Science And Christian Ethics

Description

There is a growing crisis in scientific research characterized by failures to reproduce experimental results, fraud, lack of innovation, and burn-out. In Science and Christian Ethics, Paul Scherz traces these problems to the drive by governments and business to make scientists into competitive entrepreneurs who use their research results to stimulate economic growth. The result is a competitive environment aimed at commodifying the world. In order to confront this problem of character, Scherz examines the alternative Aristotelian and Stoic models of reforming character, found in the works of Alasdair MacIntyre and Michel Foucault. Against many prominent virtue ethicists, he argues that what individual scientists need is a regime of spiritual exercises, such as those found in Stoicism as it was adopted by Christianity, in order to refocus on the good of truth in the face of institutional pressure. His book illuminates pressing issues in research ethics, moral education, and anthropology. Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Contents General Editor's Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Problems in the Practice of Science Two Models of Practice Overview of the Argument Chapter 1 The Crisis in Science Reproducibility Fraud and Misconduct Lack of Care Publication Management True and False Innovation Retention Conclusion Chapter 2 The Scientist Entrepreneur The Rise of the Scientist Entrepreneur Neoliberalism and the Broader Social Background for Entrepreneurial Science Entrepreneurial Characteristics and the Crisis in ScienceThe Competitive Scientist Market Responsiveness Knowledge and Nature as Property Caveats The Limitations of Mainstream Responses to the Crisis of Science Conclusion Chapter 3 Teleology and the Craft of Science The Weberian Scientific Ideal Aristotelian Apprenticeship Social Practices and Moral Formation Apprenticeship in Science Reductionism in Scientific Practice Technological Reductionism in the Scientific Worldview Laboratory Practices and Reductionism Distinguishing Entrepreneurial from Older Modes of Reductionism Conclusion Chapter 4 The Practices Shaping the Entrepreneurial Subject Practices That Operate on the Subject Practices of the Self and the Entrepreneur Avoiding the Entrepreneurial Imperative Chapter 5 Reshaping the Entrepreneurial Subject of Science Aristotelian Habituation in Small Community The Specific Intellectual and the Care of the Self Ethics, Community, and Truth in Stoicism Stoic Rules Community Truth The Care of the Self in Science Conclusion Chapter 6 Acquiring the Virtue of Truth-Speaking in Science Creating Doubt Philosophical Parrhesia Christian Truth-Telling Risky Speech for the Christian in ScienceConclusion Chapter 7 Subjectivity, Truth, and Theological Anthropology Truth and Practice Practices and Subjectivity Truth and Ethics The Imago Dei and the Ethics of Practice Misperceiving the Self Transforming the Vision of the Self Conclusion Conclusion Bibliography Index