The value-free ideal in science has been criticised as both unattainable and undesirable. We argue that it can be defended as a practical principle guiding scientific research even if the unattainability and undesirability of a value-free end-state are granted. If a goal is unattainable, then one can separate the desirability of accomplishing the goal from the desirability of pursuing it. We articulate a novel value-free ideal, which holds that scientists should act as if science should be value-free, and we argue (...) that even if a purely value-free science is undesirable, this value-free ideal is desirable to pursue. (shrink)

Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science studies the ways in which gender does and ought to influence our conceptions of knowledge, the knowing subject, and practices of inquiry and justification. It identifies ways in which dominant conceptions and practices of knowledge attribution, acquisition, and justification systematically disadvantage women and other subordinated groups, and strives to reform these conceptions and practices so that they serve the interests of these groups. Various practitioners of feminist epistemology and philosophy of science argue that dominant (...) knowledge practices disadvantage women by (1) excluding them from inquiry, (2) denying them epistemic authority, (3) denigrating their “feminine” cognitive styles and modes of knowledge, (4) producing theories of women that represent them as inferior, deviant, or significant only in the ways they serve male interests, (5) producing theories of social phenomena that render women's activities and interests, or gendered power relations, invisible, and (6) producing knowledge (science and technology) that is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or that reinforces gender and other social hierarchies. Feminist epistemologists trace these failures to flawed conceptions of knowledge, knowers, objectivity, and scientific methodology. They offer diverse accounts of how to overcome these failures. They also aim to (1) explain why the entry of women and feminist scholars into different academic disciplines, especially in biology and the social sciences, has generated new questions, theories, and methods, (2) show how gender has played a.. (shrink)

Kevin Elliott and others separate two common arguments for the legitimacy of societal values in scientific reasoning as the gap and the error arguments. This article poses two questions: How are these two arguments related, and what can we learn from their interrelation? I contend that we can better understand the error argument as nested within the gap because the error is a limited case of the gap with narrower features. Furthermore, this nestedness provides philosophers with conceptual tools for analyzing (...) more robustly how values pervade science. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values play important roles in classificatory practice, such that philosophical accounts of kinds and classification should be able to accommodate them. Available accounts fail to do so, however. Our aim is to fill this lacuna by showing how non-epistemic values feature in scientific classification, and how they can be incorporated into a philosophical theory of classification and kinds. To achieve this, we present a novel account of kinds and classification, discuss examples from biological classification where non-epistemic values play decisive (...) roles, and show how this account accommodates the role of non-epistemic values. (shrink)

The underdetermination of scientific theory choice by evidence is a familiar but multifaceted concept in the philosophy of science. I answer two pressing questions about underdetermination: “What is underdetermination?” and “Why should we care about underdetermination?” To answer the first question, I provide a general definition of underdetermination, identify four forms of underdetermination, and discuss major criticisms of each form. To answer the second question, I then survey two common uses of underdetermination in broader arguments against scientific realism and in (...) support of the use of values in scientific theory choice. I conclude that philosophers should also care about underdetermination because it impacts scientists in their practice. (shrink)

Much of the literature on values in science is limited in its perspective because it focuses on the role of values in individual scientists’ decision making, thereby ignoring the context of scientific collaboration. I examine the epistemic structure of scientific collaboration and argue that it gives rise to two arguments showing that moral and social values can legitimately play a role in scientists’ decision to accept something as scientific knowledge. In the case of scientific collaboration some moral and social values (...) are properly understood to be extrinsic epistemic values, that is, values that promote the attainment of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The ‘death of evidence’ issue in Canada raises the spectre of politicized science, and thus the question of what role social values may have in science and how this meshes with objectivity and evidence. I first criticize philosophical accounts that have to separate different steps of research to restrict the influence of social and other non-epistemic values. A prominent account that social values may play a role even in the context of theory acceptance is the argument from inductive risk. It (...) maintains that the more severe the social consequences of erroneously accepting a theory would be, the more evidence is needed before the theory may be accepted. However, an implication of this position is that increasing evidence makes the impact of social values converge to zero; and I argue for a stronger role for social values. On this position, social values may determine a theory’s conditions of adequacy, which among other things can include co.. (shrink)

