Science, Values, and Objectivity

Peter Machamer, Gereon Wolters, Peter Machamer, Gereon Wolters

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9780822970866
• Topic: Biowissenschaften
• Subtopic: Philosophie & Ethik in der Wissenschaft

Few people, if any, still argue that science in all its aspects is a value-free endeavor. At the very least, values affect decisions about the choice of research problems to investigate and the uses to which the results of research are applied. But what about the actual doing of science?As Science, Values, and Objectivity reveals, the connections and interactions between values and science are quite complex. The essays in this volume Theory and Method in the Neurosciences surveys the nature and structure of theories in contemporary neuroscience, exploring many of its methodological techniques and problems. The essays in this volume from the Pittsburgh -Konstanz series explore basic questions about how to relate theories of neuroscience and cognition, the multilevel character of such theories, and their experimental bases. Philosophers and scientists (and some who are both) examine the topics of explanation and mechanisms, simulation and computation, imaging and animal models that raise questions about the forefront of research in cognitive neuroscience. Their work will stimulate new thinking in anyone interested in the mind or brain and in recent theories of their connections.identify the crucial values that play a role in science, distinguish some of the criteria that can be used for value identification, and elaborate the conditions for warranting certain values as necessary or central to the very activity of scientific research.Recently, social constructivists have taken the presence of values within the scientific model to question the basis of objectivity. However, the contributors to Science, Values, and Objectivity recognize that such acknowledgment of the role of values does not negate the fact that objects exist in the world. Objects have the power to constrain our actions and thoughts, though the norms for these thoughts lie in the public, social world.Values may be decried or defended, praised or blamed, but in a world that strives for a modicum of reason, values, too, must be reasoned. Critical assessment of the values that play a role in scientific research is as much a part of doing good science as interpreting data.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Science, Values, and Objectivity
• 1. The Epistemic, the Cognitive, and the Social
• 2. Is There a Significant Distinction between Cognitive and Social Values?
• 3. Epistemic and Nonepistemic Values in Science
• 4. The Social in the Epistemic
• 5. Transcending the Discourse of Social Influences
• 6. Between Science and Values
• 7. How Values Can Be Good for Science
• 8. “Social” Objectivity and the Objectivity of Value
• 9. On the Objectivity of Facts, Beliefs, and Values
• 10. A Case Study in Objectifying Values in Science
• 11. Border Skirmishes between Science and Policy: Autonomy, Responsibility, and Values
• 12. The Prescribed and Proscribed Values in Science Policy
• 13. Bioethics: Its Foundation and Application in Political Decision Making
• 14. Knowledge and Control: On the Bearing of Epistemic Values in Applied Science
• 15. Law and Science
• Index