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In this article, I offer a partial analysis of the role of values in qualitative data collection in social research. The partial analysis shows that nonepistemic values have both required and permissible roles to play during this phase of research. By appeal to the analysis, I reject the ideal of value-free science as applied to qualitative data collection, and I demonstrate why two alternative ideals should likewise be dismissed as standards for values in qualitative data collection. Also, I briefly discuss (...) |
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This paper advocates for making epistemic interests a central object of philosophical analysis in epistemology and philosophy of science. It is argued that the importance of epistemic interests derives from their fundamental importance for the notion of objectivity. Epistemic interests are defined as individuated by a set of objectives, each of which represents a dimension of the search for truth. Among these dimensions, specificity, sensitivity, and productivity are discussed in detail. It is argued that the relevance of productivity is often (...) |
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A general criterion for distinguishing between epistemic and non-epistemic values is that the former promotes the attainment of truth whereas the latter does not. Daniel Steel is a proponent of this criterion, although it was initially proposed by McMullin. There are at least two consequences of this criterion; it always prioritizes epistemic values over non-epistemic values in scientific research, and it overlooks the diverse aims of science, especially the aims of regulatory or policy-oriented science. This criterion assumes the lexical priority (...) No categories |
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The function and legitimacy of values in decision making is a critically important issue in the contemporary analysis of science. It is particularly relevant for some of the more application-oriented areas of science, specifically decision-oriented science in the field of regulation of technological risks. Our main objective in this paper is to assess the diversity of roles that non-cognitive values related to decision making can adopt in the kinds of scientific activity that underlie risk regulation. We start out, first, by (...) |
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Simple idealized models seem to provide more understanding than opaque, complex, and hyper-realistic models. However, an increasing number of scientists are going in the opposite direction by utilizing opaque machine learning models to make predictions and draw inferences, suggesting that scientists are opting for models that have less potential for understanding. Are scientists trading understanding for some other epistemic or pragmatic good when they choose a machine learning model? Or are the assumptions behind why minimal models provide understanding misguided? In (...) |
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This article examines the relevance of survey data of scientists’ attitudes about science and values to case studies in philosophy of science. We describe two methodological challenges confronting such case studies: 1) small samples, and 2) potential for bias in selection, emphasis, and interpretation. Examples are given to illustrate that these challenges can arise for case studies in the science and values literature. We propose that these challenges can be mitigated through an approach in which case studies and survey methods (...) |
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This article discusses Sven Ove Hansson’s corpus model for the influence of values (in particular, non-epistemic ones) in the hypothesis acceptance/rejection phase of scientific inquiry. This corpus model is based on Hansson’s concepts of scientific corpus and science ‘in the large sense’. I first present Hansson’s corpus model of value influence with some introductory comments about its origins, a detailed presentation of the model with a new terminology, an analysis of its limits, and an appreciation of its handling of controversial (...) |
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Much of the literature on values in science is limited in its perspective because it focuses on the role of values in individual scientists’ decision making, thereby ignoring the context of scientific collaboration. I examine the epistemic structure of scientific collaboration and argue that it gives rise to two arguments showing that moral and social values can legitimately play a role in scientists’ decision to accept something as scientific knowledge. In the case of scientific collaboration some moral and social values (...) |
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The standard view on economics imperialism is that it should be resisted when it is epistemically or morally harmful. I argue that the moral dimension of economics imperialism is in need of further analysis. In my view, economics imperialism is wrong when imperialists violate the epistemic responsibility they have towards scientists working in the discipline that is the target for imperialist explorations. By epistemic responsibility, I refer to a moral duty to justify one’s knowledge claims to a particular audience so (...) |
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Solving the “new demarcation problem” requires a distinction between epistemically legitimate and illegitimate roles for non-epistemic values in science. This paper addresses one ‘half’ (i.e. a sub-problem) of the new demarcation problem articulated by the Gretchenfrage: What makes the role of a non-epistemic value in science epistemically illegitimate? I will argue for the Explaining Epistemic Errors (EEE) account, according to which the epistemically illegitimate role of a non-epistemic value is defined via an explanatory claim: the fact that an epistemic agent (...) |
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There is increasing attention to the centrality of idealization in science. One common view is that models and other idealized representations are important to science, but that they fall short in one or more ways. On this view, there must be an intermediary step between idealized representation and the traditional aims of science, including truth, explanation, and prediction. Here I develop an alternative interpretation of the relationship between idealized representation and the aims of science. In my view, continuing, widespread idealization (...) |
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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 (...) |
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This paper presents a program of action for the philosophy of regulatory science, based on a general theory of social epistemology. Two candidates are considered. The first one, offered by Alvin Goldman, is not fit for our purposes because it is focused on a veritism incompatible with non‐epistemic aims of regulatory science. The second, championed by Steve Fuller, sociologically investigates the existing means of producing knowledge, to modify them with the goal of obtaining democratic aims through action on a legislative (...) No categories |
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Within the context of the discussion about value-free science ideal, Heather Douglas claims that in several cases non-epistemic values are needed for good reasoning in science. In this article I aim at recovering her viewpoint in order to examine the research driving to the Genetic Grandparent Inclusion-Probability Index, a crucial element to restitute the identity of children who were abducted during Argentinean dictatorship. Thus, my purposes are to reconstruct Douglas´ main theoretical contributions, specifically her reasons to reject the ideal as (...) No categories |