This highly multidisciplinary collection discusses an increasingly important topic among scholars in science and technology studies: objectivity in science. It features eleven essays on scientific objectivity from a variety of perspectives, including philosophy of science, history of science, and feminist philosophy. Topics addressed in the book include the nature and value of scientific objectivity, the history of objectivity, and objectivity in scientific journals and communities. Taken individually, the essays supply new methodological tools for theorizing what is valuable in the pursuit (...) of objective knowledge and for investigating its history. The essays offer many starting points, while suggesting new avenues of research. Taken collectively, the essays exemplify the very virtues of objectivity that they theorize—in reading them together, the reader can sense various anxieties about the dangerously subjective in our age and locate commonalities of concern as well as differences of approach. As a result, the volume offers an expansive vision of a research community seeking a communal understanding of its own methods and its own epistemic anxieties, struggling to enunciate the key problems of knowledge of our time and offer insight into how to overcome them. -/- (Contributors: Alex Csiszar, Scott Edgar, Peter Galison, Ian Hacking, Sandra Harding, Moira Howes, Paolo Savoia, Judy Segal, Joan Steigerwald, and Alison Wylie). (shrink)

It is often argued that while biases routinely influence the generation of scientific theories, a subsequent rational evaluation of such theories will ensure that biases do not affect which theories are ultimately accepted. Against this line of thought, this paper shows that the existence of certain kinds of biases at the generation-stage implies the existence of biases at the evaluation-stage. The key argumentative move is to recognize that a scientist who comes up with a new theory about some phenomena has (...) thereby gained an unusual type of evidence, viz. information about the space of theories that could be true of the phenomena. It follows that if there is bias in the generation of scientific theories in a given domain, then the rational evaluation of theories with reference to the total evidence in that domain will also be biased. (shrink)

In the last two decades, a robust consensus has emerged among philosophers of science, whereby political, ethical, or social values must play some role in scientific inquiry, and that the ‘value-free ideal’ is thus a misguided conception of science. However, the question of how to distinguish, in a principled way, which values may legitimately influence science remains. This question, which has been dubbed the ‘new demarcation problem,’ has until recently received comparatively less attention from philosophers of science. In this paper, (...) I appeal to Rawls’s theory of justice (1971) on the basis of which I defend a Rawlsian solution to the new demarcation problem. As I argue, the Rawlsian solution places plausible constraints on which values ought to influence scientific inquiry, and, moreover, can be fruitfully applied to concrete cases to determine how the conflicting interests of stakeholders should be balanced. After considering and responding to the objection that Rawls’s theory of justice applies only to the “basic structure” of society, I compare the Rawlsian solution to some other approaches to the new demarcation problem, especially those that emphasize democratic criteria. (shrink)

While most of healthcare research and practice fully endorses evidence-based healthcare, a minority view borrows popular themes from philosophy of science like underdetermination and value-ladenness to question the legitimacy of the evidence-based movement’s philosophical underpinnings. While the feminist origins go unacknowledged, those critics adopt a feminist reading of the “gap argument” to challenge the perceived objectivism of evidence-based practice. From there, the critics seem to despair over the “subjective elements” that values introduce to clinical reasoning, demonstrating that they do not (...) subscribe to feminist science studies’ normative program——where contextual values can enable good science and justified decisions. In this paper, I investigate why it is that the critics of evidence-based medicine adopt feminist science’s characterization of the problem but resist the productive solutions offered by those same theorists. I suggest that the common feminist empiricist appeal to idealized epistemic communities is impractical for those working within the current biomedical context and instead offer an alternate stream of feminist research into the empirical content of values (found in the work of Elizabeth Anderson and Sharyn Clough) as a more helpful recourse for facilitating the important task of legitimate and justified clinical decision-making. I use a case study on clinical decision-making to illustrate the fruitfulness of the latter feminist empiricist framework. -/- See response by Sharyn Clough: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1aN See reply by Maya Goldenberg: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1oY. (shrink)

