Experience and Experiment

Bibliographic Data

ID10703126
AuthorsThomas A Cowan (Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, corresponding author)
Year1959
Volume26
Issue2
Pages77-83
Publication date1959-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8248 • E-ISSN: 1539-767X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/287652
OpenAlexW2044885872
LanguageEN
Citations received13

The problem of scientific ethics or experimental morality creates for the scientific methodologist a profound dilemma. To the extent that he makes his investigations scientific he fails at the essence of morality. Conversely, if he attempts to found himself securely in morality, his efforts to become scientific lead to mere utilitarian “moralizing.” In the older language of Kant, the imperatives of morality are categorical; those of science, hypothetical. “Is” and “ought” are incommensurable categories, as they are for logical positivism which simply accepts the dualism as irreducible and advises against what it views as the inevitable consequence of any attempted synthesis: confusion

Confusion · Dilemma · Dualism · Epistemology · Morality · Positivism · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology

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