In this paper I shall defend the idea that there is an abstract and general core meaning of objectivity, and what is seen as a variety of concepts or conceptions of objectivity are in fact criteria of, or means to achieve, objectivity. I shall then discuss the ideal of value-free science and its relation to the objectivity of science; its status can be at best a criterion of, or means for, objectivity. Given this analysis, we can (...) then turn to the problem of inductive risk. Do the value judgements regarding inductive risk really pose a threat to the objectivity of science? I claim that this is not the case because they do not lower the thresholds scientifically postulated for objectivity. I shall conclude the paper with a discussion of under-appreciated influences of values on science, which indeed pose a serious threat to the objectivity of some scientific disciplines. (shrink)

Many philosophers of science have maintained that science should be value-free; still others believe that such ideal is neither achievable nor desirable for science. Hugh Lacey is presently one of the main supporters of the idea of value-free science and his theory is probably the most debated today and attracts the most attention and criticism. Therefore, in this text, I will primarily analyze his theory of value-free science. After briefly (...) defining the notion of value I highlight which strategy Lacey chooses to lay a firm foundation for the concept of science without value, with his starting point being the differentiation between cognitive and non-cognitive values. Then I describe three basic characteristics of Lacey’s value-free science: impartiality, neutrality, and autonomy. However, the overall plan and design of his project, together with some concrete steps he takes, are not without problems in our view. I will try to point out some of these problematic issues and provide brief suggestions for alleviating them. (shrink)

Even if the “value-free ideal of science” (VFI) were an unattainable goal, one could ask: can it be a useful fiction, one that is beneficial for the research community and society? This question is particularly crucial for scholars and institutions concerned with research integrity (RI), as one cannot offer normative guidance to researchers without making some assumptions about what ideal scientific research looks like. Despite the insofar little interaction between scholars studying RI and those working on values (...) in science, the overlap of topics and interests make collaboration between the two fields promising for understanding research and its ethics. Here, we identify—for the use of RI scholars—the non-epistemic reasons (societal, political, professional) for and against the VFI considered in the literature. All of these are concerned with the beneficial or detrimental consequences that endorsing the VFI would have on society, policy-making, or the scientific community, with some authors appealing to the same principles to argue for opposite positions. Though most of the reviewed articles do not endorse the VFI, it is generally agreed that some constraints have to be put on the use of non-epistemic values. Disagreement on the utility of the VFI lies both on the different epistemic-descriptive positions taken by different authors, and on the scarcity of relevant empirical studies. Engaging critically with the reasons here identified and more in general with the values in science debate will help the RI community decide whether the VFI should be included in future codes of conduct. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue that ontological choices in scientific practice undermine common formulations of the value-free ideal in science. First, I argue that the truth values of scientific statements depend on ontological choices. For example, statements about entities such as species, race, memory, intelligence, depression, or obesity are true or false relative to the choice of a biological, psychological, or medical ontology. Second, I show that ontological choices often depend on non-epistemic values. On (...) the basis of these premises, I argue that it is often neither possible nor desirable to evaluate scientific statements independently of non-epistemic values. Finally, I suggest that considerations of ontological choices do not only challenge the value-free ideal but also help to specify positive roles of non-epistemic values in an often neglected area of scientific practice. (shrink)

Despite the conclusions from the contemporary philosophy of science, many economists cherish the ideal of positive science. Therefore, value-free economics is still the central paradigm in economics. The first aim of the paper is to investigate economics' axiomatic assumptions from an epistemological perspective. The critical analysis of the literature shows that the positive-normative dichotomy is exaggerated. Moreover, value-free economics is based on normative foundations that have a negative impact on individuals and society. The paper's (...) second aim is to show that economics' normativity is not a problem because the discussion concerning values is possible and unavoidable. In this context, Weber and other methodologists are investigated. The conclusion of the paper is that science can thrive without strict methodological rules thanks to institutional mechanisms. Therefore, economists could learn from artists who accept the world without absolute rules. This perspective opens the possibility for methodological pluralism and normative approaches. (shrink)

The goal of the article is to substantiate that despite the criticism the paradigm in economics will not change because of the axiomatic assumptions of value-free economics. How these assumptions work is demonstrated on the example of Gary Becker’s economic approach which is analyzed from the perspective of scientific research programme. The author indicates hard core of economic approach and the protective belt which makes hard core immune from any criticism. This immunity leads economists to believe that they (...) are objective scientists and, consequently, it results in epistemological hubris. Due to its tautological nature, economic approach is considered to be a degenerative programme. This conclusion is extended on value-free economics. In spite of these problems, many economists still believe in positive economics and they dismiss normative approaches. It has a negative influence on people. The conclusion of the article is that thanks to axiomatic assumptions economists do not have objective and ironclad methodology and they should accept normative values in their research. (shrink)

As inductive decision-making procedures, the inferences made by machine learning programs are subject to underdetermination by evidence and bear inductive risk. One strategy for overcoming these challenges is guided by a presumption in philosophy of science that inductive inferences can and should be value-free. Applied to machine learning programs, the strategy assumes that the influence of values is restricted to data and decision outcomes, thereby omitting internal value-laden design choice points. In this paper, I apply arguments (...) from feminist philosophy of science to machine learning programs to make the case that the resources required to respond to these inductive challenges render critical aspects of their design constitutively value-laden. I demonstrate these points specifically in the case of recidivism algorithms, arguing that contemporary debates concerning fairness in criminal justice risk-assessment programs are best understood as iterations of traditional arguments from inductive risk and demarcation, and thereby establish the value-laden nature of automated decision-making programs. Finally, in light of these points, I address opportunities for relocating the value-free ideal in machine learning and the limitations that accompany them. (shrink)

The books’ goal is to answer the question: Do the weaknesses of value-free economics imply the need for a paradigm shift? The author synthesizes criticisms from different perspectives (descriptive and methodological). Special attention is paid to choices over time, because in this area value-free economics has the most problems. In that context, the enriched concept of multiple self is proposed and investigated. However, it is not enough to present the criticisms towards value-free economics. For (...) scientists, a bad paradigm is better than no paradigm. Therefore, the author considers whether value-based economics with normative approaches such as economics of happiness, capability approach, libertarian paternalism, and the concept of multiple self can be the alternative paradigm for value-free economics. This book is essential reading to everyone interested in the current state of economics as a discipline. (shrink)

Can we sustain the idea, once expressed by Henri Poincaré, that science and values only touch but do not interpenetrate? Isn’t such an idea nothing more than an idealization? Is there no link between science and genuine human flourishing?

