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Then, what is good? Good is good. However there must be relative estimation that we can say this is intrinsically good and has some greater value than something else in question.

As Moore states:
It was necessary for Ethics to enumerate all true universal judgments, asserting that such and such a thing was good, whenever it occurred. But, although all such judgments do refer to that unique notion which I have called good, they do not all refer to it in the same way. They may either assert that this unique property does always attach to the thing in question, or else they may assert only that the thing in question is a cause or necessary condition for the existence of other things to which this unique property does attach.

This is a good definition Moore came up with, however is there anything which is intrinsically good, objective; it is good in every set of circumstances, whenever it occurs? Moore solves this problem by saying that we must make a generalization. Now it is the thing to be asked, is this a scientific view? I thought what good is. Then concluded that ethics must be good with ethical thinking because it is thought that there exists a need for ethics, and if not so it would not be wise to think about that this much and insist on it.

The problem of unconsciousness is of vital importance to us. Maybe the gene sequence that has a vital importance for humanity is or will evolve in the DNA of a single mutant bacterium. We can not understand the potential harms and the potential importance of our actions, the problem of good becomes even harder to solve. You can’t know whether a genetically modified state of a gene will be useful at the time you are in, maybe its harms will emerge ages later and it will be too late before we conclude that manipulation was harmful and gave such mutants and after some estimated time, the end of the humanity would come. Hence, the relative intrinsic values become a matter of instance rather than a universal valid for whole time scale.

The question what things are good in themselves, and the question to what other things these are related as effects are the two questions that Moore tells they are essential to answer. With our basic knowledge of time and the dimensions we are in, it becomes a paradox, to which it is necessary to call attention, is that the value of such a whole bears no regular proportion to the sum of the values of its parts. Hence a question bears here in our minds that: “How come we can know that a thing considered as intrinsically less good is a part of a big whole that is intrinsically very important?” or how come can we assure ourselves as Moore tells “The probable future evils will not be greater than the immediate good.” Hence all the part and whole relations must be established and futuristic estimations must be done, however, this is impossible with our limitations over time.

“I am by no means a great admirer of Nietzsche; and I do not at all admit the truth of his view that “Christian morality is a morality of slaves, and that we have to advance to a new morality which shall be that of masters.”

According to Bernard Williams, theory of ethics can be defined as “a philosophical structure, which together with some degree of empirical fact, will yield a decision procedure for moral reasoning” or in a more simple way, we can say that, ethics seeks to answer the question “What should I do, all things considered?”

According to Gaylord Simpson, “in order to be able to talk about our actions being ethical, there conditions must be met:
• there are alternative courses of action
• we are capable of judging the actions in ethical terms
• we are free to choose what is considered to be ethically right.”

One of the main problems in ethics is that some people may decide to act after a deliberate thinking in a way that others may consider unethical (which is also valid for religion). There is no guarantee that everyone will agree on the subject. Moreover, there is also no guarantee that the majority view is the correct one. However, the important point is that for behaviors, ideas to be considered ethical requires that it be justified – to ourselves, and/or to others, and/or, for some people, to God.

They are the inevitable consequences of earlier events. If this is true, then all our objective thinking of the outer world indeed do not exist at all. Then the phrase what the ethics will be all about turns out to be “we should do it”. Furthermore, there is one more conclusion that we cannot avoid. “Who or what is the ‘I’ that makes the choices?” Hence, conclusions of deliberate ethical thinking bound to influence of the views of the thinker. However, science, power, authority is prone to the influences of ethical, religious, social, cultural and philosophical beliefs and our human place in the natural world. Hence, we think that we need a moral system to secure ourselves. J R Oppenheimer, the “father” of the Atom Bomb, which was dropped on Japan in the 1939-45 World War, when recalling his work on the Manhattan project to develop the bomb, admitted: “In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin, and this is a knowledge which they can not lose.” After the technical success, it is religion or ethics; a moral system to consider the proper, right usage of the product.

Historian of science Paul Weindling has described how, justifying their actions as necessary to protect the nation’s “genetic treasury”, people classed as “undesirable”, Jew’s, gypsies, black German half-castes, and carriers of genetic diseases, such as schizophrenia and muscular dystrophy, were subjected to coercive euthanasia and sterilization. Biologists even found a perverse justification for the Holocaust, the mass extermination of Jews, by exploiting the opportunity to conduct experiments on people before their death, e.g. in one case, inducing seizures in children in low-pressure chambers to test a new drug for epilepsy; in another, “killing gypsies to obtain heterochromic pairs of eyes”

These examples for abuses of science and biology can be augmented. As we see so far, science is just a knowledge allowing us to do more. However, science does not tell us whether doing more is right or wrong. The moral system which will shape scientific knowledge is highly questionable.

