Abstract
The aim of this article is to argue that ontological choices in scientific practice undermine common formulations of the value-free ideal in science. First, I argue that the truth values of scientific statements depend on ontological choices. For example, statements about entities such as species, race, memory, intelligence, depression, or obesity are true or false relative to the choice of a biological, psychological, or medical ontology. Second, I show that ontological choices often depend on non-epistemic values. On the basis of these premises, I argue that it is often neither possible nor desirable to evaluate scientific statements independently of non-epistemic values. Finally, I suggest that considerations of ontological choices do not only challenge the value-free ideal but also help to specify positive roles of non-epistemic values in an often neglected area of scientific practice.
Highlights
Values are ubiquitous in scientific practice and play an important role in research from the early planning stage to the dissemination of final results
No matter whether we look at the natural or the social sciences, the general lesson of this section remains the same: In order to get to the empirical issues, scientists need to specify the boundaries of entities and ontological choices are ubiquities in scientific practice
I have argued that the truth values of scientific statements depend on ontological choices (Sects. 2, 3) and that ontological choices often depend on nonepistemic values
Summary
Values are ubiquitous in scientific practice and play an important role in research from the early planning stage to the dissemination of final results. If science is concerned with facts in the sense of (1) while values in the sense of (2) have no bearing on what is the case in the world, the ‘‘epistemic integrity of science’’ (Ruphy 2006) seems to require that we avoid non-epistemic values in the evaluation and justification of scientific theories. Far from endorsing the highly implausible claim that values can be eliminated from science altogether, proponents of VFI subscribe to the far more specific idea that non-epistemic values should play no role in evaluating or justifying scientific theories (cf Elliott and McKaughan 2014; Buter 2015). I argue that ontological choices often depend on non-epistemic values (Sect. 7), I suggest that a consideration of non-epistemic values in scientific ontologies does provide a negative argument against VFI and makes more constructive suggestions about legitimate roles of non-epistemic values in scientific theories
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