The Responsibility of the Scientist

Uchii, Soshichi (2000) The Responsibility of the Scientist.

Abstract

The problems of the social responsibility of the scientist became a
subject of public debate after the World War II in Japan, thanks to the
activities and publications of Yukawa and Tomonaga. And such authors as
J. Karaki, M.Taketani, Y. Murakami, and S. Fujinaga continued discussion
in their books. However, many people seem to be still unaware of the
most important source of these problems. As I see it, one of the most
important treatments of these problems was the Franck Report (June 11,
1945) submitted to the US government by James Franck (chairman) toward
the end of the war. This Report contains many important ideas and
suggestions as regards the responsibility of the scientist, the morality
of the use of atomic bombs, the prospective nuclear armaments race, and
the possibility of international control of nuclear power. However, I
should like to concentrate only on the first topic in this paper.
Why did Franck and his committee at Metallurgical Laboratory of the
University of Chicago feel the urgent need for writing and submitting
this Report? According to the Report,

"in the past, scientists could disclaim direct responsibility for the

use to which mankind had put their disinterested discoveries. We
cannot
take the same attitude now because the success which we have
achieved in
the development of nuclear power is fraught with infinitely greater
dangers
than were all the inventions of the past." (I. Preamble)

This passage seems to contain the crux of our problem: These scientists
clearly recognize the "new" responsibility for them, and the ground of
this responsibility is also clear enough; i.e., when a new scientific
discovery or invention turns out to have grave bearings on human
interests, the scientists who became aware of that are responsible for
notifying people of this and advise to look for suitable means for
avoiding prospective dangers.
In the rest of the paper, I elaborate the reasoning behind the
preceding passage, and confirm that basically the same idea and
reasoning has been repeated and developed in Russell-Einstein Manifesto
(1955), by Pugwash Conferences (first in 1957), by Tomogana, and by
Rotblat (the long-time Secretary of Pugwash, who received the Nobel
Peace Prize together with the Conference in 1995).