The value-free ideal for science holds that values should not influence the core features of scientific reasoning. We defend the difference-to-inference model of value-permeation, which holds that value-permeation in science is problematic when values make a difference to the inferences made about a hypothesis. This view of value-permeation is superior to existing views, and it suggests a corresponding maxim—namely, that scientists should strive to eliminate differences to inference. This maxim is the basis of (...) a novel value-free ideal for science. -/- . (shrink)

Publics trust experts for personal and pro-social reasons. Scientists are among the experts publics trust most, and so, epistemic trust is routinely afforded to them. The call for epistemic trust to be more socially situated in order to account for the impact of science on society and public welfare is at the forefront of enhanced epistemic trust. I argue that the value-free ideal for science challenges establishing enhanced epistemic trust by preventing the inclusion of non-epistemic values (...) throughout the evaluation of evidence and communication of these values. By selectively silencing non-epistemic values, the ideal cannot take into account publics’ social and moral responses to inductive risk, which are instrumental for defining and determining public welfare. Furthermore, by emphasising epistemic values almost exclusively in science education and communication, the value-free ideal is presented to publics in such a way that it becomes a social indicator of trust. I show this through examination of the importance of values in decisions to trust, and conclude that values (and restrictions on them) can be used by lay publics to help decide which experts to trust. (shrink)

Straightening the current ‘value-laden turn’ (VLT) in the philosophical literature on values in science, and reviving the legacy of the value-free ideal of science (VFI), this paper argues that the influence of extra-scientific values should be minimised—not excluded—in the core phase of scientific inquiry where claims are accepted or rejected. Noting that the original arguments for the VFI (ensuring the truth of scientific knowledge, respecting the autonomy of science results users, preserving public trust in (...) science) have not been satisfactorily addressed by proponents of the VLT, it proposes four prerequisites which any model for values in the acceptance/rejection phase of scientific inquiry should respect, coming from the fundamental requirement to distinguish between facts and values: (1) the truth of scientific knowledge must be ensured; (2) the uncertainties associated with scientific claims must be stated clearly; (3) claims accepted into the scientific corpus must be distinguished from claims taken as a basis for action. An additional prerequisite of (4) simplicity and systematicity is desirable, if the model is to be applicable. Methodological documents from international institutions and regulation agencies are used to illustrate the prerequisites. A model combining Betz’s conception (stating uncertainties associated with scientific claims) and Hansson’s corpus model (ensuring the truth of the scientific corpus and distinguishing it from other claims taken as a basis for action) is proposed. Additional prerequisites are finally suggested for future research, stemming from the requirement for philosophy of science to self-reflect on its own values: (5) any model for values in science must be descriptively and normatively relevant; and (6) its consequences must be thoroughly assessed. (shrink)

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)

Science is, if not the most, at least one of the most important human activities which has an undeniable impact on our lives. However, it is a matter of debate that science and its various applications have many negative effects besides their numerous positive contributions. As the negative effects of the science and its applications have become more visible, the science-value relation has regained popularity in the philosophy of science. Precautionary principle is one of (...) the central concepts of the late science-value debates. We first scrutinize the science-value relation, especially whether the science is value-free or value-laden activity, from the perspective of history and philosophy of science, and argue that sciences involve both epistemic and non-epistemic values. Then we introduce the precautionary principle and discuss the possible causes and outcomes of having it as a methodological component of scientific research. Finally, we argue that, if the science-value relation can be reestablished on ethical grounds, as the precautionary principle demands, the negative effects of science and its applications on human health and environment might be minimized and science could contribute more to human happiness. -/- Bilim yaşamımızı biçimlendiren en önemli insan etkinliklerinden birisi, belki de en önemlisidir. Ancak bilimlerin ve onun çeşitli uygulamalarının insan yaşamına olumlu katkılarının yanında insan ve çevre sağlığı üzerinde pek çok olumsuz etkilerinin de olduğu tartışılmaktadır. Bilim ve uygulamalarının insan sağlığı ve çevre üzerindeki olumsuz etkilerinin her geçen gün daha çok görünür hâle gelmesi, bilim-değer ilişkisini yeniden önemli bir tartışma başlığı hâline getirmiştir. İhtiyat ilkesi bilim-değer ilişkisi üzerine yapılan tartışmaların odağında yer alan kavramlardan biridir. Biz çalışmamızda önce bilim-değer ilişkisini, bilimin değerden bağımsız bir etkinlik olup olmadığını bilim tarihi ve felsefesi perspektifinden ele alıyor ve bilimlerin hem epistemik hem de epistemik olmayan değerler içerdiğini savunuyoruz. Daha sonra ihtiyat ilkesini ele alıyor ve onun bilimsel araştırmaların yöntembilimsel bir bileşeni hâline getirilmesinin olası nedenleri ve sonuçları üzerinde duruyoruz. Son olarak, bilim-değer ilişkisinin, ihtiyat ilkesi örneğinde olduğu gibi etik temelli kurulması durumunda bilim ve uygulamalarının insan sağlığı ve çevre üzerindeki olumsuz etkilerinin azaltılabileceğini ve bilimin insan mutluluğuna daha çok katkı sağlayabileceğini tartışıyoruz. (shrink)

