Effects of Ethics on Production of Knowledge

• Aakashdeep Dhillon

Ethical Judgement limit the methods available in the production of knowledge in both the arts and the natural sciences. Discuss.

Ethics is a moral principle of an influencing conduct. It is a branch of knowledge that is similar to moral principles. However, it is not the same as morals, rather is the study of morals. A right or wrong is just an opinion, and most people have their own opinion what may be right or wrong. However in ethics, nobodys views are any better or more right than someone else’s. A person’s ethical views is based upon their society, and cultural they were raised in. What one person in one society may consider as ethical, may not be considered ethical in another society.

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Without making a generalization in that sense, it makes it hard to produce knowledge, in the given areas of knowledge. Personally moving from India to Canada in 2006, was a huge change as I had switched from Eastern culture to the Western culture and in many ways, I had to change myself to be ethically correct to be ethically correct here. Hence, the statement in the title does withhold this fact of, ethical judgements do limit the methods available in the production of knowledge. 

Judgement always play a vital role in critical moments, and to obtain the accuracy and precision of a good judgement, the person must be in a good state, mentally and physically. Any actions or decisions an artist makes about his piece of work, the artist needs to take into account the moral responsibility, especially during the times that we are living in. The artists hold the responsibility ethically, what is right and what is wrong. There may not be a specific law saying something is wrong, but society may very well a negative reaction which may spiral into something uncontrollable that may as well start a movement or a new era. This means the artist is morally responsible for their work when working on their piece, which ultimately limits the method for producing knowledge.

On a personal level, I think an artist must have freedom to do what they want in their work as it shows their perspective and possibly many others in the society around us inevitably giving us more knowledge. However, a society as a whole, especially when in large numbers in a specific area together have different opinions on the piece which they do not agree with and act negatively towards this. Hence, there is a fine line from what is morally right in society and the artist should know whether to cross that line or not, especially if the artists job is to please his audience.

However, the “line” that we draw between the ethically correct and the ethically wrong is almost impossible to make out where it is because it all depends on the subjective standards of society.

What is ethical and what is not vary as explained before, different cultures and societies view things in different perspectives. For example, when I moved from India to Canada, in middle school my classmates and I had to get into pairs and make a powerpoint about an artist that was assigned to us. During the presentations I saw a presentation about Michelangelo, and many of his artwork and sculptures were of nude people. The teacher and the class watched the presentation and seemed like they had no problems with it. I felt uncomfortable watching it and so I didn’t look at it. Later, talking to the teacher, she explained it was simply an assignment and it had no other purpose. This opened my eyes to the culture and society here to the society in India when I was there. A lot of his work would not be accepted in the Indian society and looked down upon as it is disgracing the human body. Nude art evokes a sense of sexuality and the topic is very intimate and of something that should be kept on a personal level that’s why it is frowned upon and something that made me uncomfortable and forced me to react in such a manner. However, I grew accustomed to it and learnt to deal with such things that I am not used to. I believe an artist uses their pieces of art to express their feelings about things they feel are important in society or not, and also art a lot of the times is also used to criticize and mock different areas in society specifically things like politics or culture. This is where I believe the artists should have a higher ethical responsibility for their work and think of what they are doing and what may happen. Ultimately, which leads me to believe that because of ethical judgements the methods to produce knowledge really are limited in the arts.

In the area of knowledge of science, my point of view is the opposite of the arts. In science I believe any actions the scientists take for their research should not have to worry about the moral responsibilities. The job of a scientist is to provide the world with research and answers to questions which is backed by sufficient facts. A job of scientist is to figure out the different things in the world and how they are made, and what they are made of. Scientists provide us with information that is beyond our natural understanding. They conduct experiments and write researches for the world to understand how the world works and I believe ethical beliefs should not limit them to provide us with information. I believe that every human being must be provided with the truth about their surroundings. If science, did not challenge the ethical boundaries set we may not have known that the earth was round, or that the existence of god may be a myth. I believe if science does not question everything without the ethical boundaries many things that happen in the world go unresolved or unanswered. However, my opinions are different from what the society may believe in.

For scientists, the study of earth and its surroundings isn’t the only they focus on, if you go into depth scientists branch off into different fields and study other things, such as diseases present in the world. Scientists must do experiments and write researches for medicines that work and not work and which may cause harm to humans. Therefore, they conducts experiments on animal subjects and sometimes even human subjects, to test if something may cause harm or trigger a reaction. Many people in different societies believe every living thing has a right to live and testing dangerous products on them and killing them in the process for anothers good is ethically incorrect.

Personally, I volunteer at the hospital and on a tour for the hospital and all the different sections in the hospital. During a tour, they also dissected a human being to show the inside of the human for knowledge. Hence, the same thing happens in the medical school as they work with real subjects. I believe it is vital to experiment and conduct tests to come up with a definite remedy if we want to get to the root of the problems, hence, the scientists should be held morally responsible for the application of discoveries. Moreover, I believe the ethical responsibility working with the human subjects is the same as it is with the animal subjects. I believe it is important for the greater good of society some must be used as experiments whether they are humans or animals. However, a good majority of the society believes otherwise and believe that everyone is equal and deserves to live as much as anybody else/ any other living thing. Hence, this holds the scientists morally responsible for the application of their discovery and again the ethical responsibility stays the same when working with human or animal subjects. This ultimately proves the statement, as it limits the methods available to produce knowledge in the given field.

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Consequently, personally I believe that ethical judgements do limit the methods available in the production of knowledge. However, I believe it should not limit in the natural sciences as many discoveries will go unresolved if they have not yet been discovered or proven thus far. I believe comparing the two different area of knowledge, science provides us with some of the greatest discoveries known to man and it has changed mankind and moved us forward over the years.

Whereas in arts, the knowledge obtained is more on a personal level that makes us think about ourselves only and what we think about certain things, which I believe should be considered as high as the other, therefore, giving two different answers for the different areas of knowledge.

However, many people do think otherwise and because everyone must be taken into account which ultimately limit the ways of knowing.

Word Count: 1461

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