explores this scientific mindset and argues that what Charles Darwin called “an instinct for truth, knowledge, and discovery” has a tacit moral structure—that it is important not only for scientific excellence and integrity but also for democracy and human flourishing. In an era of “post-truth,” the scientific drive to discover empirical truths has a special value. Taking a virtue-theoretic perspective, Pennock explores curiosity, veracity, skepticism, humility to evidence, and other scientific virtues and vices. He explains that curiosity is the most distinctive element of the scientific character, by which other norms are shaped; discusses the passionate nature of scientific attentiveness; and calls for science education not only to teach scientific findings and methods but also to nurture the scientific mindset and its core values. Drawing on historical sources as well as a sociological study of more than a thousand scientists, Pennock's philosophical account is grounded in values that scientists themselves recognize they should aspire to. Pennock argues that epistemic and ethical values are normatively interconnected, and that for science and society to flourish, we need not just a philosophy of science, but a philosophy of the scientist.

Moral Science and Moral Order

Moral Science and Moral Order PDF Author: James M. Buchanan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780865972469
Category : Economic policy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume presents a representative sampling of James M. Buchanan's philosophical views as he deals with fundamental problems of moral science and moral order. As one might expect, Buchanan always goes back to fundamental principles first. From there, his observations and conclusions range far and wide from his own discipline. The thirty essays collected in Moral Science and Moral Order are divided into these categories: Methods and Models Belief and Consequence Moral Community and Moral Order Moral Science, Equality, and Justice Contractarian Encounters In his foreword, Hartmut Kliemt says, "The British and Scottish Moralists of the Enlightenment period would have felt very comfortable with James Buchanan. Like them, Buchanan may be seen as a 'man of letters' who concerns himself with fundamental problems of moral science and moral order. But, also like them, Buchanan is not a secondhand dealer in old ideas. On the contrary, taking as inspiration classical philosopher-economists (in particular, Adam Smith), Buchanan not only proposes new applications of the neoclassical economic paradigm, he also addresses, in innovative ways, fundamental issues of his discipline and beyond." Kliemt's lengthy foreword highlights some of the major philosophical currents with which Buchanan is engaged in the papers collected in this volume. His introduction to these philosophies provides an excellent grounding for economists and all readers who may not be familiar with the philosophical and fundamental issues Buchanan undertakes. James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) was an eminent economist who won the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986 and was considered one of the greatest scholars of liberty in the twentieth century.

What Makes Us Moral?

What Makes Us Moral? PDF Author: Craig Hovey
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1620327074
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
Is science all we need to make us moral?In his recent book, The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris presents his vision of a world in which reason and science alone determine our values. Here, a leading Christian ethicist subjects this vision to a rigorous critique, providing general readers with a clear, concise, and compelling exposŽ of the most serious flaws in Harris's arguments.

Modern Food, Moral Food

Modern Food, Moral Food PDF Author: Helen Zoe Veit
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469607719
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
American eating changed dramatically in the early twentieth century. As food production became more industrialized, nutritionists, home economists, and so-called racial scientists were all pointing Americans toward a newly scientific approach to diet. Food faddists were rewriting the most basic rules surrounding eating, while reformers were working to reshape the diets of immigrants and the poor. And by the time of World War I, the country's first international aid program was bringing moral advice about food conservation into kitchens around the country. In Modern Food, Moral Food, Helen Zoe Veit argues that the twentieth-century food revolution was fueled by a powerful conviction that Americans had a moral obligation to use self-discipline and reason, rather than taste and tradition, in choosing what to eat. Veit weaves together cultural history and the history of science to bring readers into the strange and complex world of the American Progressive Era. The era's emphasis on science and self-control left a profound mark on American eating, one that remains today in everything from the ubiquity of science-based dietary advice to the tenacious idealization of thinness.

The Moral Arc

The Moral Arc PDF Author: Michael Shermer
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0805096930
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
The New York Times–bestselling author of The Believing Brains explores how science makes us better people. From Galileo and Newton to Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King, Jr., thinkers throughout history have consciously employed scientific techniques to better understand the non-physical world. The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment led theorists to apply scientific reasoning to the non-scientific disciplines of politics, economics, and moral philosophy. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected bodies in old medical texts, physicians opened bodies themselves to see what was there; instead of divining truth through the authority of an ancient holy book or philosophical treatise, people began to explore the book of nature for themselves through travel and exploration; instead of the supernatural belief in the divine right of kings, people employed a natural belief in the right of democracy. In The Moral Arc, Shermer explains how abstract reasoning, rationality, empiricism, skepticism—scientific ways of thinking—have profoundly changed the way we perceive morality and, indeed, move us ever closer to a more just world. “Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson “A memorable book, a book to recommend and discuss late into the night.” —Richard Dawkins “[A] brilliant contribution . . . Sherman’s is an exciting vision.” —Nature

Science and Moral Priority

Science and Moral Priority PDF Author: Roger Sperry
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231054065
Category : Ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description