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  1. Distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate values in climate modeling.Kristen Intemann - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (2):217-232.
    While it is widely acknowledged that science is not “free” of non-epistemic values, there is disagreement about the roles that values can appropriately play. Several have argued that non-epistemic values can play important roles in modeling decisions, particularly in addressing uncertainties ; Risbey 2007; Biddle and Winsberg 2010; Winsberg : 111-137, 2012); van der Sluijs 359-389, 2012). On the other hand, such values can lead to bias ; Bray ; Oreskes and Conway 2010). Thus, it is important to identify when (...)
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  • A new direction for science and values.Daniel J. Hicks - 2014 - Synthese 191 (14):3271-95.
    The controversy over the old ideal of “value-free science” has cooled significantly over the past decade. Many philosophers of science now agree that even ethical and political values may play a substantial role in all aspects of scientific inquiry. Consequently, in the last few years, work in science and values has become more specific: Which values may influence science, and in which ways? Or, how do we distinguish illegitimate from illegitimate kinds of influence? In this paper, I argue that this (...)
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  • Nonepistemic Values and the Multiple Goals of Science.Kevin C. Elliott & Daniel J. McKaughan - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (1):1-21.
    Recent efforts to argue that nonepistemic values have a legitimate role to play in assessing scientific models, theories, and hypotheses typically either reject the distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values or incorporate nonepistemic values only as a secondary consideration for resolving epistemic uncertainty. Given that scientific representations can legitimately be evaluated not only based on their fit with the world but also with respect to their fit with the needs of their users, we show in two case studies that nonepistemic (...)
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  • Philosophy of Science: A Unified Approach.Gerhard Schurz - 2013 - New York: Routledge.
    Philosophy of Science: A Unified Approach combines a general introduction to philosophy of science with an integrated survey of all its important subfields. As the book’s subtitle suggests, this excellent overview is guided methodologically by "a unified approach" to philosophy of science: behind the diversity of scientific fields one can recognize a methodological unity of the sciences. This unity is worked out in this book, revealing all the while important differences between subject areas. Structurally, this comprehensive book offers a two-part (...)
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  • In defence of the value free ideal.Gregor Betz - 2013 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 3 (2):207-220.
    The ideal of value free science states that the justification of scientific findings should not be based on non-epistemic (e.g. moral or political) values. It has been criticized on the grounds that scientists have to employ moral judgements in managing inductive risks. The paper seeks to defuse this methodological critique. Allegedly value-laden decisions can be systematically avoided, it argues, by making uncertainties explicit and articulating findings carefully. Such careful uncertainty articulation, understood as a methodological strategy, is exemplified by the current (...)
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  • Environmental Justice, Values, and Scientific Expertise.Daniel Steel & Kyle Powys Whyte - 2012 - Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 22 (2):163-182.
    This essay compares two philosophical proposals concerning the relation between values and science, both of which reject the value-free ideal but nevertheless place restrictions on how values and science should interact. The first of these proposals relies on a distinction between the direct and indirect roles of values, while the second emphasizes instead a distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values. We consider these two proposals in connection with a case study of disputed research on the topic of environmental justice and (...)
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  • Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal.Heather Douglas - 2009 - University of Pittsburgh Press.
    Douglas proposes a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, protecting the integrity and objectivity of science.
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  • Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry.Helen E. Longino - 1990 - Princeton University Press.
    This is an important book precisely because there is none other quite like it.
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  • Values in Science beyond Underdetermination and Inductive Risk.Matthew J. Brown - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):829-839.
    Proponents of the value ladenness of science rely primarily on arguments from underdetermination or inductive risk, which share the premise that we should only consider values where the evidence runs out or leaves uncertainty; they adopt a criterion of lexical priority of evidence over values. The motivation behind lexical priority is to avoid reaching conclusions on the basis of wishful thinking rather than good evidence. This is a real concern, however, that giving lexical priority to evidential considerations over values is (...)
