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 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is fraught with controversies over the role of values and politics in regulatory science, especially with drugs in the realm of reproductive health. Philosophers and science studies scholars have investigated the ways in which social context shapes medical knowledge through value judgments, and feminist scholars and activists have criticized sexism and injustice in reproductive medicine. Nonetheless, there has been no systematic study of values and gender norms in FDA drug regulation. I focus on (...) three questions about values in regulatory science. First, how have societal values and gender norms shaped the way that the FDA regulates drugs in the realm of reproductive health, specifically with drug labels? Second, what are the ethical, epistemic, and social consequences of these influences on regulation for women and other marginalized groups? Third, which societal values and gender norms ought to influence drug regulation about reproductive health, and how ought this happen? Integrating philosophical analysis with historical archival research and in-depth interviews, I conduct three case studies of drug labeling about reproductive health: (1) the “drug fact” about the mechanism of the morning-after pill; (2) the package inserts for patients about the health risks of oral contraceptives; and (3) the special physician labels made for prescribing drugs to pregnant women. I identify three challenges for the FDA and suggest ways to reduce the influence of sexist values and facilitate feminist alternatives. First, across these cases, I have found that there are many ways in which other concerns in reproductive medicine (such as zygotic life, fetal health, and population control) have devalued women’s health. Second, both knowledge and ignorance xvi about their reproductive health have contributed to women’s oppression, especially poor women and women of color. Finally, by avoiding the epistemic dimensions of ethics, powerful, mostly male parties in medicine (such as doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and religious institutions) have misused “informed consent,” “religious freedom,” and “paternalism” for unethical purposes. For improvement, I suggest extracting sexist values and gender norms from regulatory science that cause epistemic injustices, and I point to success stories for reforming sexism with feminism at the FDA. (shrink)

Consider any choice that affects some social policy. A decision that considers evidence will, at its heart, contain some kind of explicit or implicit “because” statement: “We are doing X because the evidence says Y.” But can evidence ever truly speak for itself, in the sense of being reducible to objective utterances that are either correct or in need of correction? Before answering, consider what you'd prefer. Would you rather receive evidence that was free of any value judgments imposed by (...) human actors, that was laden with value judgments that you agree with, or laden with value judgments that you disagree with? The central assertion of this essay is that, throughout policy analysis but especially in assessments of the costs and benefits of regulating versus encouraging new technologies (cost‐benefit analysis, or CBA), the first possibility above is a mirage, and the second and third are self‐contradictory. Instead, we are overwhelmingly confronted with a fourth possibility: we receive evidence that appears to be (or is deliberately touted as) value neutral but is suffused with hidden value judgments.In the second part of this essay, entitled “A Guided Tour through Inevitable Value Judgments,” I identify in a systematic way approximately sixty‐five value judgments that are routinely (in some cases, invariably) made in CBA, but that are kept hidden. For each judgment, I discuss its genesis as it is most commonly invoked in CBA, explain how it is hidden in plain sight, and offer one or more value judgments that could be made instead of or in addition to the conventional one. The alternative judgments highlight the width of the spectrum of reasonable conclusions an analyst could reach merely by substituting other judgments for the ones currently embedded.Bringing hidden value judgments to light is doubly valuable. First, it allows discussion to ensue on a level playing field; instead of conclusory statements about what the evidence says, transparency permits statements taking the form of “when channeled through these value judgments, the evidence says this.” Perhaps more importantly, transparency about value judgments permits participants in the discussions to offer interpretations of evidence contingent on there being different value judgments chosen at one or more points in the analysis, interpretations that may suggest that alternative course(s) of action are preferable to the one being championed. (shrink)

In this issue of Hypatia there is a consensus that science is not value-neutral and that cultural/political concerns enter into the epistemology, methodology and conclusions of scientific theory and practice. In future dialogues the question that needs to be further addressed is the precise role political concerns should play in the formulation of a feminist theory and practice of science.

In this essay we develop and argue for the adoption of a more comprehensive model of research ethics than is included within current conceptions of responsible conduct of research (RCR). We argue that our model, which we label the ethical dimensions of scientific research (EDSR), is a more comprehensive approach to encouraging ethically responsible scientific research compared to the currently typically adopted approach in RCR training. This essay focuses on developing a pedagogical approach that enables scientists to better understand and (...) appreciate one important component of this model, what we call intrinsic ethics . Intrinsic ethical issues arise when values and ethical assumptions are embedded within scientific findings and analytical methods. Through a close examination of a case study and its application in teaching, namely, evaluation of climate change integrated assessment models, this paper develops a method and case for including intrinsic ethics within research ethics training to provide scientists with a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the critical role of values and ethical choices in the production of research outcomes. (shrink)

The logical empiricists often appear as a foil for feminist theories. Their emphasis on the individualistic nature of knowledge and on the value-neutrality of science seems directly opposed to most feminist concerns. However, several recent works have highlighted aspects of Carnap's views that make him seem like much less of a straightforwardly positivist thinker. Certain of these aspects lend themselves to feminist concerns much more than the stereotypical picture would imply.

: At the turn of the twentieth century, comparative studies of human culture (ethnology) gave way to studies of the details of individual societies (ethnography). While many writers have noticed a political sub-text to this paradigm shift, they have regarded political interests as extrinsic to the change. The central historical issue is why anthropologists stopped asking global, comparative questions and started asking local questions about features of particular societies. The change in questions cannot be explained by empirical factors alone, and (...) following Jarvie, this essay argues that political factors motivate the change. Jarvie's understanding of the role played by egalitarian politics is criticized, and the essay develops a new model of how political or moral values can become constitutive of scientific inquiry. On the erotetic view of explanation, whether one proposition explains another depends on the choice of contrast class and relevance criterion. Since political or moral values can motivate these choices, explanation can depend on non-epistemic values. The essay argues that the comparative questions of nineteenth-century ethnology presupposed that Europeans were superior to other races. It closes by arguing that Fanz Boas recognized the political values implicit in nineteenth-century ethnology and rejected its questions on those grounds. (shrink)

The logical empiricists often appear as a foil for feminist theories. Their emphasis on the individualistic nature of knowledge and on the value-neutrality of science seems directly opposed to most feminist concerns. However, several recent works have highlighted aspects of Carnap's views that make him seem like much less of a straightforwardly positivist thinker. Certain of these aspects lend themselves to feminist concerns much more than the stereotypical picture would imply.

In this issue of Hypatia there is a consensus that science is not value-neutral and that cultural/political concerns enter into the epistemology, methodology and conclusions of scientific theory and practice. In future dialogues the question that needs to be further addressed is the precise role political concerns should play in the formulation of a feminist theory and practice of science.

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)

Feminist science scholars need models of science that allow feminist accounts, not only of the inception and reception of scientific theories, but of their content as well. I argue that a "Network Model," properly modified, makes clear theoretically how race, sex and class considerations can influence the content of scientific theories. The adoption of the "corpuscular philosophy" by Robert Boyle and other Puritan scientists during the English Civil War offers us a good case on which to test such a model. (...) According to these men, the minute corpuscles constituting the physical world are dead, not alive; passive, not active. I argue that they chose the principle that matter is passive in part because its contrary, the principle that matter is alive and self-moving, had a radical social meaning and use to the women and men working for progressive change in mid-seventeenth century England. (shrink)