From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Aug 27 2002 - 23:50:54 MDT
At 10:30 PM 8/27/02 -0700, Lee wrote:
>As for science, could you explain why it can't be looked
>at as "value-free"?
This is so large an issue that no easy response is possible. A quick google
finds such provocative papers as this (which I've only skimmed; I neither
endorse it nor otherwise):
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/hlacey1/value-free.doc
===========
Here's a sample from the end:
< Now, research under materialist strategies perhaps can produce answers to
questions like: "How can we maximize food production under material
conditions that can be widely replicated?" But not to questions like: "How
can we produce food so that all the people in a given region will gain
access to a well-balanced diet and so that local social and ecological
stability will be sustained?" But "no lost possibilities" can gain no
empirical support apart from attempts to address empirically questions like
the second one. Thus unless strategies (of agroecology) are defined under
which these questions become addressed in systematic empirical ways,
assumptions like "no lost possibilities" must remain essentially
ideological in character. Strategies of agroecology, which typically draw
upon knowledge gained under materialist strategies in major and
indispensable ways, aim to grasp farming practices and their possibilities
without abstracting from the social and ecological relations into which
they enter (what are the possibilities of productive and sustainable
agroecosystems?)- and they may well exhibit continuity with the
"traditional knowledge" of a culture. They might not turn out to be
fruitful, but we cannot know that in advance of engaging in research under
them.
The definition and development of such strategies would further
neutrality, and also involve mutually reinforcing interactions with
various value-outlooks that contest the modern valuation of control - those
of some environmental groups and, of particular interest to me, grassroots
movements in some third world countries that aim to enhance the values of
"local well being, agency and community" and, if they were to prove
fruitful their products would contribute to furthering the manifestation of
these values - providing further grounds for challenging the modern
valuation of control. The pulls of neutrality and the modern valuation of
control are in opposite directions.
* * * * * * *
Is science value free? It will now be apparent that a "yes or no" answer
would be misleading. Rather we need to discern the extent to which the
three component values can and cannot be further embodied in scientific
practices. Here is my conclusion: Autonomy is not realizable. Neutrality is
susceptible of fuller embodiment in the practices of science (systematic
empirical inquiry), but their current mainstream trajectories do not
promise to bring about that fuller embodiment, so much so that one may
query whether mainstream scientific practices are committed to the
furtherance of neutrality. But impartiality remains a key value of all
research practices conducted under any strategy.
The ground has now been cleared to permit us to keep at the center of
attention the question: How should systematic empirical inquiry (science)
be conducted and institutionalized today so as to be of greatest service to
furthering the well-being, in all of its dimensions, of as many people as
possible? In turn, this question will become interpreted concretely as
related questions are posed: How widely should we multiply strategies - in
response to what range of value-outlooks, expressive of what range of
conceptions of human well-being, articulated by what range of social and
political movements? How exactly do current scientific practices (and their
forms of institutionalization) contribute to furthering and diminishing
human well-being? What anticipatory alternatives might be worth exploring
more fully? Compare with Dupré:
… the most important topic in the philosophy of science, the relation of
science to human values. What contributions can or should science make to
human well-being? … … If there is one conclusion of overriding importance
to be drawn from the increasing realization in recent times that science is
a human product, it is that, like other human products, the only way it can
ultimately be evaluated is in terms of whether it contributes to the
thriving of sentient beings in the universe.
And with Kitcher:
Reflective people … want to know whether research in various areas is
skewed by the values of particular groups and, at the broadest level, how
science bears on human flourishing. …… It has been obvious for about half a
century that research yielding epistemic benefits may have damaging
consequences for the individual or even the whole species. Philosophical
stories about science have been narrowly focused on the epistemic. Faced
with lines of research that have the capacity to alter the environment in
radical ways, to transform our self-understanding, and to interact with a
variety of social institutions and social prejudices to affect human lives,
there is a much larger problem of understanding just how the sciences bear
on human flourishing.
These questions can no longer be brushed aside on the ground that values
have no proper place in setting the direction of scientific research. One
way or the other, some values (or metaphysics) must play such a role,
ensuring that understanding gained under a strategy is primed to be
significant for value-outlooks containing these values. Better that the
role played be a consequence of discussion and deliberation, rather than a
covert one played in subtle dialectical interaction with the reigning
values of the age. Of course, it is important that the role be played at
the right (logical) moment, that of adoption of strategy, and never at the
expense of impartiality. Recognizing this should not obscure there are rich
dialectical interactions among the questions: "How to conduct scientific
research?", "How to structure society?" and "How to further human
well-being?" Science may be appraised, not only for the cognitive value of
its theoretical products, but also for its contribution to social justice
and human well-being. >
=====================
I would say more strongly: Science (and history, etc) must be appraised,
not only for the cognitive value of its theoretical products but for the
biases, metaphysical/ideological presuppositions, and interests inevitably
implicit in its production, marketing and reception.
Damien Broderick
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