Science and Virtue

Epistemological reflection has long crossed paths with ethics, and vice versa, which calls into question their alleged incompatibility. Think of the analysis of moral language in analytical philosophy, or of the verifiability of value assertions carried out by neopositivism, or of the recognition of values and beliefs as found in contemporary epistemology. These are issues that, although coming from different fields, are increasingly encountered in current debates. Research conducted in this regard is present, albeit implicitly, in the procedures of scientific investigation.

Observation

Observation is the fundamental attitude of all inquiry. It is an essentially selective and affective attitude. St. Thomas noted that ubi amor, ibi oculus (“Where there is love, there rests the eye,” 3 Sent., d. 35, 1, 2, I): the act of seeing, focusing on something and leaving the rest in the background, manifests the desire that dwells in the heart, the true motivator of attention. In turn, observation influences the habits and personality of those who carry it out, shaping their mentality and modus operandi.

The belief that the scientific approach to reality is completely impartial and detached has been one of the most shared assumptions of modern philosophy. Locke tried to justify it, using the distinction between primary qualities (related to form and quantity), considered objective and independent from the subject, and secondary qualities (such as color, smell and taste), influenced by the observer, and therefore subjective. According to the English philosopher, only the first qualities can be the object of scientific investigation. However, if one examines the issue in depth, this distinction is unsustainable: the point of view of the observer is essential even in the way in which we perceive the world. Moreover, the very notion of “world,” which contemporary epistemology recognizes to be a mental construction of the human being, is problematic.[1] In this way, not only the notion of primary quality is unsustainable, but so is the more general materialist approach to reality 

The contribution of the subject is even more explicit if we consider the linguistic dimension of observation, indispensable for clarification, which precedes any possible observation. This always reveals the unavoidable presence of belief, the result of a communal sharing, whose language is  one of the main characteristics. In this sense, the meaning of objectivity should be understood not as detachment from the subject, but as intersubjectivity, the point of arrival of a series of exchanges and interactions. It is the community that recognizes and validates the observations made: “We see, most of the time, the same objects, in the sense of seeing these objects in common, because the concepts we have are shared concepts. The mental activity of different people proceeds with similar concepts because these individuals need words whose meaning is determined by their common use within the meaning-generating community.”[2]

Hence the ethical implications of the observation: what is noted has repercussions, sometimes significant, on the life of the observer, showing the need to make considered decisions, based on the reasonableness of the data and the observer’s ability to understand the issue. Disregarding these criteria has dramatic consequences: “confusion, disunity, fragmentation, progressive self-annihilation, death.”[3]

The method

The method employed, in addition to being an essential aspect of scientific inquiry, also provides accurate criteria for distinguishing possible vices and virtues present in the research. If one focuses on Greek etymology, one concludes method is a path (meta, “beyond” and hodos, “path”), a process that leads to the accomplishment of various kinds of work (cf. Plato, Sophist, 218d;Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1129a 6). This path shows a hypothetical red thread that connects the various steps, allowing it to be applied to subsequent investigations. Replicability of experimental findings is indeed a defining characteristic of scientific inquiry.

The history of philosophical thought has identified above all two procedures to accomplish this goal: the path from universal to particular and that from particular to universal. The first found a classic formulation in the most important structure of demonstrative reasoning, the syllogism: from two premises, one universal and the other particular, comes an incontrovertible conclusion. The second path, induction, also present since antiquity, starts from observation to find a regularity formulated as  a general law (cf. Plato, Republic, VI, 509d; Aristotle, Topics, 100a).

Some thinkers of more recent times, especially David Hume, questioned the validity of such procedures, considering deduction to be tautological, and induction unreliable. The observation, however often repeated, that swans are white is never able to exclude the possibility of finding a black swan. But even this objection presupposes the constant presence of characteristics that in turn should be justified: “On what grounds do we say that the black bird brought from Australia is indeed a swan? Doesn’t the very fact that it is black show that it isn’t a swan? If we concede that our future observations of swans will be similar to our past observations of swans, we still have to decide which aspects of the birds will show this similarity. It seems arbitrary that we usually take the similarity to be in the color of the swan rather than, say, its size.”[4] If one takes the objection to its extreme consequences, it would no longer be possible to recognize the constants that allow for the normal course of everyday life.

