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1.5. But this means that, as a human activity, science is a moral matter subject to moral regulation and, therefore, the proper subject of ethical queries. To be specific, it is the subject both of the more formal, logical queries of ethics (or metaethics) having to do with the exact kind of moral activity in which it consists and of the more material ethical queries having to do with justifying it as that kind of an activity.

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1.7. In the case of the second, more material kind of ethical queries, one begins with the very questions often asked by the scientist her-or himself about the activity in which she or he engages---namelyengages—namely, "What is the value of all this work I do? What is the meaning of my office, or vocation, as a scientist? What is the justification of my activity?" Such questions obviously become urgent in situations in which, for whatever reasons, the value, meaning, or justification of science has become problematic.

1.8. In principle, an activity may be morally justified by appealing to the relevant moral rules or principles. Failing that, either because the relevant rules or principles conflict with one another or do not apply to the case, or because they themselves are in need of justification, another kind, or level, of justificatory argument becomes necessary. Its major premise is not any particular moral rule or principle, but rather the ultimate moral principle arguably implicit in human action as such---namelysuch—namely, that the "right" action or rule is the one that maximizes the realization of all relevant interests even while minimizing their frustration. This is to presuppose, naturally, that the whole elaborate apparatus of our moral language and reasoning, from single concepts like "right" and "duty" to fully developed ethical systems and theories, exists in . order to make possible these two kinds, or levels, of argument. And, analogously to the case of science, the criteria of moral reasoning, or justification, like the norms of moral action, are wholly secular and autonomous, in the sense of being standards already implied in the situation and activity of pursuing our vital interests as social beings.

1.9. The critical moral question, however, is always, "What are the relevant interests?" or "Whose interests are relevant?" And this is one point where ethical queries as well as any possible answers to them point beyond morality and ethics to faith, if not also to religion as the primary explicit conceptualization/symbolization of faith. For it is precisely from faith, or religion, that we derive "the center of value" or "the cause of loyalty" that defines the scope of relevant interests (H. Richard Niebuhr). Any interest is relevant that is itself of interest to the all-inclusive "interest in interests" (Charles Hartshorne), which is the center of value or the cause of loyalty---in loyalty—in a word, God. For "God," properly understood, is at once the center of value, in the sense of that for which all other things have value or are of worth, and the cause of loyalty, in the sense of that to whose own value or worth all other things contribute.

1.10. The other point at which ethical queries as well as any possible answers to them point beyond morality and ethics to faith and, possibly, religion, is the limiting question that may be asked of any strictly moral justification of any human act or rule---namelyrule—namely, the question as to the ultimate meaning or significance of such an act or of a life lived in accordance with such a rule. What this question asks about is not why one should act to do one thing rather than another, or live in accordance with this rule instead of that, but rather why one should act to do anything at all, or live in accordance with any moral rule whatever. The whole of moral action and reasoning presupposes some kind of positive answer to this limiting question. But, then, the same is true, at its own level, of ethics as critical reflection on morality. In this sense, or to this extent, ethical queries about modern science necessarily presuppose the queries of faith about modern science. Alternatively, the process of putting ethical queries to modern science is either incomplete and fragmentary or else it leads on to the process of putting the queries of faith to modern science.

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2.1.Does science provide a basis for values?

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2.1.3. But if value, although relative, is in this sense objectively rather than subjectively relative, the determination of values is a matter, not of consulting subjective desires or preferences, but of objective observation and knowledge-namely. Namely, of the relation of one being to another, of how, being the kind of being it is, it does or does not meet the needs or correspond to the potentialities of the other being. To this extent, then, science, understood as just such objective observation and knowledge of beings in their relations to one another has an important role to play in determining values, whether or not it may also be said to provide the basis for them.

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2.2.1. The basis for values, I have averred, is to be found in the complex and Inanymany-sided relations of beings to beings that is existence itself. The reason for this is that value, either positive or negative, is always already present whenever one being with needs and potentialities is related to another being that either meets its needs and corresponds to its potentialities or else fails to do so. But since to be at all in the fullest sense of the word--in word—in the sense of being concrete, and so either an actual entity or an existing individual--is individual—is to be in relation to others, which, therefore, are or have value, either positive or negative, being and value are inseparably connected, and the condition that must be fulfilled in order for there to be values, which we might quite properly speak of as the "basis for values" is always already fulfilled by the esssentially essentially relational, or sociat social nature of existence as such.

2.2.2. But if it is just here, in the social nature of existence itself, that the basis for values is to be found, it nonetheless remains true that science as the objective knowledge of existence--or existence—or to the extent, if you wilt will that science consists in such knowledge--has knowledge—has an important role to play in determining the values that are inseparable from being itself. Indeed, it is arguable that, given its essentially instrumental aim and structure, modern science is particularly well adapted to play this important role.

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2.3.2. The other thing that should be said is that the status of the autonomy of science as a positive value is hardly in question if what is to be understood by such autonomy is the Wertfreiheit generally understood to be obligatory for the scientist, insofar as her or his commitment to objective knowledge entails that she or he not allow her or his own desires and preferences to intrude upon and distort either reading of the relevant evidence or reasoning about it. If what it means for science to be autonomous is that it is "value - free," in the precise sense that would be better expressed, perhaps, by speaking instead of its being "valuation-free," then, clearly, science's being thus autonomous is a well-based positive value. For consciously valuing beings such as ourselves, who both can and must live by their own subjective valuations, the objective determination of what really is or has value for themselves and others must itself be or have extraordinary positive value. For there is no other reliable way whereby one's subjective valuations ma be made to correspond to the objective values, positive and negative, of human existence. The clear implication, then, of what I have to contribute to the debate about science and values is that the autonomy of science is, as it were, a positive value of the second power, insofar as objective knowledge of bein.gs in their relations to one another is necessary to the determination of all other human values.

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