Current Controversies in Values and Science

Kevin C. Elliott, Daniel Steel, Kevin C. Elliott, Daniel Steel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317273981
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Current Controversies in Values and Science asks ten philosophers to debate five questions (two philosophers per debate) that are driving contemporary work in this important area of philosophy of science. The book is perfect for the advanced student, building up her knowledge of the foundations of the field while also engaging its most cutting-edge questions. Introductions and annotated bibliographies for each debate, preliminary descriptions of each chapter, study questions, and a supplemental guide to further controversies involving values in science help provide clearer and richer snapshots of active controversies for all readers.

Part I
Epistemic Values

Can We Distinguish Epistemic from Non-Epistemic Values?

Chapter 1
Distinguishing Between Cognitive and Social Values

HUGH LACEY

Chapter Overview

There is a methodologically important distinction between cognitive and social values that can be readily discerned when cognitive values are conceived of as criteria for evaluating how well a scientific theory provides understanding of a phenomenon. Cognitive but not social values play essential roles in making the judgment that a theory or hypothesis is impartially held of a set of phenomena. However, social values have proper and ineliminable roles in other aspects of science, for example, when adopting a theory for the sake of giving direction to a research project, or endorsing a theoretically articulated hypothesis for the sake of informing practical action. Arguments against there being a useful distinction between cognitive and social values depend on conceptions of cognitive values that do not facilitate distinguishing the different attitudes (holding impartially, adopting, endorsing) that may be taken toward theories and hypotheses.

1. Introduction

Values are properties of an object that are deemed to be criteria for appraising its value and, when adequately possessed by it, to be indicators of its value (its worth, goodness, or desirability). An object may be valued in various ways. A scientific theory, for example, may be valued for its ability to provide well-founded understanding of phenomena—I will call this its cognitive value; or for its potential to contribute to social ‘utility’—its social value. A scientific theory provides well-founded understanding of phenomena when it provides descriptions of their features, identifies the mechanisms of how they work and the causal factors that produce them, and indicates how they can be transformed (often for technological ends) through interaction with other phenomena. A theory could contribute to social utility by informing projects that generate technological innovations, strengthen social justice and foster human well-being, or further feminist objectives or the interests of particular social groups.

I define cognitive values to be criteria for evaluating how adequate and well founded is the understanding of phenomena that is incorporated in a scientific theory in the light of available empirical data obtained from observation of these phenomena. Scientific understanding incorporates but is not reducible to knowledge of phenomena. The terms ‘cognitive values’ and ‘epistemic values’ are often used more or less interchangeably. However, since epistemic values tend to be characterized as criteria for evaluating knowledge or as indicators of truth, in order to avoid ambiguity, throughout my argument I refer to cognitive values (criteria for evaluating understanding). Empirical adequacy, explanatory power, capacity to identify possibilities that the phenomena enable and allow, internal consistency, consistency with understanding of phenomena that is well founded in other theories, and minimization of ad hoc hypotheses, are all exemplary cognitive values. They have been identified dialectically in the course of the unfolding of the scientific tradition (Laudan 1984); they are highly manifested in instances of well founded scientific understanding and knowledge, and can be defended in the light of their mutual compatibility and accord with the aims and ideals of science (Lacey 1999); they are widely appealed to in scientific practices, and learning how to deploy them is built into programs for the formation of professional scientists. I define social values to include criteria for evaluating social arrangements and systems—for example, freedom, justice, democratic participation, property rights, and equality—and also criteria for evaluating social institutions and practices, for example, technological progress, economic growth, profit, and empowerment of participants. Agents often disagree about what these criteria are and how they should be ranked; when they do, I will say that they adhere to different social values.

The distinction between cognitive and social values drawn with these definitions is an important one. More generally, distinguishing cognitive values from all other kinds of values, including ethical, personal, economic, religious, aesthetic values, is important. Here I address explicitly only social values, but my conclusions about their proper roles in science are intended to hold for all noncognitive values. As will be discussed in Section 3, cognitive values are essential to evaluating whether a theory provides adequate and well-founded understanding of a particular set of phenomena. I will say that a theory is impartially held of a set of phenomena when it provides this kind of understanding, and also that the knowledge it incorporates of each phenomenon of the set is impartially held. Social values and other kinds of noncognitive values do not have a proper role to play in evaluating that a theory is impartially held of a set of phenomena. However, it is important to distinguish this attitude of impartially holding a theory of a set of phenomena from the attitudes of adopting a theory, and endorsing a hypothesis about phenomena that is articulated using a theory’s categories (Lacey 2015a). A theory is adopted when it is used for the sake of framing and giving direction to ongoing research in a given scientific area, and of testing the range of phenomena of which the theory can come to incorporate understanding (see Section 4). A theoretically articulated hypothesis is endorsed when it is judged to be well enough supported by available evidence to justify using it to inform actions or other practical matters (Section 5). Social values and other kinds of noncognitive values do have proper roles to play in deciding what theories to adopt and whether to endorse theoretically articulated claims. Once these different attitudes are distinguished, it is easier to grasp that the distinction between cognitive and social values is methodologically important, and to identify the different but essential roles that the two kinds of values play in particular aspects of science.