The history of scientific discoveries has also shown that both ways of proceeding – the use of logic and information gathering – are insufficient to account for reality and progress in knowledge: theory and practice need above all imagination and metaphors. Consider, for example, the invention of the airplane. The brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, who designed and built the first aircraft capable of flying, were not engineers. In fact, they were not even college graduates; they only had high school diplomas. How could they succeed in this enterprise, overcoming competitors who had more money, more theoretical knowledge, and more powerful prototypes at their disposal? The two brothers had a powerful imagination.[5] At the base of the success of their enterprise was a vision  that proved decisive: they tried to imagine which means of transport, among those known, could be closest to a hypothetical airplane. They excluded the ship, as well as the car and the train, because, despite the undoubted power they had, they lacked something essential for flight, flexibility. They came to the conclusion that the bicycle was most similar to a hypothetical airplane; it remains in balance subject  to the skill of the rider. In this way, reasoning from the structure of the bicycle, the Wright brothers realized that the essential factor for flight was not sufficient power (as their competitors believed, often crashing to the ground) but reliability, the ability to control.

The history of inventions, as was noted about observation, shows how decisive the personality of the researcher is. The criticism of Hume (and of the competitors of the Wright brothers) reveals a mentality that is logical and rigorous, but too abstract and reductive.

Ordinary life, too, shows the continuous interweaving of induction, imagination and deduction in the process of reasoning, and it is here that the true point of reference for scientific inquiry arises. Every day we recognize regularities which we have not established, but rather we are called upon to embrace, letting them stimulate our imaginative capacity: “When we use induction to arrive at a conclusion from observing a finite number of swans, we are not inventing a link between all the observations. We are making a reasonable guess at the regularity that exists independently of us, a regularity in the nature of these objects […]. The point is that induction is a heuristic mode of thinking directed toward the identification of already existing regularity.”[6]

It is this regularity that shows the ethical aspect of the method: trust in order, at the origin of sense experience, is indispensable for living and for reworking that experience, the result of the balance between memory and planning. The American psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom notes the close relationship between cognitive structures, sense detection and indications for action; these in turn are the basic condition for identifying values, the indicative signals indispensable for a psychologically healthy human life.[7]

All this cannot be arbitrarily determined by one individual. On the contrary, for Yalom it is the lack of experience of meaning that is the main cause of psychic discomfort. Not only trust, but also the hope that such regularities will recur  are the basis of every possible project and initiative.

Explanation

Explanation is the end point of the method; it is the ability to make intelligible what is observed. Intelligibility, as we noted with regard to inventions, is present in ordinary life and is its condition of possibility. Without it, there is no human life, only chaos.

Explanation, too, is not merely an intellectual matter; it requires indispensable virtues, such as humility, caution, listening and a willingness to revise one’s assumptions. The presumed completeness of a theory is inversely proportional to its rigor; while rigor, if it is absolutized, can lead to one-sidedness. In 1931, the Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel formulated a famous principle in which he recognized that a formal system can be either rigorous or complete, but cannot possess both characteristics, which protects the system from aporias and contradictions.[8] This principle shows its validity, once again, in the context of ordinary action. It would be bizarre, to say the least, if a person, when asked why he or she decided to go to a certain place, answered by indicating the muscles and nerves involved in the movement. A similar effect would result from  someone who described a picture by enumerating the atoms present in it: “There is epistemic loss if one limits oneself always to the finer theory. The loss arises because there are different levels of reality… Truth is established by correspondence to different cognitive levels.”[9] The ideal for an explanation is not to be as complete as possible, but to be suitable to the context of the question asked.

