“The possession of knowledge carries an ethical responsibility.” Evaluate this claim
Our world today is changing by the minute – and our knowledge changes with it. But what do changes in knowledge, even the mere possession of knowledge, mean to us? The knowledge body of our human society grows extremely fast; new knowledge is obtained every day. It can be assumed that each single person possesses a certain degree of knowledge; some of the knowledge may however be more relevant to the society at large than other. This means that there are differences in the knowledge that we possess which ultimately means that knowledge is different to each person. Knowledge can be categorized into certain areas which all have a different approach to it. The key question however is whether the possession of knowledge is related to ethical responsibility in these areas of knowledge. Does being in the possession of certain information mean that I am ethically responsible? In many situations or many areas of knowledge it may indeed be true that a person carries an ethical responsibility depending on certain knowledge being possessed. I will examine different examples in which I will illustrate that it is indeed possible that the mere possession of knowledge carries an ethical responsibility.
In order to fully evaluate the claim that “The possession of knowledge carries an ethical responsibility”, it is necessary to define and set limits to the key terms. Knowledge broadly speaking is all the trusted information that a person gathers throughout life and with which he or she is familiar. Knowledge is gained either by experience or by description and through reason, emotion, sense perception or language. ‘Ethical’ means that something is morally good or correct whereas ‘responsibility’ is the state of having a duty or having a moral obligation to behave correctly.1 Thus, the extent of ethical responsibility that somebody possibly carries with the possession of knowledge, depends on the relevance of that knowledge in possession.
The Essay on Ethical Responsibility in News Reporting
Ethically responsible is a theory that goes with the premise that equality should prevail in society and that society should respect each other’s human rights and in return will preserve the dignity and respect of each other and other members of society. Objectivity in reporting also adds to the theory of ethics because objective reporting is a concept that journalists should report without ...
Probably one of the most noted areas of knowledge is natural sciences. It may be argued that this area is also the most rapidly developing one as there are probably still an uncountable number of discoveries to make on our planet or even beyond. The natural sciences include biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy and the earth science. The knowledge obtained through research projects is knowledge by acquaintance and may be uniquely known by one person only. If a scientist makes a discovery it is vital that the knowledge is used because with it comes an ethical responsibility. In the natural sciences, knowledge always carries an ethical responsibility because based on the knowledge obtained by one person or a group of scientists; harm could be prevented for all of society. In this area of knowledge it is the relationship between a human being and nature that could possibly be changed. If a discovery could enhance for example health or indicate a harmful natural process occurring that could be prevented it is the responsibility of the scientist to share the knowledge for the greater good. Consider the discovery of the opiate morphine in 1804, by Friedrich Sertürner.2 His knowledge of it being able to operate as an analgesic, through experiments and testing, thus as knowledge by acquaintance, comes with a responsibility to help those people who suffer of severe pain. The ethical responsibility in this situation is to take a morally correct action, which is to help other people stay alive without pain.
However natural sciences are not only about knowledge by acquaintance. It is knowledge by description that entails the exception. For example, if I know about the function of convection currents because I read about it in a book, am I ethically responsible just because I am holding this information? For knowledge that one possesses in the area of natural sciences, that is simply irrelevant because neither harm nor benefit can be obtained from it for a larger group of people, an ethical responsibility should be excluded.
The Essay on Natural sciences 2
What is it about theories in natural and human sciences that make them so convincing? During the course of my Biology HL syllabus, I came across the theory of the fluid mosaic model. I instantly considered this theory to be absolute and accurate. This level of certainty was created with the first reading of the theory, and evoked the question as to what makes the theories formulated in natural and ...
Very different from the natural sciences is ethics which at first sight seems to be a definite supporter of ethical responsibility when it comes to the possession of knowledge. Ethics is about the application of moral principles and social conventions in a specific group of people. Through ethics, cultures emerge all over the world, which sometimes causes difficulties in determining what it means to be ethical, because each culture has its own ethics. Thus it is important to understand that within ethics there will be divergent views of what it means to be ethically responsible. Within ethics it almost seems as if the real question is not whether the mere possession of knowledge carries an ethical responsibility but a person’s decision on how to apply the knowledge. Within ethics the question remains to whom the knowledge that somebody possesses is important. How relevant is knowledge? When focusing on social groups and knowledge it may become apparent that knowledge is not equally important to certain groups of people. If one considers different professions and people from different professions knowing for example the fact that the golden poison frog is toxic and can cause heart failure or death. If a travel guide was in possession of this knowledge he or she would definitely carry the ethical responsibility to pass this knowledge on to other people in order to prevent them from being harmed. If a secretary in an office in a large city would know the exact same information, it would not be as relevant and it could be suggested that she is not ethically responsible just because she is in possession of this descriptive knowledge. Thus, I would conclude that there are different degrees of relevancy to the knowledge that different social groups possess.