This article motivates a shift in certain strands of the debate over legitimate roles for nonepistemic values in scientific practice from investigating what is involved in taking cognitive attitudes like acceptance toward an empirical hypothesis to looking at a social understanding of assertion, the act of communicating that hypothesis. I argue that speech act theory’s account of assertion as a type of doing makes salient legitimate roles nonepistemic values can play in scientific practice. The article also shows how speech act (...) theory might provide a framework for fruitfully extending aspects of the social and pragmatic turns in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

With twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy of science’s unfolding acceptance of the nature of scientific inquiry being value-laden, the persistent worry has been that there are no means for legitimate negotiation of the social or non-epistemic values that enter into science. The rejection of the value-free ideal in science has thereby been coupled with the spectres of indiscriminate relativism and bias in scientific inquiry. I challenge this view in the context of recently expressed concerns regarding Canada's death of evidence controversy. The (...) worry, raised by Stathis Psillos, is that as constructivist accounts of science demoted the previously secure status of evidence for drawing justified conclusions in science, we were left with no rational delineation between the right and wrong values for science. The implication for the death of evidence controversy is that we may have no rational grounds for claiming that the Canadian Government is wrong to interfere with scientific enterprise. But he does offer another avenue for reaching the conclusion that the wrong social values are directing the current stifling of some sectors of Canadian science. Psillos draws from standpoint epistemologies to devise a salient defence of ‘valuing evidence’ as a universalizable social value. That is, government bodies ought to enable scientific research via adequate funding as well as political non-interference. In this paper, I counter that non-epistemic values can be rationally evaluated and that standpoint epistemology’s universalizable standpoint provides an inadequate framework for negotiating social values in science. Regarding, I draw from the evidence-based medicine debate in philosophy of medicine and from feminist empiricist investigations into the science–values relationship in order to make the argument for empirically driven value arbitration. If social values can be rationally chosen in the context of justification, then we can have grounds for charging the Canadian leadership with being ‘at war with science’. I further argue that my recommended empiricist methodology is preferable to Psillos’s search for universalizable perspectives for negotiating social values in science because the latter method permits little more than the trivial conclusion that evidence is valuable to science. (shrink)

We offer a new account of the role of values in theory choice that captures a temporal dimension to the values themselves. We argue that non-epistemic values sometimes serve as “inquiry tickets,” justifying scientists’ pursuit of certain questions in the short run, while the answers to those questions mitigate transient underdetermination in the long run. Our account of inquiry tickets shows that the role of non-epistemic values need not be restricted to belief or acceptance in order to be relevant to (...) hypothesis choice: the relevance of non-epistemic values to a particular cognitive attitude with respect to h vary over time. (shrink)

I critically analyze Kevin Elliott’s A Tapestry of Values in order to tease out his views on the nature and status of values or value judgments in the text. I show there is a tension in Elliott’s view that is closely connected to a major lacuna in the philosophical literature on values in science: the need for a better theory of values.