Why do environmentalists, conservationists want to conserve species, which are rare, charismatic, exotic etc.? In my opinion, one wants to conserve species which we can call domesticated with reference to him. Think about Rosa canina. If one does not know anything about a member of this species, he may not think of its conservation, consider its vulnerability to extinction. However if you show him one, he likes its odour; he gets surprised when he notices the colors of its petals and so on. Then this only species among many becomes domesticated to him. Now think again, if it is threatened, would not he want to conserve Rosa canina? After understanding this idea we can understand why he sees justification in preserving a species which is a member of genus rosacea, or a genus in rosaceae, or the kingdom plantae.

Environmentalists may find more hospitable home for their values in a category of value that has existed all along. The value is dependant on the valuer. In a world where source of value (human) is taken out, there exists no valuable thing. Valuer is necessary for the continuation of value on the valued. Environmentalists value species, ecosystems. They try to conserve species, their domesticated beloveds.

It is necessary to understand environmental ethics. According to Holland, environmental ethics
“debates how to balance the claims of present and future, human and non-human, sentient and non-sentient, individuals and wholes. It investigates the prospects for a sustainable relationship between economic and ecological systems, and pursues the implications of this relationship with respect to social justice and institutions.”

Every species is crucial for a balanced ecosystem. Lovelock’s state in his Gaia hypothesis that “the Earth’s crust, together with the oceans, atmosphere and biosphere, constitute a single system, which is self-sustaining and self-regulating.” Earth is a superorganism, which is in a homeostatic state which means there is a balance between its organs, which are its crust, oceans atmosphere and biosphere. In the second version of his hypothesis , he tries to explain his idea with an example. If the temperature is low, then the black, dark colored organisms grow, absorbing more light and warming the planet. If temperature is high then the white, light colored ones become abundant, reflect more light and cool the planet as a result the planet reaches homeostatic state. Therefore, each individual is crucial for a balanced ecosystem and has a role in the continuation of the homeostatic state.

It is obvious that, there exists a definite difference between man and the lower animals. Darwin states this fact as “of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important…a sense that is summed up by that short but imperious word ought.”

If only somebody — somebody I trusted — could tell me what to do! When we become aware of the world we live in intellectually, we ask two types of questions mainly: “What is all this, and how does it work?” – the answers to which are sought by science; and “What should we do?” – the answers to which are given by moral systems; ethics and religion. In this sense, moral systems and science are closely related since what should we do may be largely dependent on the way things are. Ethics and religion are bridges between science and the deliberate mind. With the word deliberate mind I mean, the mind which seeks answers, try to understand the good/evil, true/false, right/wrong, has sense of morality which seems to be an innate and defining characteristic of human beings. I exclude nihilists, anarchists or psychopaths throughout my essay who may not seek an answer at all.

Bertrand Russell defines philosophy as “an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly.” This essay is in unusual obstinate attempt to understand ethics. Throughout this essay, although there exists some differences among, the words morality and ethics will be used interchangeably. The word moral system comprises ethics and religion. Ethics is used as the philosophical science, which is extensively defined in the “Defining Ethics” part. I shortened my essay and tried to be as clear as possible. After accomplishing this task, I can gratefully declare that, I improved my writing skills with the help of previous warnings that exist in my previous works.

Cancer cell

Researchers found that, a newly discovered protein may have significant role in preventing the spreading of cancer.

Swiss scientists that research on mice, found that, without existence of periostin protein, cancer cells cannot spread from original organ (metastasis) to others.

Researcher Joerg Huelsken said that, when mice lack this protein, cancer stem cells can’t spread, just disappear or go dormancy, making it a new hope in treatment of cancer.

They achieved this by devoloping an anticore binding to periostin and making periostin, which probably cancer cells use to spread, not work.

They are still working on topic and they still don’t know same mechanism can be applied to human.

However, this research is promising for future research and cancer treatments it is definitely a new hope in treatment of cancer.

Music video
Scorpions
Wind Of Change.
(C) 1991

Listen to Wind of Change Scorpions music video.