Logic, methodology and philosophy of science VIII proceedings of the eighth international congress of logic, methodology and philosophy of science, and philosophy of science proceedings) ( PDFDrive ) 73

54 E.AGAZZI existence of any objective experimental knowledge, which always requires the isolation of certain very specific aspects of reality, through an appropriate creation of artificial conditions of observation and testing The production of these artificial conditions is what is called here “manipulation” in a quite neutral sense However, manipulation is action and not knowledge, and even when the acquisition of knowledge is its explicit aim, it may well happen that a particular manipulating action not be morally admissible in itself This fact was not very well perceived when the object of manipulation was nature, since any manipulation of nature seemed to be morally acceptable (nowadays there are quite different views on this point not only regarding the manipulation of animals, but also of inanimate nature) However, it became evident when experimental research on man inevitably implied manipulating man (the paradigmatic case being that of medical research), that moral criteria should guide this very delicate practice, since a very general moral principle prohibits treating a man simply as a tool (quite independently of the more elementary requirement not to harm those who are submitted to the experiment) In fact, the moral reflection concerning experiments on humans has been developed for several decades and has produced the elaboration of certain widely recognized and accepted norms At present, experiments on human embryos and genetic manipulations for pure research purposes, are widely discussed issues that are interesting to consider here because they show that moral problems may arise in the field of pure science, and may imply restrictions of its freedom, in spite of its aims being morally unobjectionable It is very easy to recognize that these considerations about the ethical relevance of the means may also be transferred without modification to applied science; the moral acceptability of the goal of a particular applied research does not free us from considering the moral acceptability of the means used in performing this research Considering the conditions Our discussion about means has already called attention on the fact that science (even pure science) is not merely knowledge, since it is necessary to “do something” in order to produce this knowledge, and this fact immediately inscribes science within the domain of action, and not simply of reflection Among the factors which are usually involved in moral considerations