It is commonly argued that values “fill the logical gap” of underdetermination of theory by evidence, namely, values affect our choice between two or more theories that fit the same evidence. The underdetermination model, however, does not exhaust the roles values play in evidential reasoning. I introduce WAVE – a novel account of the logical relations between values and evidence. WAVE states that values influence evidential reasoning by adjusting evidential weights. I argue that the weight-adjusting role of values is distinct (...) from their underdetermination gap-filling role. Values adjust weights in three ways. First, values affect our trust in the testimony of others. Second, values influence the evidential thresholds required for justified epistemic judgments. Third, values influence the relative weight of a certain type of evidence within a body of multimodal discordant evidence. WAVE explains, from an epistemic perspective, rather than psychological, how smokers, for example, can find the same evidence about the dangers of smoking less persuasive than non-smokers. WAVE allows for a wider effect of values on our accepted scientific theories and beliefs than the effect for which the underdetermination model allows alone; therefore, science studies scholars must consider WAVE in their research and analysis of evidential case studies. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers have discussed the prospects for assessing values empirically, particularly given the ongoing threat of sexism and other oppressive values influencing science and society. Some advocates of such tests now champion a “values as evidence” approach, and they criticize Helen Longino’s contextual empiricism for not holding values to the same level of empirical scrutiny as other claims. In this paper, we defend contextual empiricism by arguing that many of these criticisms are based on mischaracterizations of Longino’s position, overstatements of (...) certain claims, and false dichotomies. Her contextual empiricism not only allows for the empirical support and disconfirmation of values, but Longino explicitly discusses when values can be empirically adjudicated and emphasizes the crucial role of the community for standards of evidence. We support contextual empiricism and elaborate a less direct account of “values as heuristics” by reviewing Longino’s theory of evidence and then using a case study from Elisabeth Lloyd on the biology of female orgasm, demonstrating the disconfirmation of androcentric values in evolutionary science. Within Longino’s and Lloyd’s contextual empiricism, values do not get treated as empirical evidence to be directly assessed by individuals, but rather values are heuristic tools to build models whose use can be validated or invalidated by communities based on their empirical fruitfulness in the logic and pragmatics of research questions in specific historical and cultural contexts. (shrink)

The article examines the process of niche standardization in medical research as an example of democratizing strategies implemented in industry-funded science. I argue that niche standardization can lead to undesirable epistemic and ethical consequences, if the various goals of research are not properly aligned. I examine two examples: the case of Sarafem, approved for the treatment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder in women, and the case of BiDil, approved for exclusive use in African Americans for the treatment of congestive heart failure. (...) I conclude by cautioning against the unqualified support of democratizing strategies in industry-funded research. (shrink)

This paper examines how scientists conceptualize their research methodologies. Do scientists raise concerns about vague criteria and genuine uncertainties in experimental practice? If so, what sorts of issues do they identify as problematic? Do scientists acknowledge the presence of value judgments in scientific research, and do they reflect on the relation between epistemic and non-epistemic criteria for decisionmaking? We present findings from an analysis of qualitative interviews with 63 scientific researchers who talk about their views on good research practice. We (...) argue that analysts of science should care about scientists’ conceptualizations of the criteria and of the practical judgments that scientific inquiry involves. While scientists’ accounts of their own research methodologies alone do not give us a full picture of how science really works, they can point us to areas of concern. They can inspire and direct philosophical reflections about how science works. Throughout the interviews, the participating researchers provided specific examples from their own research contexts as illustrations of their methodological points. These examples reveal that scientists often struggle to evaluate the quality of their data, to figure out whether the available evidence confirms their hypothesis, whether a replication was successful, or to what extent they can rely on peer-reviewed papers. General ideas about good research methods do not directly translate into specific evaluation criteria or strategies that can guide research and help validate empirical data. (shrink)