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  • On Values in Science: Is the Epistemic/Non-Epistemic Distinction Useful?Phyllis Rooney - 1992 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:13-22.
    The debate about the rational and the social in science has sometimes been developed in the context of a distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values. Paying particular attention to two important discussion in the last decade, by Longino and by McMullin, I argue that a fuller understanding of values in science ultimately requires abandoning the distinction itself. This is argued directly in terms of an analysis of the lack of clarity concerning what epistemic values are. I also argue that the (...)
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  • Direct and Indirect Roles for Values in Science.Kevin C. Elliott - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (2):303-324.
    Although many philosophers have employed the distinction between “direct” and “indirect” roles for values in science, I argue that it merits further clarification. The distinction can be formulated in several ways: as a logical point, as a distinction between epistemic attitudes, or as a clarification of different consequences associated with accepting scientific claims. Moreover, it can serve either as part of a normative ideal or as a tool for policing how values influence science. While various formulations of the distinction may (...)
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  • (3 other versions)Are rcts the gold standard?Nancy Cartwright - 2007 - Biosocieties 1 (1):11-20.
    The claims of randomized controlled trials to be the gold standard rest on the fact that the ideal RCT is a deductive method: if the assumptions of the test are met, a positive result implies the appropriate causal conclusion. This is a feature that RCTs share with a variety of other methods, which thus have equal claim to being a gold standard. This article describes some of these other deductive methods and also some useful non-deductive methods, including the hypothetico-deductive method. (...)
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  • Science, truth, and democracy.Philip Kitcher - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Striving to boldly redirect the philosophy of science, this book by renowned philosopher Philip Kitcher examines the heated debate surrounding the role of science in shaping our lives. Kitcher explores the sharp divide between those who believe that the pursuit of scientific knowledge is always valuable and necessary--the purists--and those who believe that it invariably serves the interests of people in positions of power. In a daring turn, he rejects both perspectives, working out a more realistic image of the sciences--one (...)
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  • The Scientist Qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments.Richard Rudner - 1953 - Philosophy of Science 20 (1):1-6.
    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.
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  • Philosophical import of non-epistemic values in clinical trials and data interpretation.Joby Varghese - 2019 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 41 (2):14.
    In this essay, I argue that at least in two phases of pharmaceutical research, especially while assessing the adequacy of the accumulated data and its interpretation, the influence of non-epistemic values is necessary. I examine a specific case from the domain of pharmaceutical research and demonstrate that there are multiple competing sets of values which may legitimately or illegitimately influence different phases of the inquiry. In such cases, the choice of the appropriate set of values—epistemic as well as non-epistemic—should be (...)
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  • Time-sensitivity in Science.Daria Jadreškić - manuscript
    I examine the role of time-sensitivity in science by drawing on a discussion between Kevin Elliott and Daniel McKaughan and Daniel Steel, on the role of non-epistemic values in theory assessment and the epistemic status of speed of inference. I argue that: 1) speed supervenes on ease of use in the cases they discuss, 2) speed is an epistemic value, and 3) Steel’s account of values doesn’t successfully distinguish extrinsically epistemic from non-epistemic values. Finally, I propose an account of time-sensitivity.
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  • Influence and prioritization of non-epistemic values in clinical trial designs: a study of Ebola ça Suffit trial.Joby Varghese - 2018 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 10):2393-2409.
    The recent Ebola virus disease outbreak in Western African countries has raised questions regarding the feasibility of adopting conventional trial designs such as randomized controlled trials for conducting experimental trials in the midst of a fatal epidemic. In the context of Ebola ça Suffit trial conducted in Guinea for testing the efficacy and effectiveness of rVSV–ZEBOV, a candidate vaccine, I argue that the trial design and the methodologies adopted for the trial have been rightly chosen for their ethical appropriateness and (...)
