Knowledge is a huge burden. Without it, we act on default. When we know about the consequences of default however, it is impossible to continue act on default without debating over alternative actions, which inevitably involve moral judgement and clashes over value systems.
Let me give a concrete examples. Studies have shown that when girls and boys are educated in the same class for maths and science, girls learn worse than when they are taught separately. However, boys learn better in a co-ed system. The problem is shall we bring them apart? Some would say yes, arguing it is unacceptable that allow boys do well at the expense of girls' suffering. Well, that is one argument, but this argument uses the reference of boys and girls studying separately. However, if our reference is co-ed, and we consider the alternative, we might ask, is it ethical to let boys do worse so as to make girls learn better?
When we know nothing, choice does not carry a moral consequence. Ignorance is amoral, not immoral. However, when we know what each option would entail, it is just tough. Anyone who tries to make an overly simplistic picture for his own agenda, is a demagogue at best, most likely a dangerous man, and a devil at worst.
As a future researcher, I could just focus on positive analysis, and leave normative analysis to others. However, I have to constantly remind myself, that we live in a dangerous world, and positive analysis could easily abused to benefit an ambitious and evil group.
Very interesting point - knowledge itself is objective and positive in most cases, but its effects on the real world depend on how exactly it is used. The pure pursuit of knowledge is indeed a great goal, but researchers always have to keep in mind that as soon as it leaves academics, its social influence might be out of control.
ReplyDeletegetting back to the positive versus normative analysis discussion that we had after dinner the other day. The concept that knowledge is a burden and we have to be actually ready to handle it is fascinating.
ReplyDeleteFor your specific case though, I think the girls learns better in single sex and boys learn better in co-ed is too simplistic of a picture- a good scholar pursuing positive analysis won't just leave it there. There are so many factors that affects the balance and might even flip it over.
I think what you mentioned is relevant to every single empirical work. The holy grail of empirical work is the world is so complex, and yet have do not have unlimited data, and thus, we can only estimate models below certain complexity. We can go further, considering other factors, but there could be no end to this. This is exactly why I felt empirical work is hopeless. But now I think I am undergoing some changes in my philosophy. I probably will write about it some other time after the transformation is complete or failed...lol
Deletethat was just a simple example aimed to illustrate that as we map out the frontier of efficiency, we have to decide on trade-offs, and those trade-offs involve ethical judgement, which when viewed in different reference framework, will lead in very different directions. Those judgements are hard, and when we are presented with an issue, we need to be very careful it has been framed to manipulate our thinking.