Helen Longino's account of objectivity has been highly regarded by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science. However, I have encountered three feminist philosophers who have all offered one especially compelling feminist critique of Longino's view: far from vindicating or privileging the work of feminist scientists, Longino's account actually requires the active cultivation of anti-feminist and misogynist scientists to balance out the possibility of feminist bias. I call this objection the Nazi problem, for the particular version that claims that her (...) view requires even the active cultivation of Nazi scientists in objective inquiry. In this paper I consider one response to the Nazi problem, which I call the good faith argument. I show that the good faith argument itself is just as objectionable, on feminist grounds, as the Nazi problem it is meant to address. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a partial analysis of the role of values in qualitative data collection in social research. The partial analysis shows that nonepistemic values have both required and permissible roles to play during this phase of research. By appeal to the analysis, I reject the ideal of value-free science as applied to qualitative data collection, and I demonstrate why two alternative ideals should likewise be dismissed as standards for values in qualitative data collection. Also, I briefly discuss (...) the extent to which the partial analysis carries over to quantitative data collection in social research. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to explore an affinity between early critical theory and analytical philosophy. The affinity is in a fairly unexpected area: philosophy of science. I argue that early critical theory embraces a view of science which is a natural if somewhat unfamiliar extension of the pragmatist one defended by Quine. In particular, I argue that Horkheimer has a version of the Quine-Duhem thesis (“underdetermination of theory choice by the evidence”). How do the Frankfurt and analytical versions (...) of the underdetermination thesis differ? Quine and others have taken the thesis to motivate a form of pragmatism. What this means is that it is certain interests that ultimately determine the choice of theory: chief among them, an interest in simplicity of our theories. However, the Critical Theorists offer us a distinctly historical materialist version of the underdetermination thesis, in which it is the imperatives of the prevailing mode of production, for example, capitalism, which are decisive. The result is an unfamiliar Marxist version of an otherwise familiar thesis from the analytic tradition. (shrink)

“Excited Delirium Syndrome” (ExDS) is a controversial diagnosis. The supposed syndrome is sometimes considered to be a potential cause of death. However, it has been argued that its sole purpose is to cover up excessive police violence because it is mainly used to explain deaths of individuals in custody. In this paper, we examine the epistemic conditions giving rise to the controversial diagnosis by discussing the relation between causal hypotheses, evidence, and data in forensic medicine. We argue that the practitioners’ (...) social context affects causal inquiry through background assumptions that enter inquiry at multiple stages. This analysis serves to better understand the wide usage of the controversial diagnosis of ExDS. (shrink)

Although there is increased recognition of the inevitable--and perhaps sometimes beneficial-- role of values in scientific inquiry, there are also growing concerns about the potential for commercial values to lead to bias. This is particularly evident in biomedical research. There is a concern that conflicts of interest created by commercialization may lead to biased reasoning or methodological choices in testing drugs and medical interventions. In addition, such interests may lead research in directions that are unresponsive to pressing social needs, when (...) it is profitable to do so. Feminist philosophy of science seems particularly well situated to provide resources to help address such concerns because this literature has both 1) theorized about how to minimize biases in science, e.g., sexist or androcentric biases, and 2) generated accounts of objectivity that do not require individual scientists to be value-neutral or disinterested. Two such accounts are assessed in relation to concerns about commercial bias: those offered by feminist empiricism and standpoint feminism. We argue that standpoint feminism is more promising because it has resources to address, not just the epistemological, but also the inescapably ethical dimensions of commercial bias. (shrink)

The argument from inductive risk is considered to be one of the strongest challenges for value-free science. A great part of its appeal lies in the idea that even an ideal epistemic agent—the “perfect scientist” or “scientist qua scientist”—cannot escape inductive risk. In this paper, I scrutinize this ambition by stipulating an idealized Bayesian decision setting. I argue that inductive risk does not show that the “perfect scientist” must, descriptively speaking, make non-epistemic value-judgements, at least not in a way that (...) undermines the value-free ideal. However, the argument is more successful in showing that there are cases where the “perfect scientist” should, normatively speaking, use non-epistemic values. I also show that this is possible without creating problems of illegitimate prescription and wishful thinking. Thus, while inductive risk does not refute value-freedom completely, it still represents a powerful critique of value-free science. (shrink)

