The love for others is a basis of having great satisfaction and hate produces the opposite feeling. As love for others includes the desire to see their loved ones being happy, fulfilling their desire would often involve unselfishness as well as self-sacrifice and the denial to see their loved one being sad therefore avoiding to hurt them. Thus, caring behaviour and therefore certain things that allow their loved one to be happy would be recognised as being morally right and vice versa.
Cultural also is a large contribution towards the idea of morality of people as they are brought up to belief what is right and what is wrong by their cultural backgrounds. For example, Koreans have to be polite to any other Koreans that are older than them despite it is only one year. So the way younger Koreans talk to older Koreans are significantly different as it is in a much politer way for example younger Koreans would not be able to say “hi” to an older Korean and would have to say “hello” unless they know that the older Korean would not mind. This is established as morally correct to be respectful to any older Korean as it is known as a respect and a belief that must be followed. This cultural moral belief is not seen in the Chinese culture as Chinese only have to be polite to people who have a higher status in either the society, school or at home. Therefore, Chinese would not have to address older peers politely.
The society also puts up moral values in the form of laws and social standards. For example, it is established as a social standard that murdering, raping, robbing are morally wrong since there are laws and punishments for the doing of those acts.
Should Scientist be held morally responsible for the applications of their discoveries?
Should the person who invented the knife be held responsible for the fact that Julius Caesar got turned into a human pincushion? No, the knife was invented as a tool for non-murdering means. If the inventor of the knife actually killed someone with that knife, then yes, they should be held responsible. But so long as the discovery was meant to be used in a safe, non-harmful way, then the scientists should not be held responsible for another person's actions. Most of the time scientists invent something because they feel that it will help society. For example, stem cell research, this has many applications to science and treating people with diseases, but other people have to go the extra step and use it for wrong use. I am sure the inventor might feel guilt for what he made, but it is not his fault for other people’s misuse.
However, the atomic bomb project might be a different example. Albert Einstein along with many other scientists discovered and invited the atomic bomb during World War II and they have intended to use it as a tool for improper moral use in other words, to substantially hurt and kill others. This is the common viewpoint of mankind however it can be argued that the invention of the atomic bomb by scientists puts an end to World War II and to all the potential damages that can be caused by the attacking parties for example the German Nazis. So can this be considered as morally correct or incorrect? This would depend on the moral values that every individual holds since a common moral value cannot be put forward and agreed on.
Is there any area of scientific knowledge the pursuit of which is morally unacceptable or morally required?
I do not think there are any specific areas of scientific knowledge which are morally unacceptable or required however I do consider certain methods of obtaining knowledge and some intended usage of gained knowledge are morally unacceptable. For example, to investigate and discover stem cells, embryonic cells are required as they are in abundance in the early stages of the human embryos. With this, few ethical issues are raised since many believe in the case of embryonic stem cell research, many donated embryos are consumed and it is then destroyed. On a larger scale, they believe that destroying embryos are equal to destroying human life and immoral in doing so. Others believe that people only believe it is immoral because it is written in ancient religious texts and those ancient religious texts provide little information and guidance since they did not understand embryology; they did not imagine what scientists and researchers can do now. However, they also believe that by “destroying” donated human life that was going to be aborted anyway, can lead to many other valuable lives saved. In this case, it can be classified as morally unacceptable or morally required depending on which point of view is taken. However, the use of adult stem cells, the other uncommitted stem cells that stays as stem cells throughout a person’s whole life acting as a repair system to replenish specialised cells as seen in the liver, are often accepted as morally acceptable since it is at will for a person to give and offer their stem cells for cell research.
Obviously, the misuse of certain discoveries such as party drugs or knives is morally unacceptable as they harm people in general.
Some discoveries are also morally required for the advancement and development of mankind for example if radioactive isotopes are not discovered and a method to create them is not invented, then chemotherapy would not be provided to cancer patients to help them cure and fight the cancer.
Religion rejects scientific evidence to justify and support Bronze Age myths.
I think religion does not reject scientific evidence, it just choose to belief Bronze Age myths and shut their eyes towards the scientific evidence laid out. Religion relies of belief and if you believe it to be true, then it is a moral truth however if you do not believe if to be true and you believe in scientific evidence or simply do not believe in either, then you would not establish it as a moral truth.
Do the natural sciences make assumptions that are improvable by science?
This is due to the fact that the natural science uses induction reasoning and the process of elimination. One hypothesis cannot be proven correct just because of the large sum of experiment carried out and therefore the conclusions and analysis drew out by the experiment. This is due to the fact that science only considers the limited outcomes out of the infinite outcomes and this is a major flaw within natural science since it is so controlled and a theory or law can only be proven correct when everything else is controlled. Therefore, scientific evidence and research could be unreliable for being a type of evidence.