Another problem related to explanation is establishing when the scope of the research should be considered concluded. This confronts  us once again with  the decision-making responsibility of the subject, of his or her interests, approach to reality and, above all, the symbolic and affective value that the proposed theory acquires in his or her eyes. Once again, these are attitudes that are quite the opposite to a clinical , detached look, a mere registration of facts.

Interpretation

Every explanation is always an interpretation, and for its possible meaning it is necessary, in addition to the data, to have knowledge of the context, of the reference horizon. For example, an action such as burning incense can be described as an interaction of chemical factors, but also as a liturgical gesture. These are different interpretations, but they are not arbitrary. Current research on the human mind shows that the variety of interpretations that are irreconcilable  with each other are related to the structure of the human being, one’s way of relating to oneself, to others and to the surrounding world. During the course of the day, the same person can be called upon to play very different roles, requiring different “rules of the game.” A similar point can be made regarding the approach to external reality. A mountain can be observed through the eyes of the geologist, the poet, the geographer, the rock climber, the skier, the tourist, the photographer, the painter, or the mystic. The mountain is always the same, but what is different is the observer’s gaze, one’s inner world, which leads one to grasp some aspects rather than others. This is the multidimensional approach of the human being.

Jerome Bruner, an American cognitive psychologist, developed what might be termed the concept of “multidimensional mind,” meaning the multiple cognitive operations of the subject, which in turn result in different choices and activities: “Different cultures cultivate and develop different talents, different forms of ‘intelligence.’ They even define them… Our minds generate not only versions of reality in accordance with culture, canonical versions congruent with established cultural beliefs about ‘reality,’ but also, thanks to our capacity of imagination, a series of possible worlds that could exist, that perhaps exist or that we could hope for.”[10]

Hence there is the ethical implication present in any interpretation and such multiple approaches can be assessed  as an asset or as a threat. Reflective balance, respectful of complexity and eager to learn about different points of view, is an example of an ethical attitude that fosters human maturity. The purported neutral explanation, devoid of any perspective, once again proves to be a serious impoverishment of human experience.[11]

The willingness to work  between different perspectives also makes it possible to guard against the equal and opposite risk of contextual relativism. In fact, this too is characterized by considering multiplicity in terms of a threat. The plurality of the mind opens up a variety of possible worlds, none of which has a greater right to dominate. Moreover, it helps to become aware of the role of affections and expectations. They, as noted, are not infrequently the most relevant motivations, which can favor or hinder research.

Reviewing the history of science, Karl Popper noted disconsolately: “If we had to rely on the impartiality of scientists, science, even natural science, would be completely impossible.”[12] “Scientific” thought is studded with prejudices, expectations, illusions, signs of the presence of multiple worlds that intersect each other and to which we mostly do not pay attention. For example, in the medical field, there was strong resistance to accepting the link between contagion and hygiene as proposed by Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis in the 19th century to explain the high mortality rate of women who gave birth in hospitals. Despite the drastic reduction of mortality in the maternity wards, the medical team refused to wash their hands after touching corpses, and dismissed the doctor, going so far as to confine him to an asylum, where he suffered violence and humiliation of all kinds: “One is amazed that competitive and highly specialized men, could – in their own discipline  – remain so blind and stupid.”[13]

Among the toxic, hard-to-die assumptions in the scientific field we can remember the tendency to mix clean water with sewage in European cities until the end of the 19th century (the source of the frequent and deadly cholera epidemics) or the belief that syphilis could be cured with mercury ointment (hence the saying circulating among the sick: “a night with Venus and a life with Mercury”). On the other hand, the revelation of their implausibility is a further confirmation of the fact that it is possible to ascertain the truth or falsity of such assertions even in  contexts that would seem to prevent it.

