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The Role and Limit of Science in Moral Reasoning

 

ISCAST (NSW) Lecture: Mon 20 July 2009 at 7.30 pm,
 
Dr Lewis Jones, The Role and Limit of Science in Moral Reasoning
 
Venue:  Physics Library, Room 64, School of Physics  (Old Main Building), at The University of NSW.
 
 
Formerly an ARC Post-doctoral Research Associate in Astrophysics in the School of Physics at the University of NSW, Lewis has completed a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Moore Theological College and is currently a staff worker with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students tasked with encouraging and equipping academic staff and postgraduate students as missionaries at the University (http://www.reap.asn.au).
 
Parking is available in the multi-story car park at UNSW near Gate 14 on Barker Street [enter at Gate 14, then turn right and enter the car part (PLEASE DO NOT PARK IN ANY RESERVED SPOTS) ] or else park on nearby suburban streets.  A light supper will follow the lecture and discussion.
 
For further information, please contact Prof Peter Barry email: p.barry@unsw.edu.au or mobile 0419 243 685

 Abstract:  Science is limited: some of those limits are prescribed by scientists and some are imposed by our creatureliness.  One such limit is the inability of Science to make moral statements or propose ethical frameworks.  In order tor a moral statement to be useful and universally applicable, it is required that we know both the nature and the purpose of the object in question. Science can only ever provide us (imperfectly) with the nature of objects, while the purpose of objects is given by the designer, and, therefore, can only be revealed, not discovered.  Two implications for ethical deliberations are, one, that scientists must be humble to declare uncertainties, including paradigmatic influences, in their statements regarding the nature of things, so that ethics can proceed with the clearest possible understanding of the way things might be, and two, that the designer will be the only profitable consultant regarding the purpose of things.

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