Professional Knowledge and Moral Duty of Scientist: a Reply to Max Weber
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Professional Knowledge and Moral Duty of Scientist: a Reply to Max Weber
Annotation
PII
S004287440005722-9-
Publication type
Article
Status
Published
Authors
Vladimir Krzhevov 
Affiliation: Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosova
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Edition
Pages
33-37
Abstract

Reflecting on science as a “vocation”, M. Weber places the strongest emphasis on the problems of ethics of a scientist and the tasks of science, primarily in terms of its “vocation” – that is, "benefits" for society. In this context, the widely known statements about the nature of scientific knowledge, its features and “boundaries” acquire not only and not so much epistemological, as much ethical and even social and philosophical sound. The main argument of Weber is that science is fundamentally incapable of answering questions about the "meaning" of the world and human life, as well as indicating to a person a reliable "path to happiness." The author notes that the most powerful emphasis in the report, Weber made on the problems of ethics of the scientist and the tasks of science, primarily in terms of its "vocation" – that is, "benefits" for society. The main thought of Weber is that science is in principle incapable of answering questions about the "meaning" of the world and human life and to indicate to a person a reliable "path to happiness." Hence, a deliberately untenable attempt is announced from scientific positions to prove (or, on the contrary, to challenge) the correctness of the choice of the “last values” that determine the direction of all human aspirations. The article shows that task of the scientific community is to contribute in every way to the assertion in the minds of people acting in the sphere of practical politics, the principles of “ethics of responsibility”, and not “ethics of belief”.

Keywords
Weber, science, scientific ethos, ethics of belief, ethics of responsibility, objective knowledge, social knowledge
Received
27.07.2019
Date of publication
28.07.2019
Number of purchasers
89
Views
817
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0.0 (0 votes)
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S004287440005722-9-1 Дата внесения правок в статью - 03.07.2019
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References

1. Veber 1991 – Veber M. Nauka kak prizvanie i professiya // Veber M. Izbrannye proizvedeniya. M.: Progress, 1991 [Weber, Max Wissenschaft als Beruf (Russian translation)].

2. Marks 1955 – Marks K. Lyudvig Fejerbakh // Marks K., Ehngel's F. Sochineniya. T. 3. M.: Politizdat, 1955 [Marx, Karl H. Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (Russian translation)].

3. Nikolis, Prigozhin 1976 – Nikolis G., Prigozhin I. Samoorganizatsiya v neravnovesnykh sistemakh. M.: Mir, 1979 [Nicolis, Gregoire, Prigogine, Ilya. Self-organization in nonequilibrium systems (Russian Trtanslation)].

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