Science and Ethics: Conway Memorial Lecture delivered at Essex Hall, Essex Street, Strand, W.C., on April 18, 1928.

Abstract

THE number of professional scientific men who realise vividly the importance for ethics of the work they are doing is probably not large; we may therefore be grateful to Mr. J. B. s. Haldane for dealing with the subject in his Conway Memorial Lecture. He holds that science impinges upon ethics in at least five different ways: (1) It creates new ethical situations; (2) it may create new duties by pointing out previously unexpected consequences of our actions; (3) it affects our whole ethical outlook by influencing our views as to the nature of the world; (4) scientific anthropology is bound to have a profound effect on ethics by showing that any given ethical code is only one of a number; (5) it will evidently favour ethical principles and practices which transcend the limits of nation, colour, and class.

Science and Ethics: Conway Memorial Lecture delivered at Essex Hall, Essex Street, Strand, W.C., on April 18, 1928.

By J. B. S. Haldane. Pp. 46. (London: Watts and Co., 1928.) 2s. net.