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  • Climate Change and Second-Order Uncertainty: Defending a Generalized, Normative, and Structural Argument from Inductive Risk.Daniel Steel - 2016 - Perspectives on Science 24 (6):696-721.
    This article critically examines a recent philosophical debate on the role of values in climate change forecasts, such as those found in assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On one side, several philosophers insist that the argument from inductive risk, as developed by Rudner and Douglas among others, applies to this case. AIR aims to show that ethical value judgments should influence decisions about what is sufficient evidence for accepting scientific hypotheses that have implications for policy issues. (...)
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  • Why We Should Not Reject the Value-Free Ideal of Science.Robert Hudson - 2016 - Perspectives on Science 24 (2):167-191.
    In recent years, the value-freeness of science has come under extensive critique. Early objectors to the notion of value-free science can be found in Rudner and Churchman, later objections occur in Leach and Gaa, and more recent critics are Kitcher, Douglas, and Elliott. The goal of this paper is to examine and critique two arguments opposed to the notion of a value-free science. The first argument, the uncertainty argument, cites the endemic uncertainty of science and concludes that values are needed (...)
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  • State of the field: Transient underdetermination and values in science.Justin Biddle - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (1):124-133.
    This paper examines the state of the field of “science and values”—particularly regarding the implications of the thesis of transient underdetermination for the ideal of value-free science, or what I call the “ideal of epistemic purity.” I do this by discussing some of the main arguments in the literature, both for and against the ideal. I examine a preliminary argument from transient underdetermination against the ideal of epistemic purity, and I discuss two different formulations of an objection to this argument—an (...)
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  • A philosophy of science for the twenty‐first century.Janet A. Kourany - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (1):1-14.
    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 (...)
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  • Well‐Ordered Science.Philip Kitcher - 2001 - In Science, truth, and democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
    The question is answered by introducing an ideal, the ideal of well‐ordered science In well‐ordered science the inquiries pursued are those that would have been selected by a well‐informed group of deliberators dedicated to working cooperatively with one another. Well‐ordered science is contrasted with vulgar democracy and with elitism. The chapter suggests various ways in which our current practice of the sciences falls short of the ideal.
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  • Ebola: what it tells us about medical ethics.Angus J. Dawson - 2015 - Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (1):107-110.
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  • The Fate of Knowledge.Helen E. Longino - 2001 - Princeton University Press.
    Helen Longino seeks to break the current deadlock in the ongoing wars between philosophers of science and sociologists of science--academic battles founded on disagreement about the role of social forces in constructing scientific knowledge. While many philosophers of science downplay social forces, claiming that scientific knowledge is best considered as a product of cognitive processes, sociologists tend to argue that numerous noncognitive factors influence what scientists learn, how they package it, and how readily it is accepted. Underlying this disagreement, however, (...)
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  • (3 other versions)Are RCTs the gold standard?Nancy Cartwright - 2007 - In Causal powers: what are they? why do we need them? what can be done with them and what cannot? Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science.
    The claims of RCTs to be the gold standard rest on the fact that the ideal RCT is a deductive method: if the assumptions of the test are met, a positive result implies the appropriate causal conclusion. This is a feature that RCTs share with a variety of other methods, which thus have equal claim to being a gold standard. This paper describes some of these other deductive methods and also some useful non-deductive methods, including the hypothetico-deductive method. It argues (...)
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  • (1 other version)Ebola vaccine development plan: ethics, concerns and proposed measures.Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan, Aminu Yakubu, Bridget Haire & Kristin Peterson - 2016 - BMC Medical Ethics 17 (1):1-8.
    BackgroundThe global interest in developing therapies for Ebola infection management and its prevention is laudable. However the plan to conduct an emergency immunization program specifically for healthcare workers using experimental vaccines raises some ethical concerns. This paper shares perspectives on these concerns and suggests how some of them may best be addressed.DiscussionThe recruitment of healthcare workers for Ebola vaccine research has challenges. It could result in coercion of initially dissenting healthcare workers to assist in the management of EVD infected persons (...)
