Science and Humanity

Science in that sense moderates potential Hitlers [they need the scientists for their own victories and so must take care of them] - but only in that sense. In general it increases man’s power without increasing his virtue, hence increasing his power to do both good and evil.

The total picture is one of great danger resulting from the political involvement of science. Some people assert that we have to reinvent politics in order to meet the danger. Swift tells us that politics was already reinvented by the founders of the Enlightenment, and that is the problem. It turned out that natural science had nothing to say about human things, about the uses of science for life or about the scientist. If he does so, he uses none of the tools he uses in his scientific activity, and his conclusions have none of the demonstrative character he demands in his science. Science has broken off from the self-consciousness about science that was the core of ancient science. This loss of self-consciousness is somehow connected with the banishment of poetry.

Alan Bloom from ‘The Closing of the American Mind’

Social science seems to contradict Bloom: it offers itself up as a science for society, for politics and for human beliefs and culture. But closer attention reveals that social science demonstrates the validity of Bloom's perspective.

The important judgements about society, about ourselves and about others are moral judgements. They need not be subjective or prejudicial (although the gravitational pull towards mere subjectivity is always present) but they cannot be neutral. Neutrality is just under-cover scepticism and that is a moral perspective in itself.