2. Arguments for Rejecting That the Distinction Between Cognitive and Social Values Is Useful

Cognitive (epistemic) values became a major topic of discussion in contemporary philosophy of science largely in response to writings by Thomas Kuhn (1977), Ernan McMullin (1983), and Larry Laudan (1984), all of whom maintain that scientific methodological procedures require making a distinction between cognitive and noncognitive values. They and others have put forward lists of what are considered to be exemplary cognitive values. The list compiled by Helen Longino is a typical one: empirical adequacy, consistency with theories in other domains, simplicity, explanatory power/generality, fertility, and refutability (Longino 2008, 69).¹ Many philosophers of science maintain that there is not a useful, methodologically important distinction between cognitive and social values. Their arguments follow a common pattern. (In Section 4.5, I will discuss in greater detail Longino’s particular version of the argument.) They assume that, if there is a useful distinction, we should be able to define cognitive values in a way that enables us to clearly determine whether or not the items on a list like Longino’s are cognitive values, to the exclusion of all social and other noncognitive values. Then, they argue that the definitions of cognitive values that they consider do not serve to pick out the items on such a list to the exclusion of all social values; and, from this, they conclude that there is not a useful distinction.

The following are typical of the definitions of cognitive values considered in these arguments: ‘characteristic values of a good scientific theory’ (McMullin 1983, 18), ‘good reasons for accepting… a theory’ (Longino 2008, 74), and ‘standard criteria for evaluating the adequacy of a theory’ (Kuhn 1977, 322); and also: ‘values… constitutive of the knowledge and truth-seeking goals of the enterprise of science’ (Rooney 1992), values involved in ‘scientific reasoning’ (Douglas 2009), and ‘acceptable values in science’ (Douglas 2009). There are differences among these definitions. None of them, however, provides a basis for distinguishing between the three attitudes of impartially holding a theory of specified sets of phenomena, adopting a theory, and endorsing a theoretically articulated claim. Instead, all of these attitudes tend to be lumped together in an undifferentiated way under the category of ‘accepting a theory’ (Lacey 2015a). Then, the criteria for ‘accepting’ a theory, or judging it to be ‘adequate,’ are effectively considered to be of the same kinds regardless of the attitude being taken toward the theory. In addition, ‘good theory’ and ‘scientific reasoning’ are each treated effectively as univocal notions. Then, since social values are indeed among the grounds for adopting theories (see Section 4) and endorsing theoretically articulated claims (Section 5), they are among the grounds for ‘accepting’ theories and among the criteria for identifying ‘good’ or ‘adequate’ theories. The items on the lists of cognitive values may also be among these criteria, but not in a way that excludes social values also being so. It follows that any list of cognitive values that is drawn up, separating them from the social values that are also among the criteria, will be largely arbitrary and not indicative of a methodologically important distinction.

This conclusion does not follow when cognitive values are defined (as in Section 1) as criteria for evaluating the understanding that a theory incorporates with respect to a specified set of phenomena, and where the three attitudes are kept separate and not lumped all together. Then, it can be taken into account that the grounds for holding a theory impartially of a specified set of phenomena are different from the kinds of reasons required for adopting a theory and for endorsing a theoretically articulated claim. And so, social values may be among the reasons for adopting theories and endorsing theoretically articulated hypotheses but not for impartially holding a theory of a set of phenomena. This would leave untouched that the criteria (cognitive values) for evaluating well-founded scientific understanding are distinct from social values, and that identifying them need not involve their being arbitrarily demarcated from social values. This is consistent with the facts that the social values adhered to affect what phenomena are investigated, and that any well-founded understanding obtained in science is the outcome of research practices in which social values may play indispensable roles; and it does not imply that being the outcome of such practices is among the cognitive values (Lacey 2005). It also leaves open the question of whether all the items on Longino’s list are cognitive values.

In the following sections, I will elaborate how it is important for scientific methodology to distinguish between the three attitudes: adopting, impartially holding, and endorsing, and how doing so enables a compelling account to be given of the different roles that cognitive and social values play in scientific practices.

3. Keeping Cognitive and Social Values Separate: Impartially Holding a Theory of a Set of Phenomena

Scientific practice is fraught with many uncertainties. Nevertheless, often that a theory incorporates understanding of a specified set of phenomena becomes so well founded and established that this needs no further testing—although this leaves it open to further investigation to find out whether or not the theory can provide understanding of a wider range of phenomena. For example, classical mechanical theory is well founded and established as an account of terrestrial motions; and textbooks of molecular chemistry and biology, nuclear physics, studies of the viral and bacterial causation of disease, and electronic theory applied to such technological objects as computers and television provide numerous instances of theories so established. These are cases of theories being impartially held of specified sets of phenomena (see Section 1). All of them also have practical applications that have acclaimed social value. Moreover, some of them (for example, a theory about bacterial causes of a particular disease) might not have been adopted in investigation, if it had not been expected that socially valued applications (a cure for the disease) would be forthcoming. These facts about the social value of these theories are irrelevant, however, for judging whether or not they are impartially held of the relevant sets of phenomena.

