The Role and Limit of Science in Moral Reasoning
![]()
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.