Appeals to some thesis of underdetermination, to the idea that scientific theories and hypotheses are not entailed by the evidence that supports them, are common in feminist philosophy of science. These appeals seek to understand and explain how androcentrism and other problematic approaches to gender have found their way into good science, as well as the reverse – how feminist approaches to gender and science that are also value-laden, can contribute to good science. Focusing on W.V. Quine’s positions on holism (...) and underdetermination, I argue that although Quine’s general thesis of holism does not entail his thesis of global underdetermination, his account of and arguments for moderate holism entail a localized and generalizable underdetermination, which I call moderate underdetermination. This moderate underdetermination is not transient or true of only some theories and hypotheses. Rather, it is a permanent state of affairs that characterizes all reasonably inclusive theories and hypotheses, however much evidence for them accumulates. I contend that Quine’s moderate holism entails the most robust and defensible argument for localized underdetermination, and that feminists would do well to appeal to it in arguing that values inform good science. (shrink)

I examine the feminist epistemic values in science, presented by Helen Longino, and their role in framing microbiome causality in the study of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In particular, I show how values presented as feminist give an alternative view in scientific theories—focusing on ontological heterogeneity and mutuality of interactions rather than simplicity and one causal direction—when looking at relations between organisms and microorganisms, and between organisms (particularly humans) and their environment. I identify two approaches in microbiome study, an immunological (...) approach that looks at the microbiome pathogenicity and an ecological approach that studies the microbial activity and functions. I show the puzzles stemming from the traditional background beliefs of the immune self and germ theory in the study of IBD causality. Furthermore, I argue for the benefits of a shift to the ecological view of body-microbe interrelations. I conclude with the benefits and advantages of feminist values over traditional ones, both in creating new ways of understanding organisms’ physiology and immune systems and for future biomedical studies involving microbiome causality. (shrink)

Defenders of value-free science appeal to cognitive attitudes as part of a wedge strategy, to mark a distinction between science proper and the uses of science for decision-making, policy, etc. Distinctions between attitudes like belief and acceptance have played an important role in defending the value-free ideal. In this paper, I will explore John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy of science as an alternative to the philosophical framework the wedge strategy rests on. Dewey does draw significant and useful distinctions between different sorts (...) of cognitive attitudes taken by inquirers, but none can be used to support the wedge strategy. (shrink)

Conservation biology emerged as an organized academic discipline in the United States in the 1980s though much of its theoretical framework was originally developed in Australia. Significant differences of approach in the two traditions were resolved in the late 1990s through the formulation of a consensus framework for the design and adaptive management of conservation area networks. This entry presents an outline of that framework along with a critical analysis of conceptual issues concerning the four theoretical problems that emerge from (...) it: (i) place prioritization for conservation action; (ii) the selection of surrogates for biodiversity in conservation planning; (iii) the assessment of vulnerability of conservation areas; and (iv) the synchronization of incommensurable criteria including socio-economic constraints on conservation planning. (shrink)

Soon after the 2008 financial crisis, Gillian Tett, an anthropologist and the US Managing Editor of the Financial Times, suggested that regulators’ and practitioners’ inability to anticipate and respond to deep problems in the financial industry could be traced back to what she called “silo thinking,” wherein experts in one area know nothing about the methods and research of other areas. As she put it, “the essential challenges for investors today…”—and, we might add, for regulators and academics—is “to understand the (...) micro-details of the silos, and see how all the macro-pieces add up”.In years since, many researchers in many fields have sought to identify causes of the... (shrink)

English summary: This paper uses research on the COVID-19 pandemic as the backdrop for an accessible discussion of the value and status of science, and of the role of valuesin science. In particular, the paper seeks to debunk three common myths or dogmas about scientific research: (i) that there is such a thing as 'scientific proof' of a theory or hypothesis, (ii) that disagreement is necessarily unhealthy or unnatural in science, (iii) and that personal values play no role in scientific (...) research. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that science, understood as pure research, ought not to be affected by non-epistemic values and thus to defend the traditional ideal of value-free science. First, we will trace the distinction between science and technology, arguing that science should be identified with pure research and that any non-epistemic concern should be di­rected toward technology and technological research. Second, we will examine different kinds of values and the roles they can play in scientific research (...) to argue that science understood as pure research is mostly and in any case ought to be value-free. Third, we will consider and dismiss some widespread arguments that aim to defend, especially at a normative level, the inevitable value-ladenness of science. Finally, we will briefly return to the connections among science, technology, and values. (shrink)

