ABSTRACT
By this point some readers will be tired of all these questions about what is true and what is not true, what can be known and what cannot be known. Some will long since have concluded that science is the only reliable guide to knowledge and will be impatient with religious claims and religious reasons. Others will feel just as strongly that ‘the heart has its reasons that Reason knows not of ’ (Pascal). Others may have become agnostic, or just exhausted, in light of the complex and apparently unresolvable debates between scientists and religious traditions. For such persons this chapter will come, I hope, as a welcome relief. Even if one is highly skeptical of integrating religious truth claims with scientific results and methods, religions may still be useful in guiding ethical decisions. Perhaps they can serve as repositories of wisdom that humans have acquired over the centuries; or they can motivate people to think less of themselves and more of others and the environment; or, at the very least, they can provide some inspiring examples and helpful aphorisms. While religion cannot necessarily be reduced to ethics, most religious traditions place a major stress on ethical reflection and guidance. As we will see, science continually raises extremely knotty ethical dilemmas – sometimes in the process of doing scientific research, and sometimes in the questions about what to do with the results. (We focus on research-related issues in this chapter and on issues of application in Chapter 8.) In each case, knowing something about the science is essential for understanding the dilemmas and how they arise. But in almost every case, knowing the science is not sufficient for resolving the questions. Philosophers can help in
analyzing the dilemmas, finding common features between them, and formulating ethical or meta-ethical theories. But at the end of the day, philosophy has to rely on ethical intuitions and assumptions that have their sources in other realms. Many people find that religious traditions offer complex and often rich repositories of moral and ethical values. One does not need to take the religions as infallible in order to use them as resources for some of the new and difficult dilemmas that science is raising. In fact, even someone who did not hold any religious beliefs could find herself in agreement with some of these values. Obviously, two short chapters cannot cover all the ethical questions raised by science today. I have selected some of the more intriguing, provocative, and urgent among science’s ethical dilemmas. In each case, you will find multiple options from among which you can choose. For each issue covered, see if you can identify the response that you think is the most justified. Put together the best case you can make for your answer (your hypothesis). Then see how your arguments fare in discussions with advocates of the other views.
