Ethical Oath

Explanations to those present

The Humanist and scientist Salvatore Puledda paid tribute to Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno and other precursors of science today, on the 7th of January 1989 in Florence, the capital of historical humanism. On that occasion an oath was taken by those present, to fight with determination so that scientific advances are put at the service of the human being.

Some friends, in turn, have expressed their interest to take a similar oath.

Reader:

We are in a world in which some people are ready to sell their knowledge and learning for any end and at any price. They have covered our planet with death machines. Others have used their own ingenuity to invent new ways to manipulate, to silence and to keep dormant the consciousness of people and peoples.

Also there are men and women who have used Science and Knowledge to alleviate the tiredness and hunger, the pain and suffering of Humanity, to remove the gag from the mouths of the oppressed, to give them a voice and to give them confidence.

Today, at the dawning of the third millennium of the West, the survival of the entire human species is threatened and over the Earth, our common home, the nightmare of ecological catastrophe and nuclear disaster is hovering.

Therefore we ask here that all scientists, researchers, professionals and educators in the world use their knowledge for the exclusive benefit of Humanity.

Participants:

I promise in front of my friends, teachers, my family and colleagues not to use my received knowledge and future learning to oppress human beings, but on the contrary to apply them for their liberation.
I promise to work for the elimination of physical pain and mental suffering.
I promise to impel the freedom of thought and the learning of the practice of nonviolence, looking for the way to “treat others the way I would like to be treated”.

Reader:

Good knowledge leads to justice
Good knowledge avoids confrontation
Good knowledge leads to dialogue and reconciliation

We are making a call from here to all the universities, research institutes and colleges so that this ethical oath is instituted, analogous to the Hippocratic Oath created for doctors, with the aim of achieving that knowledge be used to overcome pain and suffering to humanise the Earth.