A Bridge between the True and the Good

There is no society which does not aim to be a "good" society. All men  long for what is good and shun what is evil. But to attain this ideal, we must have knowledge. That's where truth comes in. Good is an ultimate value. What is true, however, may have only instrumental value. Whilst what is true may be one of the highest values of human civilization, what is good is an even higher value. Hence, what is true must seve what is good. 

Whilst it may be true that what is true may serve what is good, the relation between what is good and what is true is not one exclusively that between a master value and a subservient value. Even for determining what is "good", let alone whether what we find measure up to the relevant criteria of what is "good", we need knowledge. What is good in a specific set of circumstances is certainly a matter in which knowledge can play a very big role indeed. This is where science may help. In fact, originally "science" merely means knowledge. It is only after what has been called "the scientific revolution"  in the 17th century that "science" came to have the kind of more restricted meaning that the word carries today.

Not to be unfair to what is true, it must however, be observed that in addition to being the handmaid of the good, it may be argued that in some sense, what is true and especially in the specific form of science, may also be an independent value. Its existence may be justified by what it is and what it does, in its own right. This is so especially in regard to what may be called "scientific values" i.es. its trust and belief in the scientific method, scientific reasoning. being honest, courageous, persistent, open-minded, prepared if necessary to contradict and to challenge its own previous beliefs, its wilful refusal to bow to political or religious pressure, its staunch defence of what it regards as the "truth" discovered by a strict adherence to the scientific method of observation, hypothesis formation, verification through experimental means, constant self-criticism by peer reviews. In the scientific search for the truth, nothing is declared out of bounds beforehand. Even Einstein had to concede defeat to Niel Bohr's quantum theory despite his most vigrous initial objections.

Traditionally, science deals merely with physical objects and traditional science has been called natural science because it seeks to understand empirically the nature and structure of various materials and how they interact through forces like atomic, nuclear, chemical, mechanical and biological forces. Scientists describe them, measure them, classify them, generalize them to basic principles and seek to discover the laws governing their behavior. After having found the relevant principles, they then go on to apply such principles to explore newer and newer areas not previously examined in the relevant scientific domains. Now we have physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, astronomical science and within each, there are further specializatons. In addition, there are also more pragmatic sciences concerned with their application of the findings of fundamental science like engineering, architecture, medicine through scientific technologies. The careful, patient, systemmatic exploration of the natural world has yielded an extremely rich harvest and the phenomenal success of the scientific method has thus encouraged men to extend the scientific method to the study of man himself, whether as an individual or as group or as a society. Thus we now have social sciences like history, economics, sociology and psychology. But behind natural and social sciences are certain basic assumptions which have guided their development, exploring what is possible and what is not possible to be discovered by various scientific methods and the limits of validity of the methods of various different branches of science, including the social science in which the philosophy of science is particularly important.

One of the areas of examined by traditional philosophy like metaphysics, philosophic values and ethics are now being examined by social scientists. They seek to apply the scientific method found to be so successful in the natural sciences to the study of value. The methods employed are like the other sciences, empirical. Social scientists gather data, observe what is going on when people make moral decisions, examine the results of their action, try to form hypothesis of how or why they do or fail to do what they do and attempt to predict what people are likely to do under certain specific circumstances. They study human moral behavior systemmatically. As a result of such studies, we now know a great deal more about how people make moral decision and we have a great deal more data on the result of the use of certain technologies and can examine their impact on the environment.  

Aristotle was amongst the first to explore the relationship between human sensations, knowledge and technology. According to him, people wish to have knowledge either because it helps them solve practical problems or knowledge itself gives them a kind of intellectual satisfaction. In the same manner, scientific knowledge has vastly expanded our ability to both to understand the workings of Nature, and in the form of all kinds of production and manufacturing and tranportation and communication technology helped us solve numerous problems of and improved our material life and to that extent, vastly increased our ability to dominate Nature and in the form of information technology like books, magazines, journals, TV, cinema, hi fidelity sound equipment and other digital audio-video discs has provided us with the means of enriching our cultural life. But on the other hand, it has also polluted our air, fresh water, sea and land, destroyed the delicate ecosystem, depleted our natural resources, created weapons of mass destruction like all kinds of atomic, nuclear, neutron bombs, chemical and biological weapons and provided many nations with weapons to destroy the earth many times over. The internet has turned the entire world into a global information village and the global economy is not far behind and the heavy concentration of power in the hands of those in control of vital economic and financial information have created monster products the failure of which have pluinged the entire world into financial crisis and global recession. Our ethics have apparently not caught up with our technological development. The problem of genetic engineering, organ transplants, artificial insemination, test tube babies, articficially induced abortion, the use of laboratory animals for research, stem cell research,  have also created moral problems the world had never previously had to face. The moral crisis regarding the control of technology is literally unprecedented.

Some of our technology adopted by capitalists in our production methods in the form of factory production or assemly line has also created a kind of dehumanizing working environment parodied by Charlie Chaplin in his ground-breaking silent movie Modern Times  in the 1920s. Such working conditons are an affront to human dignity and have alienated millions from their work. They feel no longer human but just so many nuts or bolts being jolted along in the inexorable rumbling of the industrial machinery They have been turned into slaves of technology instead of its master. How to properly use our technology to create a better world, a more human world, a more habitable world, more sustainable economies shall be the task of all 21st philosophers of science. The value of science is ambivalent. Science has become both our slave and our master. Present indications are that science and technology are fast becoming more our master than our slave. Science has empowered us but in the process it has also empowered itself at our expense. The time for audit has arrived. The time for sitting down calmly, coolly and reflecting upon how we may once again become the master instead of the slave of science has arrived. It's really up to us whether we have the will to tackle the problem and seize the bull by the horn. The signs are that technology is now developing at an ever accelerating pace. If we wait too long, it may well be too late! The bridge between what is true and what is good must be built now. There is no further time to waste!