Physical Law and Moral Choice

Ecology is a science, but it is not value-neutral as most sciences aspire to be. It has a message. After decades of ecological practice in his career, and 20 years after he first articulated it, Sears in his later years still concerned himself with the conclusions to which his science and his view of history and philosophy brought him:

“The applications of science must be guided, managed, controlled, according to the ethical and aesthetic principles and in the light of our most profound understanding. … Modern society seems incalculably rich in means, impoverished in ends. The dazzling success of science in placing facilities at our disposal has left us all, including the scientist, a bit confused… Yet it is clear enough that the fundamental problems of mankind are no longer technological, if they ever were, but rather cultural. … People shape their values in accordance with their notions of the kind of a universe they believe themselves to be living in. The basic function of science is to illuminate our understanding of that universe—what it may contribute to human ease and convenience is strictly secondary.”

from Physical Law and Moral Choice in the Phi Beta Kappa Key Reporter, January 1959; as quoted in MANAS Reprint, Vol XII, No. 13; April 1, 1959.

"People shape their values in accordance with their notions of the kind of a universe they believe themselves to be living in." In the final decades of his life, it seems Sears concentrated more and more on the cultural and social implications of his lifelong observations.