2013Marek Vácha

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene V.

Gyges´ ring

Plato in The Republic has one of his characters ask us to engage in a though experiment. He tells the story of Gyges´ring, whose effect was to make its wearer invisible. What would prevent the possessor of the ring from commiting any crime he felt like committing? He could never be caught. Would we not all be tempted, if we had such a ring, to do whatever our heart desired, knowing we would not, could not, be found out?

there are two ways how to create order: by use of power by use of self-

restraint when only police or

army stand between order nad riots, freedom itself is at risk

Tottenham, august 2011

Science

The composition of mammalian blood is plasma 55% and cellular elements 45 %

leukocytes are: basophils, eosinophyls, neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes

IgE antibodies are produced in response to initial exposure to an alergen bind to receptors an mast cells

blood glucose level is about 90mg/100ml

Ethics

when, if ever, is possible to take a gift or gratuity from a patient?

Is it permissible to lie to a patient if it is for his or her good?

what obligations do I have to a colleague and fellow practitioner when I suspect that the colleague I am working with is abusing alcohol or appears chemically impaired while on duty?

Science x Ethics

science investigates what is ethics investigates what ought to be

Ethics

…and what about the Bodies exhibition?

Is this show ethically neutral? …or good? …or bad?

"Friendly embryos"

http://www.cuni.cz/IFORUM-9834.html

There are more complicated questions...

Is there any sort of pursuit of knowledge that might be forbidden? is there a category of a "forbidden knowledge"?

Is there any sort of research that should not be publicly funded?

Is there any sort of genetic knowledge that it might be better not to know?

Is any basic research ethically mandatory in some way?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkW0C-NyNtQ

There are more complicated questions...

should the use of cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (the technique used to produce Dolly) be allowed in order to help as infertile couple have a child?

should the entire UK population and all visitors to Britain be compelled to provide DNA samples as a means of enabling the police to detect the perpetrators of criminal acts?

(Mepham, B., (2008) Bioethics. An Introduction for the Biosciences. 2nd ed- Oxford University Press, Oxford. p. 3)

There are more complicated questions...

Is it possible to say that future benefits justify the present

practices? future abuses do not disqualify present

uses?

There are more complicated questions...

Is a goal of the medicine painless, suffering-free and, finally, immortal existence?

Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life is evil. Albert Schweitzer

Science x Ethics

Science

Methodological Naturalism: what natural world contains how it arrived at its current state laws that regulate its behavior

Ontological Naturalism: nothing else exists

Martin Heidegger: science is the theory of the real. what does real really mean and to what

degree that scientific reality presents a comprehensive worldview?

what is included, and, more importantly, what is left out?

and considering that which is omitted, what is the cost of its lost?

Tauber, A.I., (2009) Science and the Quest for Meaning. Baylor University Press, Waco, Texas. p.34

From how the world is, we cannot infer how it ought to be. For that we need another kind of knowledge entirely.

Philosophy

Ontology = a theory of what is real Epistemology = a theory of how we

perceive and organize data Ethics = a theory how to live a righteous

life

Science and Philosophy

PhilosophyScience

Science is only half the story

Science can analyse the chemical composition of a great painting but it cannot tell us what makes it great painting.

(Sacks, J., (2011) Letters to the next generations 2. Office of the Chief Rabbi. p. 29)

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 - 1669)

Science is only half the story

Science can tell us how our instinctual drives were formed but it cannot tell us which of those drives to yield and which to resist.

(Sacks, J., (2011) Letters to the next generations 2. Office of the Chief Rabbi. p. 29)

Science

 The materialism of science asserts its limits, not its universality. The methods and scope of science remain within the world of matter. It cannot make assertions beyond that world. (Francisco Ayala) http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/may/28/religion-science-richard-dawkins

The Idea of Science

Science becomes instrumental in several senses, as an authoritative instrument for describing nature, as a powerful instrument for the technical mastery of nature, and as a personal instrument for understanding the world and navigating it. (Tauber, A.I., (2009) Science and the Quest for Meaning. Baylor University Press. Waco, Texas. p. 36-

37)

The Idea of Science

science as a tool to promote human well-being, namely an intellectual and technological enterprise to understand and control nature objective knowledge is appplied to make things or

propose generalizations (laws, hypotheses) about nature.

science as a framework for building existential and metaphysical formulations facts, laws and scientific inferences are translated into

personal knowledge to place humans in nature. interpretation of Darwin´s theory etc.