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 problem requires philosophers of science to take a new direction. I present two case studies in the influence of values on scientific inquiry: feminist values in archaeology and commercial values in pharmaceutical research. I offer a preliminary assessment of these cases, that the influence of values was legitimate in the feminist case, but not in the pharmaceutical case. I then turn to three major approaches to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate influences of values, including the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values and Heather Douglas’ distinction between direct and indirect roles for values. I argue that none of these three approaches gives an adequate analysis of the two cases. In the concluding section, I briefly sketch my own approach, which draws more heavily on ethics than the others, and is more promising as a solution to the current problem. This is the new direction in which I think science and values should move. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently argued, against a prevailing orthodoxy, that standards of knowledge partly depend on a subject’s interests; the more is at stake for the subject, the less she is in a position to know. This view, which is dubbed “Pragmatic Encroachment” has historical and conceptual connections to arguments in philosophy of science against the received model of science as value free. I bring the two debates together. I argue that Pragmatic Encroachment and the model of (...) value-laden science reinforce each other. Drawing on Douglas’ argument about the indispensability of value judgments in science, and psychological evidence about people’s inability to objectively reason about what they care about, I introduce a novel argument for Pragmatic Encroachment. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has famously responded to the logical problem of evil by appealing to the intrinsic value of significant free will. A problem, however, arises because traditional theists believe that both God and the redeemed who go to heaven cannot do wrong acts. This entails that both God and the redeemed in heaven lack significant freedom. If significant freedom is indeed valuable, then God and the redeemed in heaven would lack something intrinsically valuable. However, if significant freedom is (...) not intrinsically valuable, then Plantinga’s reply to the logical problem of evil fails. In this paper, we assess three contemporary solutions to the dilemma above. The first is the love solution, which proposes that significant freedom is necessary for agents to love, and loving others is intrinsically good. The second is the soul-making solution, which argues that significant freedom is necessary for self-developing one’s moral character, and having a self-developed moral character is intrinsically good. The third is the derivative free will solution, which argues that significant freedom is necessary for derivative free will in heaven, and derivative free will is intrinsically good. We raise problems against all three solutions and instead defend a fourth solution – the ultimate responsibility solution. That is, significant freedom is instrumentally valuable as it gives agents ultimate responsibility with regards to morally significant acts. Finally, we defend the ultimate responsibility solution against two major objections. (shrink)

One of the most common criticisms one hears of the idea of granting a legitimate role for social values in theory choice in science is that it just doesn’t make sense to regard social preferences as relevant to the truth or to the way things are. “What is at issue,” wrote Susan Haack, is “whether it is possible to derive an ‘is’ from an ‘ought.’ ” One can see that this is not possible, she concludes, “as soon as one (...) expresses it plainly: that propositions about what states of affairs are desirable or deplorable could be evidence that things are, or are not, so” (Haack 1993a, 35, emphasis in original). The purpose of this chapter is not to determine whether this widespread view is correct, but rather to show that even if we grant it (which I do), we may still consistently believe that social values have a legitimate role in theory choice in science. I will defend this conclusion by outlining a view about social values and theory choice that is available to a Constructive Empiricist anti-realist, but not to a realist. (shrink)

This article explains that and how values and evaluations are unavoidably and conspicuously present within natural scientists and their sciences—and why they are definitely not “value-free”. It shows how such things can be rationally understood and assessed within the framework of formal axiology, the value theory developed by Robert S. Hartman and those who have been deeply influenced by his reflections. It explains Hartman’s highly plausible and applicable definitions of “good” and related value concepts. It identifies (...) three basic kinds of value objects and human evaluations of these, and it shows how these should be ranked or prioritized in comparative worth. Finally, throughout, it applies all of the above to what is really going on within natural scientists and their sciences. It shows how anyone, scientists included, should proceed in order to make sense of what and how they value. (shrink)

What makes science trustworthy to the public? This chapter examines one proposed answer: the trustworthiness of science is based at least in part on its independence from the idiosyncratic values, interests, and ideas of individual scientists. That is, science is trustworthy to the extent that following the scientific process would result in the same conclusions, regardless of the particular scientists involved. We analyze this "idiosyncrasy-free ideal" for science by looking at philosophical debates about inductive risk, (...) focusing on two recent proposals which offer different methods of avoiding idiosyncrasy: the high epistemic standards proposal and the democratic values proposal. (shrink)

Traditionally, the problem of free will is formulated as the problem of how there can be free will if determinism is ture. I argue it should be formulated as the problem of whether, or to what extent, the capacity to realize what is of value in life is compatible with what modern science tells us about the universe.

It is now commonly held that values play a role in scientific judgment, but many arguments for that conclusion are limited. First, many arguments do not show that values are, strictly speaking, indispensable. The role of values could in principle be filled by a random or arbitrary decision. Second, many arguments concern scientific theories and concepts which have obvious practical consequences, thus suggesting or at least leaving open the possibility that abstruse sciences without such a connection could be value- (...) class='Hi'>free. Third, many arguments concern the role values play in inferring from evidence, thus taking evidence as given. This paper argues that these limitations do not hold in general. There are values involved in every scientific judgment. They cannot even conceivably be replaced by a coin toss, they arise as much for exotic as for practical sciences, and they are at issue as much for observation as for explicit inference. (shrink)

An understanding of the ethical problems that have arisen in the funding of scientific research at universities requires some attention to doctrines that have traditionally been held about science itself. Such doctrines, we hope to show, are themselves central to many of these ethical problems. It is often thought that the questions examined by scientists, and the theories that guide scientific research, are chosen for uniquely scientific reasons, independently of extra-scientific questions of value or merit. We shall argue (...) that this is an illusion. It is an illusion to think, especially in the present era, that science can even have a coherent direction apart from extra-scientific considerations. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can (...) be seriously considered as soon as the value-free ideal and inductive risk arguments commonly used to frame the discussions of value influence in climate science are replaced by alternative social accounts of objectivity. We consider objectivity in Longino's sense as well as strong objectivity in Harding's sense to be relevant options here, because they offer concrete proposals that can guide scientific practice in evaluating and designing so-called multi-model ensembles and, in fine, improve their capacity to quantify and express uncertainty in climate projections. (shrink)

