From Mary Midgley
Some writers in your section “Science wakes up to morality” (16 October, p 41) clearly feel they are engaged in territorial wars against philosophy and religion.
Several contributors, notably Patricia Churchland, plainly think that neurobiological explanation supersedes all other kinds of inquiry. But would a detailed account of the brain states used in mathematical thought make other inquiry about the meaning of mathematics, and its place in human life, unnecessary?
It seems bizarre to treat the brain, as Churchland does, as an independent agent, alien to the conscious self, generating policies on its own. The point of thus personifying it seems to be to show that it is not under our control. Yet Fiery Cushman writes (p 41) that seeing morality as a property of the mind will give us “a magical power of control over its future”. Magic will be needed here indeed.
Brains are organs – tools – which we use for thinking, just as we use our legs for walking. The only agent is the whole person. And, since ethics deals with the hugely complex relations between these whole persons, it will always raise many different kinds of question.
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From Chris Wood
Can science really help decide matters of morality, as Peter Singer suggests (16 October, p 42)? It does not seem to be stopping the rush towards climate disaster. Nor has it done much to optimise levels of fishing. Biodiversity is also a disaster area.
If science is impotent in these rather scientific areas, how can we hope it will do much for ethics?
Hohenbrunn, Germany
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
