As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)

The question of the relationship of the making of value judgments in a typically ethical sense to the methods and procedures of science has been discussed in the literature at least to that point which e. e. cummings somewhere refers to as “The Mystical Moment of Dullness.” Nevertheless, albeit with some trepidation, I feel that something more may fruitfully be said on the subject.

Although epistemic values have become widely accepted as part of scientific reasoning, non-epistemic values have been largely relegated to the "external" parts of science (the selection of hypotheses, restrictions on methodologies, and the use of scientific technologies). I argue that because of inductive risk, or the risk of error, non-epistemic values are required in science wherever non-epistemic consequences of error should be considered. I use examples from dioxin studies to illustrate how non-epistemic consequences of error can and should be considered (...) in the internal stages of science: choice of methodology, characterization of data, and interpretation of results. (shrink)

Critics of the ideal of value‐free science often assume that they must reject the distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values. I argue that this assumption is mistaken and that the distinction can be used to clarify and defend the argument from inductive risk, which challenges the value‐free ideal. I develop the idea that the characteristic feature of epistemic values is that they promote, either intrinsically or extrinsically, the attainment of truths. This proposal is shown to answer common objections to the (...) distinction and provide a principled basis for separating legitimate from illegitimate influences of nonepistemic values in scientific inference. *Received June 2009; revised September 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: 503 S. Kedzie Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824‐1032; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

It is argued that we need a richer version of Bayesian decision theory, admitting both subjective and objective probabilities and providing rational criteria for choice of our prior probabilities. We also need a theory of tentative acceptance of empirical hypotheses. There is a discussion of subjective and of objective probabilities and of the relationship between them, as well as a discussion of the criteria used in choosing our prior probabilities, such as the principles of indifference and of maximum entropy, and (...) the simplicity ranking of alternative hypotheses. (shrink)

Two major reasons feminists are concerned with science relate to science's social effects: that science can be a powerful ally in the struggle for equality for women; and that all too frequently science has been a generator and perpetuator of inequality. This concern with the social effects of science leads feminists to a different mode of appraising science from the purely epistemic one prized by most contemporary philosophers of science. The upshot, I suggest, is a new program for philosophy of (...) science, a program for a socially responsible philosophy of science. (shrink)

I contend that Janet Kourany's "A Philosophy of Science for the Twenty-First Century" contains three levels of projects: (1) a naturalistic project, (2) a critical project, and (3) a political project. The naturalistic project is already well established. The critical project is less valued and less established within the profession, but seems a worthy and achievable goal. The political project, I argue, takes one outside the professional pursuit of the philosophy of science. The critical project encompasses both the evaluation of (...) scientific research programs and of empirical conclusions. I contend that the former is widely acknowledged as legitimate while the latter is unacceptable. (shrink)

It is not uncommon for philosophers to maintain that one is obliged to believe nothing beyond the observable consequences of a successful scientific theory. This doctrine is variously known as instrumentalism, fictionalism, constructive empiricism, theoretical skepticism and the philosophy of "as if". The purpose of the present paper is to subject such forms of scientific antirealism to a two-pronged critique. In the first place it is argued that there is no genuine difference between believing a theory and being disposed to (...) use it to make predictions, design experiments, and so on; so traditional instrumentalism is incoherent. In the second place, a retrenched position is considered in which theoretical belief would be tolerated but said to be justified on merely pragmatic, and not epistemic, grounds. In criticizing this point of view it is shown that the onus of proof rests on anyone who maintains it; furthermore, the only possible rationale for it (which is based on underdetermination of theory by data) is described, and various deficiencies in this argument are exposed. (shrink)

Several authors have recently contended that modern statistical theory provides a powerful argument in favor of the view that if scientists accept or reject hypotheses at all they do so only in a behavioral sense--i.e., in a sense which reduces "accepting P" to "acting on the basis of P relative to an objective O". In this paper, the argument from statistics in favor of a behavioral view is outlined; an interpretation of two statistical procedures (Bayes method and signifigance testing) is (...) offered which does not entail a behavioral analysis of "accepting a hypothesis"; and the conclusion that non-behavioral analyses of belief are compatible with the application of current statistical theory in the sciences is tentatively advanced. (shrink)