A new direction for science and values

Abstract

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.

Ontological Choices and the Value-Free Ideal

“…Focusing on these positive elements can be motivated by the case for ''a new direction for science and values'' (Hicks 2014) that moves beyond general controversies about VFI to more nuanced discussions of the appropriate roles of non-epistemic values (cf. Anderson 2004;Longino 2004 for related points).…”

Scientists’ attitudes on science and values: Case studies and survey methods in philosophy of science

“…Douglas' distinction between social and cognitive values resembles but is not equivalent to the distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values drawn below in section 4.2 (see Steel, 2010). 6 For further discussion of the distinction between direct and indirect roles of values and difficulties of distinguishing between them see (Elliott, 2011(Elliott, , 2013Hicks, 2014;Steel, 2010;Steel & Whyte, 2012). 7 John (2015) appears to understand Betz's case in this manner.…”

Illegitimate Values, Confirmation Bias, and Mandevillian Cognition in Science

“…We need criteria to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate ways of deploying values in science. (p. 2) Many philosophers have written on the question as to how we should distinguish legitimate from illegitimate uses of values in science (Anderson [2004]; Douglas [2009]; Hicks [2014]; Intemann [2015]; Elliot [2017]). I here want to assess the tenability of one common criterion to draw the distinction.…”