Bernard Davis

Bernard Davis (1916–1994) was a leading figure in biology, with his major contributions in microbial physiology and metabolism. Davis was a prominent figure at Harvard Medical School in microbiology and in national science policy.

Education

Davis was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, where his parents, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, had settled. (Davis himself was nonobservant, and "insisted on atheism".) He was valedictorian at his high school, then attended Harvard University, where he majored in biochemistry. After earning his Bachelor of Science degree, he enrolled at Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1940 with a rare M.D., "summa cum laude". [http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/03.25/davis.html]

Moralistic fallacy

Davis coined the term "moralistic fallacy" after calls for ethical guidelines to control the study of what could allegedly become "dangerous knowledge." The term is intended as a converse to the naturalistic fallacy, coined by David Hume in the 18th century, which occurs when reasoning jumps from statements about "what is" to prescription about "what ought to be".

Sometimes a theory is rejected with a reference to the danger of misuse. In doing so, one fails to differentiate sufficiently clearly between its epistemological value and its practical value, or between the moral, value-free knowledge and – in consideration of moral valuations – the potentially negative consequences of the knowledge. From a perspective of scientific theory, the accuracy of a theory is relevant, not its practical value, its origin or history of use. No theory is protected against misuse, nor can a theory be falsified by misuse. Both misuse as well as renunciation of knowledge can have disadvantageous consequences.

An example of the naturalistic fallacy would be approving of all wars if scientific evidence showed warfare was part of human nature, whereas an example of the moralistic fallacy would be claiming that, because warfare is wrong, it cannot be part of human nature.

References

*"The Moralistic Fallacy," Bernard Davis, "Nature", 1978 Mar 30. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11643452&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum]

External links

* [http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/03.25/davis.html "Faculty of Medicine -- Memorial Minute"] , December 16, 1998, by Harold Amos, Porter W. Anderson, Jonathan Beckwith, Edmund Chi Chien Lin, Jack Strominger, Morton Swartz, Phang-Cheng Tai, and Edward O. Wilson.