Robert Merton and Ibn Sina: A Roll Call of Moral Imperatives

The paper attempts to expand the authentic understanding of the imperatives of the scientific ethos given by R.K. Merton in 1942. In the original interpretation, Merton’s Code referred only to the European science of the New Age and subsequent centuries. As Merton himself and his followers have seen, the applicability of this code to other societies is not relevant. However, the author of the paper believes that the original four maxims of Merton in one way or another work effectively outside the specified space-time frame and, in particular, work in medieval Arab-Muslim science. The philosophical allegorical parable "The Message of Birds" written by Ibn Sina in the XI century is used as a text in which the imperatives that semantically coincide with Merton's maxims are found. The analysis shows that the text of the medieval scientist is transparently articulated: 1) Mertonian "communism" which assumes the collective ownership of epistemological discourse participants of the products received in its process (new empirical facts, theoretical and methodological innovations); 2) "universalism" that excludes any discrimination of discourse subjects on external, non-scientific criteria; 3) "disinterestedness", according to which the scientist builds his activities as if he had no other interests but to understand the truth; 4) "organized skepticism" according to which there is no presumption of innocence in science, and whoever comes forward with epistemological innovation must calmly and patiently prove his rightness to those who are standing in defence of the existing body of knowledge. Since the author of "The Message of Birds", despite his chosen artistic and mystical form for this work, is one of the largest figures of medieval Arab-Muslim science, his parable should be interpreted, first of all, as a text, which reflects the very process of cognitive search in pre-classical science. A closer familiarity with the nature and content of epistemological discourse in ancient and medieval traditional societies provides a good reason here to see one of the attempts to systematize the ethical rules that have actually been in force among scientists for many centuries.

Shared motivations, goals and values in the practice of personal science - A community perspective on self-tracking for empirical knowledge

Some individuals do not limit their self-tracking efforts to passively collecting and observing gathered data about themselves, but rather develop it into forms of self-research and self-experimentation, also called “personal science”. This type of N-of-1 research is relevant to the fields of personal informatics, patient-led research and social studies of science, but as a knowledge generation practice is still poorly understood. To fill this gap, we conducted 22 semi-structured interviews to investigate the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of individuals engaging in personal science activities, as well as shared goals and values present in self-research communities. Our analysis is based on a conceptual framework that integrates previous approaches in self-research, as well as in connection with citizen science, the scientific ethos and cooperation in peer production. We identify how self-researchers seek to go beyond personal metrics about their health and wellbeing regarding data provided by wearables, are engaged over time by individual involvement in technology and scientific-related activity, and collaborate following similar goals and values when learning and sharing empirical knowledge with peers. In this sense, personal science can be understood as an example of a more participatory and inclusive scientific culture driven by self-reflection, critical thinking and openness.

Ethic of Science: Classic Norms and Modern Deformations

The article discusses the problems of the professional ethos of science genesis and its transformation in the context of modern realities. There is a brief description of the classical norms of the scientific ethos (universalism, communalism, disinterestedness and organized skepticism), formulated by R. Merton in the late 1930s and early 1940s, in response to the sharp exacerbation of the problem of science’s autonomy in the conditions of totalitarian regimes. The key idea of Merton is especially emphasized: compliance with the norms is aimed primarily at optimizing the process of scientific production and, thereby, the most effective solution to the main goal of science – the increasing of certified knowledge volume. The concept of the ethical imperatives of a scientific profession was almost immediately criticized for being ‘idealistic’ and ‘disconnected from real life’, and by the end of the 1960s it intensified many times over. You can find the examples of critical attitude to the concept of Merton, also we described the alternative versions of the norms of scientific ethos (in the interpretation of Mitroff and Fuller). It has been established that under the conditions of academic capitalism, which implies the incorporation of market culture into the system of scientific research, a negative deformation of classical norms occurs, in practice creating barriers to the production of knowledge and disrupting the practice of communication within the scientific community. The result of this deformation is the system of relationships between scientists, described by Ziman in the framework of the concept of ‘post-academic science’. Evidence is presented that the process of degradation of norms is further intensified in the conditions of cognitive capitalism and neoliberal science. Using the example of modern Russian science, the author shows that the result of such degradation is, for example, the exacerbation of the problem of plagiarism. Methods of counteracting such practice are briefly described using the example of modern Russian science, such as the creation of a Dissernet community or a special commission to counteract falsification of scientific research within the framework of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In a theoretical sense, in the context of the philosophy and sociology of science, the concept of ‘two ethics’ proposed by B. Pruzhinin, looks productive. B. Pruzhinin singles out the specific ethos of fundamental and applied science.

Novel Reflections on the Autonomy and Responsibility of Science

This paper explores how cultural understandings of the autonomy and responsibility of science in modern society are manifested in two contemporary science novels about research misconduct in biomedical research. In doing so, it looks at several facets of the societal impact of and on public and private biomedical research, especially with respect to changing authority relations and their epistemic and institutional consequences. The analysis focuses on the multi-layered ways in which social and epistemic interests are treated in Allegra Goodman’s Intuition and Jennifer Rohn’s The Honest Look. Goodman’s novel demonstrates how, intensified by the economization of science, internal cultural and institutional aspects of the scientific field enable social configurations that, among others, encourage scientific malpractice and lead to the delay of research projects epistemically and socially worth pursuing. In contrast, Rohn’s novel exemplifies the corrosion of the ideal scientific ethos by profit-driven practices in private-sector biomedical sciences. The concluding discussion juxtaposes these findings with pertinent contemporary phenomena in modern science systems to provide a more substantial understanding of the interpenetration between science and other social spheres.