Pufendorf makes a clear distinction between the physical constitution of human beings and their value as human beings, stressing that the latter is justified exclusively by the regular use of the free will. According to Pufendorf, the regular use of free will requires certain inventions (divine as well as human) imposed on the free will and called moral entities. He claims that these inventions determine the moral quality of a human being as well as the standards (...) according to which human beings and their actions are able to be judged. This article examines the normative aspects of Pufendorf’s concepts of moral value and moral estimation in regard to the epistemological question of the accessibility of moral entities for human beings. In the first part, it reconstructs Pufendorf’s doctrine of moral entities and the place of moral estimation in this doctrine. In the second part, it presents Pufendorf’s account of the moral philosophy as a science in order to explain his theory of moral normativity as imposed, and the role of a person in regard to the own moral status. In the last part, it illustrates some consequences in regard to the problem of slavery in Pufendorf. (shrink)

Husserl holds that the theoretical sciences should be value-free, i.e., free from the values of extra-scientific practices and guided only by epistemic values such as coherence and truth. This view does not imply that to Husserl the sciences would be immune to all criticism of interests, goals, and values. On the contrary, the paper argues that Husserlian phenomenology necessarily embodies reflection on the epistemic values guiding the sciences. The argument clarifies Husserl’s position by comparing it with the (...) pluralistic position developed in feminist epistemology, according to which sciences may be guided by several competing sets of epistemic values. Further, the existence of alternative epistemic values suggests that choices among such values are social and historically conditioned. Indeed, this is how Husserl’s mature discussion in The Crisis can be understood: his examination of Galileo’s contribution in physics operates as a criticism of the unquestioned dominance of certain set of inherited epistemic values, including the values of accuracy and universal applicability. Indeed, his The Origin of Geometry endorses another set of epistemic values, most importantly that of ontological heterogeneity. Husserl’s analysis demonstrates that the choice of any set of epistemic values is influenced by historical and social factors. Moreover, Husserl argues that we can only avoid biases due to “spells of the time” by continued reflection – Besinnung, in his terms – on the role of values in science. (shrink)

The issue of whether science is, or can be, value-free has been debated for more than a century. The idea of value-free science is of course as old as science itself, and so are the arguments against this idea. Plato defended it..

In the past few years, social epistemologists have developed several formal models of the social organisation of science. While their robustness and representational adequacy has been analysed at length, the function of these models has begun to be discussed in more general terms only recently. In this article, I will interpret many of the current formal models of the scientific community as representing the latest development of what I will call the ‘Kuhnian project’. These models share with Kuhn a (...) number of questions about the relation between individuals and communities. At the same time, they also inherit some of Kuhn’s problematic characterisations of the scientific community. In particular, current models of the social organisation of science represent the scientific community as essentially value-free. This may put into question both their representational adequacy and their normative ambitions. In the end, it will be shown that the discussion on the formal models of the scientific community may contribute in fruitful ways to the ongoing debates on value judgements in science. (shrink)

The demise of the value-free ideal constitutes a threat to public trust in science. One proposal is that whenever making value judgments, scientists rely only on democratic values. Since the influence of democratic values on scientific claims and recommendations is legitimate, public trust in science is warranted. I challenge this proposal. Appealing to democratic values will not suffice to secure trust because of at least two obstacles: polarization and marginalization.

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science (...) and society relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

While the Value-Free Ideal of science has suffered compelling criticism, some advocates like Gregor Betz continue to argue that science policy advisors should avoid value judgments by hedging their hypotheses. This approach depends on a mistaken understanding of the relations between facts and values in regulatory science. My case study involves the morning-after pill Plan B and the “Drug Fact” that it “may” prevent implantation. I analyze the operative values, which I call zygote-centrism, responsible (...) for this hedged drug label. Then, I explain my twofold account of value-ladenness, involving the constitutive role of value judgments in science and the social function of facts as political tools. Because this drug fact is ineliminably value-laden in both senses, I conclude that hedged hypotheses are not necessarily value-free. (shrink)

Mainstream views of medical research tell us it should be a fact-based, value-free endeavor: what a scientist (or her funding source) wants or cares about should not influence her findings. At the same time, we also sometimes criticize medical research for failing to embody certain values, e.g. when we criticize pharmaceutical companies for largely ignoring the diseases that affect the global poor. This chapter seeks to reconcile these perspectives by distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate influences of values on medical (...) research. It divides this broad question into two narrower ones, the Role Question (at what points in the research process is value influence potentially acceptable?) and the Content Question (when value influence is potentially acceptable, what specific values should researchers use?), and then draws on the philosophical literature on values in science to explore answers to each of them. (shrink)

Certain principle aspects of the fundamental science state in Ukraine as of 2014 were analyzed. It was shown that no awareness exists in the country that the main although not unique task of the science consists in the creation of new knowledge. The special attention was paid to state academies of science, in particular, to the National academy of science of Ukraine. It was demonstrated that the active law concerning science as well as the project (...) of the new law have substantial shortcomings from the judiciary viewpoint and inhibit a free progress of science in line with general trends of the developed countries. The existing status of the autonomous state academies, being a peculiar symbiosis the non-governmental organization and state institution, was criticized. The concept of a scientific elite was analyzed, which was used to determine its true level. Certain scientometric data on the Ukrainian science were presented. A very unsatisfactory situation with social sciences and humanities was shown. Criteria were discussed for the future audit of the Ukrainian science in order to reform it in the European style. (shrink)

The boundaries of social categories are frequently altered to serve normative projects, such as social reform. Griffiths and Khalidi argue that the value-driven modification of categories diminishes the epistemic value of social categories. I argue that concerns over value-modified categories stem from problematic assumptions of the value-free ideal of science. Contrary to those concerns, non-epistemic value considerations can contribute to the epistemic improvement of a scientific category. For example, the early history of the (...) category infantile autism shows how non-epistemic value considerations can contribute to delimiting and establishing infantile autism as a distinct category in mainstream psychiatry. In the case of infantile autism, non-epistemic considerations have led to a new interpretation of existing data, the expansion of research to include biology, and the creation of diagnostic criteria that further contribute to collecting relevant data. Given this case study, it can be argued that non-epistemic values can improve our knowledge of scientific categories. (shrink)

