Abstract
Philosophy of Science After Feminism is an important contribution to philosophy of science, in that it argues for the central relevance of advances from previous work in feminist philosophy of science and articulates a new vision for philosophy of science going in to the future. Kourany’s vision of philosophy of science’s future as “socially engaged and socially responsible” and addressing questions of the social responsibility of science itself has much to recommend it. I focus the book articulation of an ethical-epistemic ideal for science, the Ideal of Socially Responsible Science, compare it to recent work in the same vein by Heather Douglas, and argue for some advantages of Kourany’s approach. I then ask some critical question about the view, particularly with respect to the source of values that are to be integrated into science and the status of values that are to be so integrated. I argue that Kourany is too sanguine about where the values that inquirers will use come from and that these values seem to be accorded too fixed a status in her account.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The connection to James has been pointed out by P.D. Magnus (2012).
Douglas’s full view includes a much more robust account of scientific objectivity, more specific ideas about the role of values in different phases of scientific inquiry, and specific advice for scientists and policy-makers (Douglas 2009).
These problems (summarized below), and the need for an ideal that is not committed to the lexical priority principle, are described in Brown (forthcoming).
This may be a bit too strong. At least, values are regarded as systematically less grounded or reliable than putative evidence, which systematically underrates the strength of value judgments. Douglas (2009) for example does not hold the view that evidence is unproblematic, and indeed, she describes how choices of methodology and characterization of evidence can depend in complicated ways on value judgments. Nor does she commit herself to a non-cognitivist or mere-preferences view of values and value judgments. Nevertheless, in committing herself to the lexical priority principle, she does mark an indefensible difference in epistemic kind between evidence and value judgment.
According to Longino’s views, the answer is either the scientists’ own values or as many values as possible. On the empiricist account, the values that will lead to more successful inquiry are the ones we ought to use.
Which doesn’t mean that Kourany does not address it. See the next section.
Kourany discusses the example of Carolyn West’s research on race and domestic violence (pp. 69–75).
In a local sense, scientific progress just amounts to getting closer to solving the problem that spurred an inquiry. In a global sense, scientific progress is a notoriously perplexing and difficult issue.
A violation of Peirce’s dictum: “Do not block the way of inquiry” (c.1899/1931, p. 135)
Notice that the deflationary picture of value judgments as mere preferences that the lexical priority of evidence over values implies is not compatible with such dogmatism, but perhaps most naturally paired with it.
References
Anderson, E. (2004). Uses of value judgments in science: A general argument, with lessons from a case study of feminist research on divorce. Hypatia, 19(1), 1–24.
Anderson, E. (2010). Dewey’s moral philosophy. In: E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (fall 2010 edn)
Brown, M. J. (forthcoming). Values in science beyond underdetermination and inductive risk. Philosophy of Science http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9228
Dewey, J. (1915). The logic of judgments of practice. In: J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The middle works, 1899–1924 (Vol 8.) Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Douglas, H. (2000). Inductive risk and values in science. Philosophy of Science, 67(4), 559–579.
Douglas, H. (2005). Inserting the public into science. In: S. Maasen, & P. Weingart (Eds.), Democratization of expertise? Exploring novel forms of scientific advice in political decision-making. Sociology of the sciences yearbook (Vol 24, pp. 153–169). Dordrecht: Springer.
Douglas, H. (2009). Science, policy, and the value-free ideal. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Feyerabend, P. K. (1985). Problems of empiricism: Philosophical papers (Vol. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Feyerabend, P. K. (1993). Against method, 3rd edn. London: Verso.
James, W. (1896). The will to believe. The New World, 5, 327–347.
Kitcher, P. (2011). Science in a democratic society. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books
Kourany, J.A. (2010). Philosophy of science after feminism. Oxford: OUP
Magnus, P. (2012). What scientists know is not a function of what scientists know. PSA 2012 http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9162.
Peirce, C. S. (c.1899/1931). The first rule of reason. In: Hartshorne, C., & Weiss, P. (Eds.), Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vol. 1, pp. 135–140). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rudner, R. (1953). The scientist qua scientist makes value judgments. Philosophy of Science, 20(1), 1–6.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Janet Kourany, Sharon Crasnow, Heather Douglas, Dan Hicks, Amy Kind, Hugh Lacey, and Libby Potter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brown, M.J. The source and status of values for socially responsible science. Philos Stud 163, 67–76 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0070-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0070-x