Ethos of Science

Analyzed is the problem of principles of scientific ethos in educational environment of university. At present, as a result of the activation of youth (student, master's and postgraduate) science — our scientific future — it is important to instill in people entering science the principles of the scientific ethos, which make it possible to build productive relationships within the scientific community, as well as between the scientific community and society. Of course, the topic “Science and Ethics” is relevant for mature scientists as well. The article is a brief outline of the ethics of science as one of the areas of applied ethics. The 4 norms of the scientific ethos of CUDOS proposed by R. Merton are considered: Communalism: the belief about the common heritage of scientific knowledge; Universalism: assessment of the truth of the provisions should be independent of titles, gender, age, race of scientists; Disinterestedness: the primary stimulus of a scientist’s activity is a disinterested search for truth; Organized Skepticism: Organized skepticism, the duty of the scientist is to objectively assess the soundness of what his colleagues have done and the reliability of his results. Using the golden rule of morality, additional norms have been formulated: not to commit plagiarism; do not falsify data; not to interfere with the publication of the works of opponents; 8) not hush up arguments that contradict their concept; prevent undeserved co-authorship; in the references, cite only works related to the essence of the problem; fairly evaluate the contribution of employees to the overall work; it is inadmissible to present a compilation instead of a scientific work; not to publish papers on a problem in which you do not have sufficiently complete information; give an adequate assessment of the work of colleagues; do not sell their authorship; be humble and respect opponents; and be intolerant of violation of the norms of the scientific ethos by others. In the context of the development of applied science and its commercialization, a tendency arose to abandon the Merton norms. The norms of the PLACE system by J. Ziman are described (property rights, patents; solving local problems; setting the research goal by authoritarian authorities; work to order; work of a limited circle of experts). When abandoning Merton’s norms, the peculiarities of fundamental and applied science are not taken into account. The article shows that Merton norms and additional norms apply to classical science and modern fundamental science. Ziman highlighted norms, as well as additional norms refer to applied science. Additional norms apply to both fundamental and applied science, and these are general norms of modern science. It is suggested that on the basis of the convergence of fundamental and applied research, a single ethos of science can be formed.

The Ambivalence of the Scientific Ethos Is Irresistible

Ambivalence of the scientific ethos (R. Merton) today is still a topical issue under the escalation of contradictions between science and society. The autonomy of science, the solidarity of scientists in the face of internal and external challenges are the issues decisions of which are burdened by a number of antinomies such as “profession – vocation”, “individual – collective” and “a priori – a posteriori”. Is it possible to rid the ethics of science, designed to develop and represent moral norms for the scientific community, from this ambivalence? The article offers a sketch of the ethics of science, combining virtue epistemology with some ideas of J. Rawls and W. Pareto. It shows that the ethical assessment is irreparably present in the structure of roles and statuses in the scientific community, and epistemic virtues are intertwined with moral ones. In terms of this, ambivalence is a form of problematization inherent in any ethical discourse. Hence the task of the ethics of science is not to prescribe norms of behavior to a particular agent, but to explicate conditions of moral freedom.

Social critique as a scientific virtue: an external scientific ethos in the making

The article discusses the possibility of using the external ethics of science to formulate a new social contract between science and the state (society). To do this, it is necessary to re-think the value thesaurus inherited from the cold war and the arms race, when the state gave scientists a social order, concentrated resources and allowed the scientists them-selves to distribute them on the basis of anonymous (secret) expert reviewing and refereeing. The resulting model of relationships within the scientific community can be called Pareto-competition, in which the winner re-ceives everything and the vanquished are screened to the periphery. The current situation of Big Science and Distributed Knowledge puts on the agenda the question of transition to a different relationship in the style of Pare-to-collaboration. In it, both victory and defeat are common cause, each group is prescribed its share of obligations and advantages, and all scientists have a chance to move in the sys-tem of epistemic virtues and sins. The new state of the scientific community, described by the term “full constituency” (S. Fuller), not only leads to internal democratic consensus, but also allows for social criticism. Its desirable result is such a restructuring of the whole society, in which cognitive and moral values come to the fore.

Social Position of an Expert as a New Element of Science

The article focuses on analyzing the changes that have occurred in the procedures for assessing scientific knowledge during the period of their massive introduction into the economy, politics and everyday life, as well as the formation of a new social position of the expert. Up to this point, the assessment of scientific knowledge often took place within the scientific community. In that case, a special role was played by “authority” able to evaluate projects basing on criteria intrinsic to the scientific ethos. The active introduction of scientific knowledge into the social life encouraged the emergence of a new expert’s social position differing from an intrascientific “authority”. In their work, they have to evaluate projects that involve large financial resources and contribute to changes in social and economic life, and therefore, in addition to scientific criteria, such experts consider any possible economic, political and social consequences of the project implementation. Along with it, the formation of the new expert’s social position and its active use by scientists leads to several problems. First, the expertise and expert practices are beginning to be used by scientists to legitimize their own position in science and fight rival groups. Second, these processes can provoke a decrease in diversity both within science itself and in the number of cognitive practices; also they can limit the emergence of new approaches to the analysis of technological, economic, political and social innovations.