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  • Backtracking and the Ethics of Framing: Lessons from Voles and Vasopressin.Daniel McKaughan & Kevin Elliott - 2012 - Science 338 (6112):341-344.
    When communicating scientific information, experts often face difficult choices about how to promote public understanding while also maintaining an appropriate level of objectivity. We argue that one way for scientists and others involved in communicating scientific information to alleviate these tensions is to pay closer attention to the major frames employed in the contexts in which they work. By doing so, they can ideally employ useful frames while also enabling the recipients of information to “backtrack” to relatively uncontroversial facts and (...)
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  • Accepting an Epistemically Inferior Alternative? A Comment on Elliott and McKaughan.Daniel Steel - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (4):606-612.
    Kevin Elliott and Dan McKaughan argue that, in some cases, nonepistemic values provide legitimate reasons for scientists to accept an epistemically inferior option, a claim that they support with two case studies. This essay argues that Elliott and McKaughan have not shown that their case studies are indeed ones in which an epistemically inferior option was accepted. Specifically, their interpretation of these cases depends on problematic premises that it is epistemically better to wait for a slower-but-more-reliable method than to accept (...)
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  • Epistemic values and the argument from inductive risk.Daniel Steel - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (1):14-34.
    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 (...)
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  • (1 other version)Ebola: what it teaches us about medical ethics. A response to Angus Dawson.Bridget G. Haire & Morenike O. Folayan - 2016 - Journal of Medical Ethics 42 (1):59-60.
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  • Social values and scientific evidence: The case of the HPV vaccines.Kristen Intemann & Inmaculada de Melo-Martín - 2010 - Biology and Philosophy 25 (2):203-213.
    Several have argued that the aims of scientific research are not always independent of social and ethical values. Yet this is often assumed only to have implications for decisions about what is studied, or which research projects are funded, and not for methodological decisions or standards of evidence. Using the case of the recently developed HPV vaccines, we argue that the social aims of research can also play important roles in justifying decisions about (1) how research problems are defined in (...)
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  • Selecting the Right Tool For the Job.Arthur L. Caplan, Carolyn Plunkett & Bruce Levin - 2015 - American Journal of Bioethics 15 (4):4-10.
    There are competing ethical concerns when it comes to designing any clinical research study. Clinical trials of possible treatments for Ebola virus are no exception. If anything, the competing ethical concerns are exacerbated in trying to find answers to a deadly, rapidly spreading, infectious disease. The primary goal of current research is to identify experimental therapies that can cure Ebola or cure it with reasonable probability in infected individuals. Pursuit of that goal must be methodologically sound, practical and consistent with (...)
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  • (1 other version)Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology: An Examination of Gender in Science.Cassandra L. Pinnick, Noretta Koertge & Robert F. Almeder - 2003 - Rutgers University Press.
    This volume presents the first systematic evaluation of a feminist epistemology of sciences' power to transform both the practice of science and our society. Unlike existing critiques, this book questions the fundamental feminist suggestion that purging science of alleged male biases will advance the cause of both science and by extension, social justice. The book is divided into four sections: the strange status of feminist epistemology, testing feminist claims about scientific practice, philosophical and political critiques of feminist epistemology, and future (...)
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  • Social values and scientific evidence: the case of the HPV vaccines.Kristen Intemann & Inmaculada Melo-martín - 2010 - Biology and Philosophy 25 (2):203-213.
    Several have argued that the aims of scientific research are not always independent of social and ethical values. Yet this is often assumed only to have implications for decisions about what is studied, or which research projects are funded, and not for methodological decisions or standards of evidence. Using the case of the recently developed HPV vaccines, we argue that the social aims of research can also play important roles in justifying decisions about (1) how research problems are defined in (...)
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  • Exponential growth in Ebola outbreak since May 14, 2014.Allen G. Hunt - 2014 - Complexity 20 (2):8-11.
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