I agree and somewhat buy into the argument by Ardent and other scholars that our current (and admittedly subjective, as I consider in many of my previous posts) conceptualization of scholarship is inadequate for dealing with the problems that are facing humanity with the advent of vast technological advancements.(1) In fact, even if there were not existing technologies (such as genetic engineering with CRIPR or the atomic bomb) that threaten to come into direct conflict with our moral and ethical standards, simply the possibility of future technologies that might clash with our morality is enough to make the contemporary separation of normative and empirical considerations completely obselete.(2)
However, the argument to end the separation of the sciences and normative considerations makes the assumption that those normative considerations can and should actively check scientific progress. The problem here lies in the increasing multipolarity of scientific research. While the United States has produced a huge percentage of the world’s published research papers since World War II (and if you count the West as a single bloc, it has and still does a lot of the world’s research), that is increasingly changing as developing economies (especially China) produce more and more. Perhaps it would be in all actors’ best interest to use ethics to check scientific progress (which certainly has not been happening in recent history), but if, for instance, the United States were to infuse its technological research with ethics and morality, other actors have just as much (maybe more) incentive to continue those lines of research.(3) This trend is especially pronounced — and already happening in military technologies. While many technology companies in America balk at working with the military and sharing artificial intelligence technology to be weaponized, Chinese tech firms (which are much more technologically competitive than many Westerners assume) have no such scruples.(4) Indeed they cannot because the Chinese government can leverage them to share intellectual property (which is often not even necessary since so many big firms have very close relationships with government officials).(5) In this way, without some sort of comprehensive multilateral solution, the entrance of morality into the sciences could lead to whichever actors are the most unscrupulous gaining a technological edge over the others.
(1) Hannah Ardent.
(2) Ibid, Hans Jonas.
(3) “China Will Soon Have Air Power Rivalling the West’s.” The Economist, February 15, 2018.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.