The willingness to revise one’s assumptions without closing the comparison is therefore an ethical attitude indispensable for the scientific mentality. To accept a paradigm shift can be considered, according to Thomas Kuhn, a real form of conversion, which brings it closer to what classical reflection called “practical wisdom.” In this sense, the “virtuous” researcher (in the Aristotelian sense) shows him or herself capable of balancing confidence in his or her own evaluations and willingness to accept that the subsequent course of events may disprove them, in order to accept others that are more respectful of the complexity.[14]

Research as an art of living on

The relationship between science and virtue has characterized philosophy since its inception. In fact, it was born as an art of living; its investigations, while crossing the most diverse fields of knowledge, had the purpose of educating to recognize and practice the good, a function lost in the course of the modern age and recently recovered, especially thanks to the contributions of philosophers such as Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault. One wonders how, in today’s context, the sciences can foster this original meaning.

Taking into consideration some of the stages of scientific investigation – observations, methods, explanations, interpretations – we have seen how they tend – in line with the analyses of Hadot and Foucault – to shape the personality, to interact with its beliefs and the more general representation of the world, and, in posing the ultimate questions of existence, science and philosophy intersect with theological knowledge.

At the same time, it should also be clear that, unlike scientific investigation, in order to practice the art of living, we cannot simply appropriate the discoveries made by those who have preceded us. Each person is called to walk the path to wisdom, without merely repeating the steps of those who have gone before. Wise reflection can, however, be fostered by teachers, educators, friends, texts that have left a mark on the soul, examples of people who in the field of research have distinguished themselves for honesty and professionalism. In this sense, even the attitudes which have emerged in the course of  the vicissitudes experienced by many women and men of science can constitute an important contribution to the art of living.

DOI: La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 6, no. 7 art. 2, 0722: 10.32009/22072446.0722.2

[1].    Cf. L. Caruana, Scienza e virtù. Uno studio sull’impatto della mentalità scientifica sul carattere morale, Roma Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2021,34; an earlier English version of the study can be found under the title Science and Virtue. An Essay on the Impact of the Scientific Mentality on Moral Character, 2006; J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

[2].    Ibid., 42; cf. 29f.

[3].    Ibid., 58.

[4].    Ibid., 71. Cf. D. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature.

[5].    As Wilbur later confessed, talking about how he designed the first airplane, “My imagination depicts things more vividly than my eyes.” Cf. W. Wright, “Letter to His Sister”, June 8, 1907, in F. C. Kelly (ed), Miracle at Kitty Hawk: the Letters of Wilbur and Orville, New York, Straus & Young, 1996, 212.

[6].    L. Caruana, Scienza e virtù…, op. cit., 83.

[7].    Cf. I. D. Yalom, Guarire d’amore. I case esemplari di un grande psicoterapeuta, Milan, Rizzoli, 1990, 18.

[8].    Cf. K. Gödel, “Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter System”, in Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik 38 (1931) 173-198. On the relationship between  truth and  demonstration, see D. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, New York, Basic Books, 1979; G. Gamow, Trent’anni che sconvolsero la fisica. La storia della teoria dei quanti, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1966.

[9].    L. Caruana, Scienza e virtù…, op. cit., 111.

[10].   J. Bruner, La mente a più dimensioni , Bari, Laterza, 2009, VIII.

[11].   “Scientism consists essentially in a kind of explanation that is devoid of any idea of context dependence. It consists in a kind of explanation where only one correct viewpoint on things or events is assumed to exist and where only physicalism matters. The case of scientism, therefore, shows how neglecting context-dependence is bad for the individual. It is associated with a life situation that blocks genuine human flourishing” (L. Caruana, Scienza e virtù…, op. cit., 130; cf. 122).

[12].   K. Popper, The poverty of historicism, 1936; Cf. G. Cucci, “Il potere dell’illusione”, in Civ. Catt. 2018 IV 338-351.

[13].   M. Manzotti, “Perché lavare le mani: storia di un grande incompreso”, in www.7per24.it/2011/07/04/perche-lavare-le-mani-storia-di-un-grande-incompreso

[14].   Cf. T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970; N. R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery. An inquiry into the conceptual foundations of science. Cambridge University Press, 1958.