A Feminist Approach to Values in Science

Abstract

��� While I share the aims and values of Philosophy of Science after Feminism, I argue that the ideal of socially responsible science is in need of further defense. In accordance with this ideal, not only sound epistemic values but also sound social values are to play a role in scientiac inquiry. However, the ideal of socially responsible science does not specify what roles sound social values are required to play so that they go together with sound epistemic values without undermining them. Nor does it specify how scientists identify sound social values. Janet Kourany’s Philosophy of Science after Feminism aims to outline a new research program for philosophy of science and to provide “a new, more comprehensive understanding of scientiac rationality, one that integrates the ethical with the epistemic” (2010, p. viii). A model for this program is found in feminist philosophers’ and scientists’ work on the impact of social values on scientiac inquiry. Like many other feminist philosophers, Kourany argues that social values, that is, value judgments concerning a desirable social order, are of epistemic interest because they can affect, for good and bad, scientists’ assessments of theories and hypotheses. And like many others, Kourany suggests that there is a need to develop a normative approach to the role of social values in scientiac inquiry. The ideal of socially responsible science is introduced as an alternative not only to the ideal of value-free science but also to the normative approaches proposed by Helen Longino (1990; 2002) and Miriam Solomon (2001). As Kourany explains it, according to the ideal of socially responsible science, “sound I wish to thank Janet Kourany and the other participants in the symposium on Philosophy of Science after Feminism for commenting my presentation at the 2010 PSA meeting in Montreal. I am also grateful to Brad Wray for his comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.