(Tauber, A.I., (2009) Science and the Quest for Meaning. Baylor University Press. Waco, Texas. p. 36-37)

For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary... (Albert Einstein)

„Scientists are well aware of how much they don´t know, but this is a different kind of problem – not just of acknowledging the limits of what is actually understood but of trying to recognize what can and cannot in principle be understood by certain methods.“

Nagel, T., (2012) Mind and Cosmos. Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Oxford University Press, Oxford. p. 3

Ethics and Morality

Ethics is primarily a matter of knowing Morality is a matter of doing

morality is what people believe to be right and good

ethics is the critical reflections about morality and the rational analysis of it.

Ethics and Morality

Ethics is primarily a matter of knowing Morality is a matter of doing

Éthos/Ethics = Place for pasture of animals, or indications for a stable, the behavior of animals (ethology). Metaphorically: place for living and all habits

common to it. The ways of behaving, thinking

Good ethics start with good facts!

1. Defining the problem2. Descriptive – defining what is going on,

description of who the patient is, who the family is, what is their moral world; what the options are in terms of diagnosis, therapy, prognosis, goals, what can be done, weighting the risks and benefits.

3. Normative – ethics arises from value conflict – concerns itself with the „should“ questions

Descriptive Ethics and Normative Ethics Descriptive Ethics

What do people think is right? philosophical schools, religions etc.

Normative Ethics identification of values what behavior is good and why supported by arguments what should I do and why?

Whereas descriptive ethics attempts to describe and explain those moral views that in fact are accepted,

normative ethics attempts to establish which moral views are justifiable and thus ought to be accepted.

Normative Ethics

Normative ethics is the attempt to determine what moral standards should be followed so that human behaviour and conduct may be morally right.

Normative ethics is concerned with establishing standards for conduct and is commonly associated with theories about how one ought to live.

The position of the teacher

the teacher is not in „God-like position“ the teacher is not

a harbinger of an ultimate truth a opinion-maker

the teacher doesn´t say „how things are“ his/her task is more complicated

to tell to the students what is known about the problem

and then he/she try to moderate the discussion

The Scandal of Philososphy

We have moved forward in medicine during the past 2 000 years we now know much better the human body than

Hippocrates knew

..but have we move forward in philosophy? is our contemporary philosophy better than the

philosophy of Aristote? maybe not!

the philosophy might be somewhere between art and science

The Problems of teaching Philosophy

the notions are generally not so clear as in science

there is no such thing like „hard data“ different people could have different opinions

„there is only one science but many philosophies“ everyone has his/her own philosophy a philosophy is joint to the person of the

philosopher and his/her epoch

…but is it true?

What is the difference between a postmodernist and a member of the Mafia?

The Mafia makes you an offer you can´t refuse. A posmodernist makes you an offer you can´t understand.

Ethical relativism

there is no goodness or badness there is no rightness or wrongness ....there are only opinions

Dostojevskij: if God does not exists, all is permitted.

Why to start with Philosophy?

In the history of the human spirit I distinguish between epochs of habitation and epochs of homelessness. In the former, man lives in the world as in the house, as in a home. In the latter, man lives in the world as in an open field and at times does not even have four pegs with which to set up a tent.

In the former epochs anthropological thought exist only as a part of cosmological thought. In the latter, anthropological thought gains depth and with it, independence.

(Martin Buber: Between Man and Man)

...taught us the paradoxical truth that nations survive not by wealth but by the help they give to the poor, not by power but by the care they extend to the weak. Civilisation become invulnerable only when they care for the vulnerable.

Sacks, J., (2011) The Great Partnership. God, Science and the Search for Meaning. Hodder & Stoughton, London. p.290