"The time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientist, perhaps in the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath"
About this Quote
Rotblat’s line lands like a quiet indictment: if medicine has an oath to restrain its power, why has science treated power as morally self-justifying? The phrase “the time has come” isn’t casual urgency; it’s the cadence of someone who has watched a field sprint ahead of its conscience. Rotblat, a physicist who worked briefly on the Manhattan Project before leaving on moral grounds and later helped found the Pugwash Conferences, is speaking from inside the engine room of modern catastrophe. His authority comes from proximity to the blast radius, literal and cultural.
The subtext is that scientific culture has long hidden behind a convenient division of labor: scientists discover, politicians decide, history judges. Rotblat refuses that alibi. By invoking a “voluntary Hippocratic Oath,” he borrows medicine’s most famous social contract and aims it at a profession that often prefers the myth of neutrality. “Voluntary” is doing heavy work here: he’s realistic enough to know enforcement is messy, but he’s also calling out the inadequacy of mere personal ethics. Voluntarism is a first step, not an escape hatch.
The intent is less about creating a ceremonial pledge than about rewriting professional identity. An oath would signal that harm isn’t an externality; it’s a foreseeable outcome scientists are obligated to anticipate. In a century defined by nuclear weapons, chemical warfare, and dual-use research, Rotblat is arguing that expertise without restraint isn’t enlightenment. It’s negligence with better math.
The subtext is that scientific culture has long hidden behind a convenient division of labor: scientists discover, politicians decide, history judges. Rotblat refuses that alibi. By invoking a “voluntary Hippocratic Oath,” he borrows medicine’s most famous social contract and aims it at a profession that often prefers the myth of neutrality. “Voluntary” is doing heavy work here: he’s realistic enough to know enforcement is messy, but he’s also calling out the inadequacy of mere personal ethics. Voluntarism is a first step, not an escape hatch.
The intent is less about creating a ceremonial pledge than about rewriting professional identity. An oath would signal that harm isn’t an externality; it’s a foreseeable outcome scientists are obligated to anticipate. In a century defined by nuclear weapons, chemical warfare, and dual-use research, Rotblat is arguing that expertise without restraint isn’t enlightenment. It’s negligence with better math.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|
More Quotes by Joseph
Add to List