In this book I show that science suffers from a damaging but rarely noticed methodological disease, which I call rationalistic neurosis. It is not just the natural sciences which suffer from this condition. The contagion has spread to the social sciences, to philosophy, to the humanities more generally, and to education. The whole academic enterprise, indeed, suffers from versions of the disease. It has extraordinarily damaging long-term consequences. For it has the effect of preventing us from developing traditions and (...) institutions of learning rationally devoted to helping us learn how to make progress towards a wiser, more civilized world. On our fragile earth, overcrowded, fraught with injustice, inequality and conflict, menaced by unprecedented and terrifying technological and industrial means for change and destruction, we urgently need to acquire a little more wisdom and civilization if we are to avoid repeating horrors of the kind suffered by so many during the 20th century (and already suffered by many in the first few years of the 21st century). We can ill afford to have in our hands instruments of learning botched and bungled from the standpoint of helping us learn how to live more wisely. It may seem scarcely credible that something as important as our institutions of learning can suffer from wholesale, structural defects. Why has this not been noticed before? Why have not armies of scientists and scholars appreciated the point and, long ago, put the matter right? The answer will emerge as my argument unfolds. I will show that one of the most damaging features of rationalistic neurosis is that it has built-in methodological and institutional mechanisms which effectively conceal that anything is wrong. But there is also an immediately obvious reason: specialization, and the resulting fragmentation of academia, has resulted in a situation in which hardly anyone takes responsibility for the overall ideals, the overall aims and methods, of academic inquiry. Academics, these days, are specialists, furiously trying to keep abreast of developments in their own specialist fields. They have no time, and no inducement, to lift their eyes from their particular disciplines, and look at the whole endeavour. Science has long been under attack, at least since the Romantic movement. Blake objected to “Single vision & Newton’s sleep” and declared that “Art is the Tree of Life... Science is the Tree of Death”. Keats lamented that science will “clip an Angel’s wings” and “unweave a rainbow”. Whereas the Enlightenment had valued science and reason as tools for the liberation of humanity, Romanticism found science and reason oppressive and destructive, and instead valued art, imagination, inspiration, individual genius, emotional and motivational honesty rather than careful attention to objective fact. Much subsequent opposition to science stems from, or echoes, the Romantic opposition of Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and many others. There is the movement Isaiah Berlin has described as the “Counter-Enlightenment” (Berlin, 1979, ch. 1). There is existentialism, with its denunciation of the tyranny of reason, its passionate affirmation of the value and centrality of irrationality in human life, from Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Heidegger and Sartre (see, for example, Barrett, 1962). There is the attack on Enlightenment ideals concerning science and reason undertaken by the Frankfurt school, by postmodernists and others, from Horkheimer and Adorno to Lyotard, Foucault, Habermas, Derrida, MacIntyre and Rorty (see Gascardi, 1999). The soul-destroying consequences of valuing science and reason too highly is a persistent theme in literature: it is to be found in the works of writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Doris Lessing, Max Frisch, Y. Zamyatin. There is persistent opposition to modern science and technology, and to scientific rationality, often associated with the Romantic wing of the green movement, and given expression in such popular books as Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man, Roszak’s Where the Wasteland Ends, Berman’s The Reenchantment of the World and Appleyard’s Understanding the Present. There is the feminist critique of science and conceptions of science: see, for example, Fox Keller (1984) and Harding (1986). And there are the corrosive implications of the so-called “strong programme” in the sociology of knowledge, and of the work of social constructivist historians of science, which depict scientific knowledge as a belief system alongside many other such conflicting systems, having no more right to claim to constitute knowledge of the truth than these rivals, the scientific view of the world being no more than an elaborate myth, a social construct (see Barnes and Bloor, 1981; Bloor, 1991; Barnes, Bloor and Henry, 1996; Shapin and Schaffer, 1985; Shapin, 1994; Pickering, 1984; Latour, 1987). This latter literature has provoked a counter-attack by scientists, historians and philosophers of science seeking to defend science and traditional conceptions of scientific rationality: see Gross and Levitt (1994), Gross, Levitt and Lewis (1996), and Koertge (1998). This debate between critics and defenders of science came abruptly to public attention with the publication of Alan Sokal’s brilliant hoax article ‘Transgressing the boundaries’ in a special issue of the cultural studies journal Social Text in 1996 entitled Science Wars: see Sokal and Bricmont (1998). What does this book have to contribute, given the above avalanche of criticism of science? The criticisms of science developed in this book are diametrically opposed to the above, in so far as the above criticisms oppose scientific rationality, seek to diminish or restrict its influence, or hold that it is unattainable. My central point is that we suffer, not from too much scientific rationality, but from not enough. What is generally taken to constitute scientific rationality is actually nothing of the kind. It is rationalistic neurosis, a characteristic, influential and damaging kind of irrationality masquerading as rationality. Science is damaged by being trapped within a widely upheld but severely defective philosophy of science; free science from this defective philosophy, provide it with a more intellectually rigorous philosophy, and it will flourish in both intellectual and humanitarian terms. And more generally, as we shall see, academic inquiry as a whole is damaged by being trapped within an intellectually defective philosophy of inquiry; free it from this defective philosophy, from its rationalistic neurosis, and it will flourish in intellectual and human terms. It is not reason that is damaging, but defective pretensions to reason — rationalistic neurosis —masquerading as reason. Thus what I seek to do here is the exact opposite of what all those who oppose science and scientific rationality do. I shall argue that Reason, the authentic article, arrived at by generalizing the progress-achieving methods of science, can have profoundly liberating and enriching consequences for all worthwhile, problematic aspects of life, and thus deserves to enter into every aspect of life. The bare bones of the argument of this book can be stated quite simply like this. Science cannot proceed without making the substantial metaphysical assumption that the universe is physically comprehensible (to some extent at least). But this conflicts with the orthodox view that in science everything is assessed impartially with respect to evidence, nothing being permanently assumed independently of evidence. So the metaphysical assumption of comprehensibility is repressed. Science pretends that no such assumption is made. But this damages science. For the assumption is substantial, influential and highly problematic. It needs to be made explicit within science so that it can be critically scrutinized, so that alternatives can be developed and considered. Pretending the assumption is not being made undermines the intellectual rigour of science, its intellectual value and success. And it does not stop there. For science also makes value assumptions. Quite properly, science is concerned to discover that which is of value. New factual knowledge devoid of all value (whether intellectual or practical) does not contribute to science. But the orthodox view of science holds that values have no place within science. As in the case of metaphysics, here too, science pretends that values have no role to play within the intellectual domain of science. And this damages science. For values are, if anything, even more influential