Skip to main content

Ethical Responsibility of Research


Should researchers ethically responsible for the misinterpretation or misuse of their research by others?

Absolutely not.  If you charge ethical responsibility for the misinterpretation or misuse of their research by others, then you face the possible regression backward in time of similar charges.

For example, consider the computer chip.  It has been misused by Huawei for spying, by the military for ordnance guidance systems, for AI, and other nefarious purposes. This in turn forces charges against inventors of Internet type transmissions (Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn), the integrated circuit (Jack Kilby), the transistor (John Bardeen), the electron tube (John Ambrose Flemming), to the discovery of electrons (J.J. Thompson), and ultimately to the discoverer of electricity (Benjamin Franklin).  You could even go back to the notion of the atom (Democritus in 400 BC).  Where should we stop? Who should decide?

The only possible case possible is research that may only be used for destruction. Then you come to the atomic theory that produced the bomb, from which horrific destruction resulted.  However, there are also atomic applications in medicine, energy, propulsion, and others. One bad and many good.

The ethical problem becomes a stopping criterion.  Who gets the “bad guy” tag? There is no answer and that’s why this is not a big problem in either ethics or philosophy in general.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Please Comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Accepting Fake Information

Every day, we are all bombarded with information, especially on news channels.  One group claims it's false; another calls it the truth. How can we know when to accept it or alternatively how can we know it's false? There are several factors which influence acceptance of fake or false information. Here are the big four.  Some just don’t have the knowledge to discern fact/truth from fiction/fact/false*. Some fake information is cleverly disguised and simply appears to be correct. Some fake information is accepted because the person wants to believe it. Some fake information is accepted because there is no other information to the contrary. However, the acceptance of  information  of any kind become a kind of  truth , and this is a well studied topic. In the link below is an essay on “The Truth About Truth.” This shows simply that what is your point of view, different types of information are generally accepted, fake or not.   https://www.linkedin.com/posts/g-donald-allen-420b03
Post a Comment
Read more

Your Brain Within Your Brain

  Your Bicameral Brain by Don Allen Have you ever gone to another room to get something, but when you got there you forgot what you were after? Have you ever experienced a flash of insight, but when you went to look it up online, you couldn’t even remember the keyword? You think you forgot it completely. How can it happen so fast? You worry your memory is failing. Are you merely absent-minded? You try to be amused. But maybe you didn’t forget.   Just maybe that flash of insight, clear and present for an instant, was never given in the verbal form, but another type of intelligence you possess, that you use, and that communicates only to you. We are trained to live in a verbal world, where words matter most. Aside from emotions, we are unable to conjure up other, nonverbal, forms of intelligence we primitively, pre-verbally, possess but don’t know how to use. Alas, we live in a world of words, stewing in the alphabet, sleeping under pages of paragraphs, almost ignoring one of
Post a Comment
Read more

Is Artificial Intelligence Conscious?

  Is Artificial Intelligence Conscious? I truly like the study of consciousness, though it is safe to say no one really knows what it is. Some philosophers has avoided the problem by claiming consciousness simply doesn’t exist. It's the ultimate escape clause. However, the "therefore, it does not exist" argument also applies to "truth", "God", and even "reality" all quite beyond a consensus description for at least three millennia. For each issue or problem defying description or understanding, simply escape the problem by claiming it doesn’t exist. Problem solved or problem avoided? Alternately, as Daniel Dennett explains consciousness as an account of the various calculations occurring in the brain at close to the same time. However, he goes on to say that consciousness is so insignificant, especially compared to our exalted notions of it, that it might as well not exist [1] . Oh, well. Getting back to consciousness, most of us have view
Post a Comment
Read more