Článek se zabývá problematickou politické korektnosti ve vztahu k feministické filosofii vědy. Zaměřuje pozornost na užší pojem politické korektnosti - hodnotově motivovanou nekorektní práci s fakty. Konstatuje, že navzdory explicitnímu soustředění feministických autorek a autorů na význam hodnot v projektu vědy nelze chápat feministickou filosofii vědy jako politicky korektní nebo jako vybízení k politicky korektní vědě. Naopak se politicky korektní argumentace v tomto užším smyslu mohou dopouštět i práce vystupující proti feministické či politicky korektní agendě ve vědě.

As neuroscience has gained an increased ability to enchant the general public, it has become more and more common to appeal to it as an authority on a wide variety of questions about how humans do and should act. This is especially apparent with the question of gender roles. The term ‘neurosexism’ has been coined to describe the phenomenon of using neuroscientific practices and results to promote sexist conclusions; its feminist response is called ‘neurofeminism’. Here, our aim is to survey (...) the phenomena of neurosexism and neurofeminism using a largely philosophical approach, incorporating concepts from the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, ethics, and feminist philosophy. First, we delineate how neuroscientific studies purporting to show sex brain differences may be prone to bias at a number of methodological levels – including the choice of categories to be studied, and the choice of tools for data gathering, analysis, and presentation. Then, we show how interpretations of such studies may wrongly assume the notion of ‘hard-wiring’. Furthermore, lack of attention to distinctions within philosophy of mind may result in a mistaken supposition that brain differences lead to mental and/or psychological and/or behavioral ones. It is not difficult to see how these forms of neurosexism, leading to claims of ‘hard-wired’ gender differences that map onto traditional and harmful gender stereotypes, raise ethical questions. We conclude by briefly considering one: are the harms caused by neurosexist studies and their interpretations outweighed by their potential benefits? (shrink)

A general criterion for distinguishing between epistemic and non-epistemic values is that the former promotes the attainment of truth whereas the latter does not. Daniel Steel is a proponent of this criterion, although it was initially proposed by McMullin. There are at least two consequences of this criterion; it always prioritizes epistemic values over non-epistemic values in scientific research, and it overlooks the diverse aims of science, especially the aims of regulatory or policy-oriented science. This criterion assumes the lexical priority (...) of truth or lexical priority of evidence. This paper attempts to show a few inadequacies of this assumption. The paper also demonstrates why epistemic priority over non-epistemic values is a problematic stance and how constraining the role of non-epistemic values as ‘tiebreakers’ may undermine the diverse aims of science. (shrink)

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2012.

This Thesis reconsiders the prospects for an approach to global justice centring on the proposal that every human being should possess a certain bundle of goods, which would include certain members of a distinctive category: the category of capabilities. My overall aim is to present a clarified and well-developed framework, within which such claims can be made. To do this, I visit a number of regions of normative and metanormative theorising. I begin by introducing the motivations for the capability approach, (...) and clarifying some of its most distinctive features. Next, I focus on Martha Nussbaum's version of the approach, and identify several problems therein. The most important concerns epistemology, and especially the challenges that constructivist theories pose. The middle part of the Thesis presents an alternative, based on the work of John McDowell, which I argue has superior prospects. Then, I turn to two further problems: that of making sense of the universalistic aspirations of cosmopolitanism, and that of integrating the microscopic prescriptions of ethics with the macroscopic analyses of political philosophy. Using the Aristotelian interpretation of its core framework that I have developed, I conclude that the capability approach can provide compelling answers to important questions about global justice. (shrink)