and problematic than metaphysics (in influencing the direction of research). Here too, values need to be made explicit within science so that they can be scrutinized, so that alternatives can be developed and assessed. Pretending that values play no role within the intellectual domain damages science; both the intellectual and the practical aspects of science are adversely affected. Science fails to pursue those avenues of research that lie in the best interests of humanity. And it goes further. Science is pursued in a social, cultural, economic and political context. It is a part of various social, economic and political projects which seek to achieve diverse human objectives. But the idea that science is an integral part of humanitarian or political enterprises with political ends clashes, once again, with the official view of science that the aim of science is to improve factual knowledge. The political objectives of science are repressed. And, once again, this damages science. For, of course, the political objectives of science, like all our political objectives, are profoundly problematic. These need to be made explicit so that they can be scrutinized, so that alternatives can be developed and considered. The pretence that science does not have this political dimension once again undermines the intellectual rigour of science, and its human value. It lays science open to becoming a part of economic, corporate and political enterprises that are not in the best interests of humanity. The upshot of the line of argument just indicated is that we need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of science, and of academic inquiry more generally. Natural science needs to change; its relationship with the rest of academic inquiry, with social inquiry and the humanities, needs to change; and most importantly and dramatically, academic inquiry as a whole needs to change. The basic task of the academic enterprise needs to become to help humanity learn how to tackle its problems of living in more cooperatively rational ways than at present. We need to put the intellectual tasks of articulating our problems of living, and proposing and critically assessing possible solutions, possible and actual actions, at the heart of academic inquiry. The basic task needs to be to help humanity learn a bit more wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. Natural science, despite its flaws, has massively increased our knowledge and technological know-how. This in turn has led to a massive and sometimes terrifying increase in our power to act. Often this unprecedented power to act is used for human good, as in medicine or agriculture. But it is also used to cause harm, whether unintentionally (initially at least) as when industrialization and modern agriculture lead to global warming, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, or intentionally, as when the technology of war is used by governments and terrorists to maim and kill. Before the advent of modern science, when we lacked the means to do too much damage to ourselves and the planet, lack of wisdom did not matter too much. Now, with our unprecedented powers to act, bequeathed to us by science, lack of wisdom has become a menace. This is the crisis behind all the other current global crises: science without wisdom. In these circumstances, to continue to pursue knowledge and technological know-how dissociated from a more fundamental quest for wisdom can only deepen the crisis. As a matter of urgency, we need to free science and academia of their neuroses; we need to bring about a revolution in the academic enterprise so that the basic aim becomes to promote wisdom by intellectual and educational means. At present science and the humanities betray both reason and humanity. The argument of this book, which I have just summarized, begins with a discussion of the philosophical and methodological problems that beset theoretical physics. At once, many of those who are concerned about moral, political and environmental issues that plague our world today, will feel impatient. What have the methodological problems of theoretical physics to do with third world poverty, war and the threat of war, pollution, extinction of species, the menace of conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear armaments? I can only plead with such a reader: patience. The root cause of the sickness of our times does indeed lie, I claim, with a methodological sickness of natural science or, even more specifically, of physical science. What makes the modern world so utterly different from all previous ages is our possession of modern science and technology. This is the instrument that has changed the conditions of human life almost beyond all recognition, and put unprecedented, and sometimes terrifying, powers into our hands. One should not dismiss out of hand the suggestion that a part of our problem may lie with this instrument, this engine, of rapid change. We see, here, too, the way in which intellectual specialization, referred to above, has effectively concealed from view the nature and extent of the problem that confronts us. The argument that I shall develop in what follows begins with physics, with problems concerning the aims and methods of physics. But it then leaps to social science, to philosophy, to the humanities, to education, to psychotherapy, and to politics: in the end there is scarcely an aspect of modern life that is not touched and, potentially, affected by the argument. How many academic experts are prepared to follow, to take seriously, an argument that ranges so recklessly across such a wide range of academic disciplines? How many non-academic non-experts? But just this is what the argument and message of this book requires. I hope that the reader will endure with patience the somewhat esoteric discussion concerning the aims and methods of physics pursued in chapter one. This may not seem to have anything much to do with the urgent problems of our times, but it does. This is in part how the intellectual disaster I seek to expose in this book conceals itself from view: it buries itself in the obscure, recondite field of the philosophy of physics. Those who devote their lives to the philosophy of physics are, by and large, too myopic to see how their specialized field of study has anything to do with the great and dreadful humanitarian problems and disasters of our age; and those who are above all concerned with these humanitarian disasters have no time at all for abstruse issues concerning the aims and methods of physics. And so the connection is never made. As it happens, the methodological neurosis of physics, with which we begin in chapter one, is actually a quite simple matter to grasp. It does not require any real knowledge of physics to understand. Indeed, physicists and philosophers of physics are much more likely to find the argument difficult to follow than are non-experts. We non-scientists can stand back and see the whole wood; scientists, trained to think in terms of the current orthodox conception of science, trapped in the thickets of research, will find this much harder to do. In an attempt to take this peculiar circumstance into account, I have arranged the exposition as follows. In chapter one I give a simple exposition of the case for declaring natural science to suffer from what I call "rationalistic neurosis"; this avoids all technicalities, and goes straight to the heart of the matter. In the appendix I tackle a host of more technical objections that may be made to the elementary argument of chapter one. So, those experts in the fields of the philosophy of physics and philosophy of science who find the argument of chapter one naïve and unconvincing, should consult the appendix before tossing the book away in disgust. I write in the hope that there will be a few who will not dismiss out of hand the suggestion that the question of how we are to go about learning how to live in wiser and more civilized ways might have something to learn from scientific learning, and will take the trouble to pursue the line of argument traced out in this book. I write in the hope that these few will grasp just how desperate our situation is, how urgent the need to change the status quo, and will do everything in their power to alert others to the need to heal the methodological sickness from which our institutions and traditions of learning at present suffer. To begin with, we need a campaigning organization, modelled perhaps on "Friends of the Earth", which might be called something like "Friends of Wisdom". (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)

