[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

Well, values/ethics seem pretty fundamental to us, as conscious beings, but they seem like an irrelevant add-on to conventional science. Frequently, ethical questions - such as the question of what you can and cannot do with human embryos - seem to get resolved in a pretty arbitrary and naive way, partly because science has absolutely nothing to bring these debates. I mean I don't think a tiny ball of cells should be treated as anything other than - a tiny ball of cells - I expect many of the people doing research in this area feel the same way, but they can't offer any 'scientific opinion' in such debates.

Yes, but how would this be different under some other metaphysic? Would ethics someone become a scientific question under dualistic science?

Maybe they would have a more central place in a science that contained explicit conscious entities. That is not, in itself a reason to move to that model, but it is a hint of what such a model might offer.

I don't see why science under any metaphysic would do anything other than study the origins of morality. I don't think anyone wants to see science as the arbiter of ethics and morals.

~~ Paul