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The literature on values in science struggles with questions about how to describe and manage the role of values in scientific research. We argue that progress can be made by shifting this literature’s current emphasis. Rather than arguing about how non-epistemic values can or should figure into scientific assessment, we suggest analyzing how scientific assessment can accommodate non-epistemic values. For scientific assessment to do so, it arguably needs to incorporate goals that have been traditionally characterized as non-epistemic. Building on this (...) |
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The aim of this article is to critically build on Justin Biddle and Anna Leuschner’s characterization of epistemologically detrimental dissent in the context of science. We argue that the presence of nonepistemic agendas and severe nonepistemic consequences offers neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for EDD to obtain. We clarify their role by arguing that they are contingent enabling factors, not stable difference-makers, in the production of EDD. We maintain that two stable difference-makers are core to the production of EDD: production (...) |
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In recent years, the argument from inductive risk against value free science has enjoyed a revival. This paper investigates and clarifies this argument through means of a case-study: neonicitinoid research. Sect. 1 argues that the argument from inductive risk is best conceptualised as a claim about scientists’ communicative obligations. Sect. 2 then shows why this argument is inapplicable to “public communication”. Sect. 3 outlines non-epistemic reasons why non-epistemic values should not play a role in public communicative contexts. Sect. 4 analyses (...) |
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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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In “Should We Strive to Make Science Bias‑Free? A Philosophical Assessment of the Reproducibility Crisis”, I argue that the problem of bias in science, a key factor in the current reproducibility crisis, is worsened if we follow Heather Douglas and Kevin C. Elliott’s advice and introduce non-epistemic values into the evidential assessment of scientific hypotheses. In their response to my paper, Douglas and Elliott complain that I misrepresent their views and fall victim to various confusions. In this rebuttal I argue, (...) |
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There is now a general consensus amongst philosophers in the values in science literature that values necessarily play a role in core areas of scientific inquiry. We argue that attention should now be turned from debating the value-free ideal to delineating legitimate from illegitimate influences of values in science, a project we dub “The New Demarcation Problem.” First, we review past attempts to demarcate the uses of values and propose a categorization of the strategies by where they seek to draw (...) |
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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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This response addresses the excellent responses to my book provided by Heather Douglas, Janet Kourany, and Matt Brown. First, I provide some comments and clarifications concerning a few of the highlights from their essays. Second, in response to the worries of my critics, I provide more detail than I was able to provide in my book regarding my three conditions for incorporating values in science. Third, I identify some of the most promising avenues for further research that flow out of (...) |
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The argument from inductive risk is considered to be one of the strongest challenges for value-free science. A great part of its appeal lies in the idea that even an ideal epistemic agent—the “perfect scientist” or “scientist qua scientist”—cannot escape inductive risk. In this paper, I scrutinize this ambition by stipulating an idealized Bayesian decision setting. I argue that inductive risk does not show that the “perfect scientist” must, descriptively speaking, make non-epistemic value-judgements, at least not in a way that (...) |
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss Miller’s recent claim that 1) the ideal of value-freedom is implausible because evidence from experimental psychology reveals how scientific reasoning is val... |
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The argument from inductive risk has been embraced by many as a successful account of the role of values in science that challenges the value-free ideal. We argue that it is not obvious that the argument from inductive risk actually undermines the value-free ideal. This is because the inductive risk argument endorses an assumption held by proponents of the value-free ideal: that contextual values never play an appropriate role in determining evidence. We show that challenging the value-free ideal ultimately requires (...) |
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I address options for providing scientific policy advice and explore the relation between scientific knowledge and political, economic and moral values. I argue that such nonepistemic values are essential for establishing the significance of questions and the relevance of evidence, while, on the other hand, such social choices are the prerogative of society. This tension can be resolved by recognizing social values and identifying them as separate premises or as commissions while withholding commitment to them, and by elaborating a plurality (...) |
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Responsible research and innovation features the dialog of science “with society,” and research performed “for society,” i.e., for the benefit of the people. I focus on this latter, outcome-oriented notion of RRI and discuss two kinds of problems. The first one concerns options to anticipate the future course of science and technology. Such foresight knowledge seems necessary for subjecting research to demands of social and moral responsibility. However, predicting science and technology is widely considered impossible. The second problem concerns moral (...) No categories |
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There is much debate on how social values should influence scientific research. However, the question of practical applicability of philosophers’ normative proposals has received less attention. Here, we test the attainability of Matthew J. Brown’s (2020) Moral Imagination ideal (MI ideal), which aims to help scientists to make warranted value-judgements through reflecting on goals, options, values, and stakeholders of research. Here, the tools of the MI ideal are applied to a climate modelling setting, where researchers are developing aerosol-cloud interaction (ACI) (...) |
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The anti-psychiatry movement of the 20th century has notably denounced the role of values and social norms in the shaping of psychiatric categories. Recent activist movements also recognize that psychiatry is value-laden, however, they do not fight for a value-free psychiatry. On the contrary, some activist movements of the 21st century advocate for self-advocacy in sciences of mental health in order to reach a more accurate understanding of psychiatric categories/mental distress. By aiming at such epistemic gain, they depart from the (...) |
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Current debates over inductive risk and the role of values in science have largely revolved around the question of the moral responsibilities of scientists: Do scientists have the duty to consider the potential non-epistemic consequences of theories they advocate and, if yes, what values should be taken into account in decision-making? The paper discusses two different – though potentially complementary – responses to this question: a) H. Douglas’s view that scientists should avoid causing reckless or negligent harm to others as (...) |
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