John Fischer has recently argued that the value of acting freely is the value of self-expression. Drawing on David Velleman’s earlier work, Fischer holds that the value of a life is a narrative value and free will is valuable insofar as it allows us to shape the narrative structure of our lives. This account rests on Fischer’s distinction between regulative control and guidance control. While we lack the former kind of control, on Fischer’s view, the (...) latter is all that is needed for self-expression. I first develop Fischer’s narrative account, focusing on his reliance on temporal loops as giving us control over the value of our lives. Second, I argue that the narrative account grants us greater power over the past than Fischer would allow: since narrative allows not only for changes in how we feel about episodes in our past but what those episodes in fact were, it allows for a kind of retroactive self-constitution. Finally, I suggest that this modification of the narrative view opens the possibility of a conception of freedom far stronger than guidance control. It does not give us the libertarian control over whether to choose A or B in the present, but it does provide a measure of control over the sort of person an agent has been, and thus whether she is the sort of person who will choose A or B in the future. (shrink)

Physicist Percy Bridgman has been taken by Heather Douglas to be an exemplar defender of an untenable value-free ideal for science. This picture is complicated by a detailed study of Bridgman's philosophical views of the relation between science and society. The normative autonomy of science, a version of the value-free ideal, is defended. This restriction on the provenance of permissible values in science is given a basis in Bridgman's broader philosophical commitments, most (...) importantly, his view that science is primarily an individual commitment to a set of epistemic norms and values. Considerations of external moral or social values are not, on this view, intrinsic to scientific practice, though they have a broader pragmatic significance. What Bridgman takes as the proper relation between science and society is shown through analysis of his many writings on the topic and consideration of his rarely remarked upon involvement in the most problematic example of "Big Science" of his day: the atomic bomb. A reevaluation of Bridgman's views provides a unique characterization of what is at stake in the values in science debate: the normative autonomy of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize the thesis that value-laden approaches in American philosophy of science were marginalized in the 1960s through the editorial policy at Philosophy of Science and funding practices at the National Science Foundation. I argue that there is no available evidence of any normative restriction on philosophy of science as a domain of inquiry which excluded research on the relation between science and society. Instead, I claim that the absence of any (...) exemplary, professional philosopher who discussed the relation between science and society sufficed to narrow the focus of philosophers of science, given the institutional stabilization of the domain within professional philosophy from 1959 onwards. (shrink)

This article is intended as a contribution to the current debates about the relationship between politics and the philosophy of science in the Vienna Circle. I reconsider this issue by shifting the focus from philosophy of science as theory to philosophy of science as practice. From this perspective I take as a starting point the Vienna Circle’s scientific world-conception and emphasize its practical nature: I reinterpret its tenets as a set of recommendations that express the particular epistemological (...) attitude in which both the Vienna Circle’s (doing) philosophy of science and its political engagement were rooted. -/- Regarding politics, and referring to new primary sources, I reconstruct how the scientific world-conception placed the Vienna Circle within a neoliberal-socialist political network that pursued concrete political aims. In light of my reconstruction I shall argue that neither the Vienna Circle’s alleged ethical noncognitivism nor its alleged adhesion to the Weberian ideal of a value-free science rules out the possibility of ascribing to the Vienna Circle a politically engaged philosophy of science: the case of the Vienna Circle shows how philosophy of science, as a public activity, can itself become a form of political engagement, even without necessarily entailing a theory of objective values. (shrink)

It is not so long ago that philosophers and scientists thought of science as an objective and value-free enterprise. But since the heyday of positivism, it has become obvious that values, norms, and standards have an indispensable role to play in science. You may even say that these values are the real issues of the philosophy of science. Whatever they are, these values constrain science at an ontological, a cognitive, a methodological, and a semantic (...) level for the purpose of making science a rational pursuit of knowledge. I think, however, that a good place to look for them is in the rise of quantum mechanics and in the debate between Bohr and Einstein on its interpretation, not because similar cognitive values are not shaping scientific rationality elsewhere, but because they surface in the debate whenever a new revolutionary paradigm is about to take over the scene. (shrink)

When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, (...) we develop a contrasting characterization of contemporary psychometrics as a value-laden discipline. We expose four such values: that individual differences are quantitative (rather than qualitative), that measurement should be objective in a specific sense, that test items should be fair, and that utility of a model is more important than its truth. Our goal is not to criticize psychometrics for employing these values, but rather to bring them into the open and to show that these values are not inevitable and are in need of systematic evaluation. (shrink)

Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light (...) on how our ethical ideals and ideas of natural order can still be valuably integrated. Early modern intellectualists valued the law-governed order of nature as a sign of divine Reason. In turn, Reason traditionally ascribed to God has now been partly reclaimed for humans, reframing the value of natural order anthropocentrically, in terms of the value of our own intelligence. Alternatively, Reason may be reclaimed for nature itself, as in an ‘objective’ idealism or metaphysical rationalism. However, beyond divine Reason, an influential voluntarist tradition in theology stressed a connection between laws of nature and God’s Power or free Will. Tracking how divine Power has been reinvested in human beings provides a broader context for instrumentalism and related lineages of empiricism. But secularization can also transfer Power from God to the impersonal natural world. In this light, current scientific interest in lawlike order may also reflect the inherent value of brute necessity or inhuman causal power in nature: this is a deeper way to reject anthropocentrism and to show our respect for the environment. (shrink)

This short article provides intriguing evidence that the Bible was encoded by its original redactors. It then proposes innovative interpretations of some of the Bible's important words and stories.

