The Ethical Dilemma

I was going to post this yesterday, but I ran out of energy.

Can you de-link any form of knowledge production from ethical responsibility? Is there such a thing as 'objective' production of knowledge? Can any form of knowledge be 'neutral', 'pure', ideology free? I belong to the group that says no. I do not believe in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, art for the sake of art, theory for the sake of theory. I go so far as to call such assertions morally reprehensible and intellectually vacuous.

In 'Science and the Ethics of Curiosity'*, Sundar Sarukkai traces the evolution of the concept of curiosity and shoots a cannonball through the age old argument of shifting the ethical responsibility away from scientists to the users of science. That is, a knife is not inherently good or bad-it is what you do with it that will determine its goodness or 'badness'. The obvious extension of this example will be to include nuclear energy, GM food, GM people, for starters, in that category as well.

One encounters this ethical problem in the world of research too many times. You pick a topic and produce Information around it: you cover all arguments and do not take a stand, because it will compromise the quality of your research, and God-forbid your running into a biased researcher!! I'm currently interning/working with an organisation that sets great store by non-partisan research. My work is supposed to be partisan, but I'm supposed to be non-judgemental about what I do. Mine is but to do and die, mine is not to judge why. On the last day of training they likened our work to that of a lawyer-who is not allowed to judge his client, he is supposed to generate evidence, and it is the job of the court to pass judgement.

I wonder if a lawyer faces similar moral agony while defending someone they know is guilty of a heinous crime. I think a lot of lawyers see their work as many scientists like to see theirs- as morally neutral. I understand that every individual has a right to the best defence she can get, but how do you defend actions that should not be defended? I'm aware this is a dangerous line of argument, because it places the onus on the person who is acting. If there is no universal good or bad (and I don't believe there is, even though THAT becomes another tricky line to tread), then the world becomes captive to belief systems. It would mean that my actions would be open to judgement to everybody-which would be okay if theoretically I had access to everybody. Having access to everybody would mean that by some law of chance (and law of limited originality) I would come across someone who's ideology matched with mine enough for the other person to take on the job of defending my reprehensible action-which is not reprehensible to that person-with a clear conscience. What I'm saying, I guess is that in such a scenario we eliminate the kind of moral quandary I'm concerned with because now everybody defends an 'innocent' person.

But obviously, if I do not have access to everybody then that means I have no idea what my chances are of getting a defence should I need it. So I might as well be arbitrarily picked up and thrown in jail, goodbye judicial system. However, I'm still not convinced that this is good enough reason for people to do something that they find morally reprehensible just because otherwise society as we know it will collapse. I think society as we know it collapses every second, and we have to re-think and re-know society again and again and again. We have a judicial system in place-but who does it really work for? How different is it in practice from the situation where the powerful could anyway pick up and throw whoever they liked in jail. How far can we ignore practice in favour of theory. Can/should we?









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