Thinking about Values in Science: Ethical versus Political Approaches (original) (raw)
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This essay examines the important roles for values in science, from deciding which research projects are worth pursuing, to shaping good methodological approaches (including ethical concerns), to assessing the sufficiency of evidence for scientific claims. I highlight the necessity of social and ethical value judgments in science, particularly for producing properly responsible research. I then examine the implications of the need for values to inform scientific practice for public trust in science. I argue that values serve as a key basis for public trust in scientists, along with the presence of expertise and engagement in a well-functioning expert community, and that scientists should thus be more open about the values informing their work. This result holds whether the science at issue is a matter of consensus or still contested within the scientific community.
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Many philosophers of science have argued that social and ethical values have a significant role to play in core parts of the scientific process. A question that naturally arises is: when such value choices need to be made, which or whose values should be used? A common answer to this question turns to democratic values-the values of the public or its representatives. I argue that this imposes a morally significant burden on certain scientists, effectively requiring them to advocate for policy positions they strongly disagree with. I conclude by discussing under what conditions this burden might be justified.
Direct and Indirect Roles for Values in Science*
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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 (with further clarification) contribute to a normative ideal, they have limited effectiveness for regulating how values influence science.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science
After describing the origins and nature of the value-free ideal for science, this chapter details three challenges to the ideal: the descriptive challenge (arising from feminist critiques of science, which led to deeper examinations of social structures in science), the boundary challenge (which questioned whether epistemic values can be distinguished from non-epistemic values), and the normative challenge (which questioned the ideal qua ideal on the basis of inductive risk and scientific responsibility). The chapter then discusses alternative ideals for values in science, including recent arguments regarding epistemic values, arguments distinguishing direct from indirect roles for values, and arguments calling for more attention to getting the values right. Finally, the chapter turns to the many ways in which values influence science and the importance of getting a richer understanding of the place of science within society in order to address the questions about the place of values in science.
Current Controversies in Values and Science
2017
The social value management ideal is an alternative to the value-free ideal of science. It recommends that the role of non-epistemic values in scientific inquiry is analyzed, criticized, and judged as either acceptable or unacceptable by a scientific community which satisfies certain conditions. I defend the social value management ideal by responding to two objections, one suggesting that the ideal is not capable of incorporating all the diversity that is epistemically beneficial in science, and another one suggesting that the ideal is too generous to the kind of diversity which is problematic from a moral and political point of view.
Politics and Science: Untangling Values, Ideologies, and Reasons
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2015
This commentary argues that we need a more nuanced account of the sources of disagreement among experts and the sources of distrust in scientific claims among the public. Such nuance requires an understanding of the nature of science (an empirical, uncertain, and yet reliable source of knowledge) and of how that differs from faith as a basis for knowledge claims. It also requires an understanding of how values can legitimately function in science, including in the shaping of research agendas and in the assessment of evidential sufficiency, and of the inherently political nature of science (e.g. when evidence shifts the boundary between public and private). While science is neither apolitical nor value-free, it can (and should) be pursued with integrity. Detecting science with integrity and defining the legitimate roles values play in such science opens the space for genuine deliberation and a way forward out of ideological stalemate.
Straightening the 'value-laden turn': minimising the influence of extra-scientific values in science
Synthese, 2024
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 minimisednot 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.
Values and Science: An Argument for Why They Cannot Be Separated
Theology and Science , 2016
A distinction between facts and values is often assumed when people in the modern West talk about science. The biologist Stephen Gould, for example, famously argued that religion covers questions of meaning and moral value, but science deals with empirical facts. This paper challenges the traditional fact/value distinction by questioning the presuppositions about science upon which it depends. It begins by describing the origins of the fact/value distinction in the Scientific Revolution and then gives three reasons for the inseparability of facts and values in scientific inquiry, drawing upon themes from the " practice turn " in recent scholarship on the sciences.
Scientific behaviour: values and epistemology
Acta Scientiarum. Human and Social Sciences, 2011
Science as a human activity relates to different human values, and therefore it is capable of ethic valuation, both for its consequences as for its process and its action. For this reason, otherwise as the neopositivists and the empirism have suggested, ethics can not be separated from the scientific analysis. The responsibility relationship appears followed by moral responsibility, that places in its actions the exercise of freedom and personal commitment, that without any doubt are basic values in an individual's behaviour, and, therefore, in a scientist. But these characters are part of any human activity, and they must respond responsibly before the actions derived from it. We are no longer before ethically traditional models, but we move in dynamic ethical planes. The scientific models that currently operate compel scientists to modify that attitude, and consequently, our reflection on this issue ends with a valuation on the need of an ethics of the science, or at least, to put on page the protocols of this issue.
Proceedings of the International Session on Factors of Regional Extensive Development (FRED 2019), 2020
The article presents a philosophical understanding of the problem of values in science. The current changes in society cause interest in this problem because the modern world is a world of new materiality. Changes in the modern digital era have led to a reassessment of the importance of many fundamental values that have developed in previous periods. The purpose of this article is to identify the meaning of value in science. Science forms its own, into scientific values and norms that are associated with the scientific paradigm. The paradigm sets the vector for the development of scientific knowledge and acts as a socio-cultural regulator of scientific activity. In this regard, the main philosophical and methodological approaches to the problem of values are identified. The transformation of the meaning of value is comprehended; the values underlying the scientific worldview and the scientific picture of the world are examined.