The growth of knowledge has always included opposing worldviews and clashes of distinct interests. This includes different rationalities which either have served or disserved the State. A Copernican world defied the Catholic Church. Cartesian philosophy and Newtonian physics incited a major split between an allegedly knowing subject and external realities. As an outcome, many dualisms emerged: subjectivity/objectivity, particular/universal, etc. Hegelian dialectics elaborated such approach to its most extreme. The pretension of social science to be value-free assumed a (...) neutral observer collating external facts. Yet both Hume and Adam Smith challenged Descartes cogito as banal, stressing that it is not because we think that we are but rather than how we think is who we have become through the values, dispositions and beliefs that we have consciously or less than consciously acquired from life experience, and that no perception is neutral. Hume anticipated Bourclieu both on habItus and also on reflexivity in his concept of the reflexive mind" yet this then was lost by the presumption, such as by Bertrand Russell, that Hume was a "mere empiricist". Logical positivism then claimed that an appeal to 'facts' could dismiss metaphysics, invoking the logical atomism of Russell and the early Wittgenstein. But which Wittgenstein transcended not in the sense of transcendental metaphysics, though he was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer, but - after a road to Damascus encounter with Sraffa - coming to realise that meanings depend on context and that their context needs to be understood. Which we suggest in this paper is that these issues are highly relevant to the troubled relationship between rationality - or rationalities - and the State. (shrink)

REMARKS ON EVOLUTION AND TIME-SCALES, Graham Cairns-Smith; HODGSON'S BLACK BOX, Thomas Clark; DO HODGSON'S PROPOSITIONS UNIQUELY CHARACTERIZE FREE WILL?, Ravi Gomatam; WHAT SHOULD WE RETAIN FROM A PLAIN PERSON'S CONCEPT OF FREE WILL?, Gilberto Gomes; ISOLATING DISPARATE CHALLENGES TO HODGSON'S ACCOUNT OF FREE WILL, Liberty Jaswal; FREE AGENCY AND LAWS OF NATURE, Robert Kane; SCIENCE VERSUS REALIZATION OF VALUE, NOT DETERMINISM VERSUS CHOICE, Nicholas Maxwell; COMMENTS ON HODGSON, J.J.C. Smart; THE VIEW FROM WITHIN, Sean (...) Spence; COMMENTARY ON HODGSON, Henry Stapp. (shrink)

Veissière and collaborators ground their account of culture and social norms in the free-energy principle, which postulates that the utility of an outcome is equivalent to its probability. This equivalence would mean that their account entails that complying with social norms has always adaptive value. But, this is false, because many social norms are obviously maladaptive.

Metaphysical considerations aside, today’s inheritors of the tradition of natural philosophy are primarily scientists. However, they are oblivious to the human factor involved in science and in seeing how political, religious, and other ideologies contaminate our visions of nature. In general, philosophers observe human (historical, sociological, and psychological) processes within the construction of theories, as well as in the development of scientific activity itself. -/- In our time, feminism—along with accompanying ideas of identity politics under the slogan “diversity, inclusion, (...) equity”—has emerged in science policies. The vast majority of scientists (including myself) are convinced that discrimination is reprehensible. We also believe that all individuals of any sex, race, ethnic group, or ideology should be valued in academia solely based on his or her merits and potential through equality programs. However, as I will show in this article, political indoctrination has inadmissibly undertaken the struggle for equality in academic institutions in Western countries. I argue here that universities and research institutes should be politically free (neutral) to encourage academic freedom. -/- One negative aspect of equality programs is that worldwide, scientists are harassed for expressing opinions related to the “gender” issue. This situation severely restricts scientists’ freedom of expression, even within the limits of the law. Codes of conduct extending beyond legal boundaries are examples of this issue. Scientists who express their views about “gender” are often harassed, bullied, and socially or academically excluded. Thus, we are witnessing a wave of proselytizing in research institutes and science-associated media. Today, there is widespread biased propaganda of “victimhood”. This propaganda proposes positive discrimination and increasing women’s participation in unnatural ways. It also bends the history of science by overvaluing the creations of forgotten women, offering lectures on indoctrination, organizing congresses on gender and science, and persecuting anyone who sees the subject differently. All of this covered by a multitude of associations that financially benefit from these discourses through succulent subsidies of public money. Apparently, feminism is no longer about fighting against discrimination. Instead, it is about imposing an ideology and giving more power to one group of people. Thus, we must ask whether the end justifies the means. (shrink)

Social and medical scientists frequently produce empirical generalizations that involve concepts partly defined by value judgments. These generalizations, which have been called ‘mixed claims’, raise interesting questions. Does the presence of them in science imply that science is value-laden? Is the value-ladenness of mixed claims special compared to other kinds of value-ladenness of science? Do we lose epistemically if we reformulate these claims as conditional statements? And if we want to allow mixed claims (...) in science, do we need a new account of how to reconcile values with objectivity? Alexandrova (2017, 2018) offers affirmative answers to these questions. In responding to Alexandrova’s arguments, this discussion note motivates negative ones and in doing so casts new light on mixed claims. (shrink)

Philosophers of science now broadly agree that doing good science involves making non-epistemic value judgments. I call attention to two very different normative standards which can be used to evaluate such judgments: standards grounded in ethics and standards grounded in political philosophy. Though this distinction has not previously been highlighted, I show that the values in science literature contain arguments of each type. I conclude by explaining why this distinction is important. Seeking to determine whether some (...) value-laden determination meets substantive ethical standards is a very different endeavor from seeking to determine if it is politically legitimate. (shrink)