No social values are presupposed, or have a proper role alongside (or overriding) of the cognitive values, when a judgment of this kind is made. Then, the only relevant consideration is whether or not the theories manifest the cognitive values to a high degree with respect to empirical data obtained by observing the phenomena of which they are intended to provide understanding, and to a sufficiently high degree that there actually remain no plausible reasons to anticipate that further research on the matter would make any difference. While it is always logically possible that further research might make a difference, it is a norm of standard scientific practice that no further research is needed to test such a judgment when (and only when) the following conditions are satisfied: (i) all plausible, actually identified lines of research, which could produce results that would lead to rejecting the judgment, have been fully pursued; (ii) all actually raised objections concerning the degree of manifestation of the cognitive values in the theory with respect to the available empirical data—as well as objections concerning the sufficiency of this data—have been addressed; and (iii) after repeated efforts and a reasonable lapse of time, no additional objections, accompanied by specific research proposals, are anticipated.

Nevertheless, we can find plenty of cases where, in actual fact, social values do play roles alongside the cognitive values when evaluations are made about a theory incorporating well-founded understanding of a domain of phenomena. For example, feminist philosophers of science have pointed to cases where sexist values play roles alongside the cognitive values (Longino 1992; Kourany 2010). These have to do with theories that have been constrained to consistency with sexist value-laden claims (e.g., males as primary agents of innovation or as having superior mathematical ability), and—ignoring that conditions (i)–(iii) are not satisfied—treated as if they were impartially held of the relevant phenomena. Evaluations of the cognitive value of these theories are thereby distorted. Despite not being impartially held of phenomena that they encompass, the theories are treated as if they are, and often used to give alleged scientific cover to prejudicial attitudes and behavior. Distorted appraisals also can have problematic consequences in deliberations having to do with regulatory and public-policy decisions.

4. Role for Social Values: Adopting a Theory

A theory is adopted when it is used for the sake of framing and giving direction to ongoing research in a given scientific area, and of testing the range of phenomena of which the theory can come to incorporate understanding. The judgment that a theory is impartially held of a specified set of phenomena is based on outcomes of a process of research in which the theory had been adopted and empirical data obtained by observing phenomena of the set. As we have seen, social values have no proper role, alongside the cognitive values, when making a judgment of this kind. However, they (and ethical, personal, and other noncognitive values) do play important roles when deciding to adopt the theory.

In 4.1, I will discuss ways in which social values may have direct and overt roles when adopting theories; and then, in 4.2, how their roles are often overshadowed by the roles of two values, fertility and comprehensiveness, that generally influence what theories are adopted. In 4.3, I will discuss the adoption of what I call ‘decontextualizing theories,’ theories that have been remarkably fertile and that are often said to be adopted for this reason. In 4.4, however, I will show that adopting only decontextualizing theories is incompatible with reaching accord with comprehensiveness. Then, I will argue that, where they are adopted virtually exclusively, it is because they generally enable us to obtain understanding that supports the social values of technological progress and of capital and the market, sometimes at the expense of other social values, such as those of social justice and democratic participation. Hence, decisions made about whether to adopt these or other theories may be enmeshed in these social values. Finally, in 4.5, by recognizing the role of social values in decisions about which theories to adopt, I will show that Longino’s particular version of the form of argument (discussed in Section 2), that there is not an important distinction between cognitive and social values, does not succeed.

4.1 Direct Roles of Social Values in Supporting the Adoption of Theories

Consider, for example, that scientists may adopt a theory in biotechnology in order to gain more understanding of genetically modified (GM) crops, because they value socially the contribution that using those crops can make to technological progress, to economic growth, or to increasing the world’s food supply. This research has led to impartially held results, such as that certain kinds of GM crops are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in the widely used RoundUp). Other scientists, without denying that results like this are impartially held, question the social value of using GM crops, in part because of conc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Values and Science: Current Controversies
• Part I Epistemic Values: Can We Distinguish Epistemic from Non-Epistemic Values?
• Part II Epistemic Priority: Must Science Be Committed to Prioritizing Epistemic over Non-Epistemic Values?
• Part III Inductive Risk: Does the Argument from Inductive Risk Justify Incorporating Non-Epistemic Values in Scientific Reasoning?
• Part IV Diversity: Can Social Diversity Be Best Incorporated into Science by Adopting the Social Value Management Ideal?
• Part V Democracy: To Ensure That Scientific Institutions Serve Values of Social Justice and Democracy, Should Biomedical Research Be Socialized?
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Supplemental Guide to Further Controversies
• Index