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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to discuss Miller’s recent claim that 1) the ideal of value-freedom is implausible because evidence from experimental psychology reveals how scientific reasoning is value-laden and biased, and 2) that the ideal of value-freedom requires the exercise of complex conceptual distinctions that scientists cannot make. According to Miller, the ideal of value-freedom, therefore, violates the principle that ought implies can. The paper replies 1) that experimental psychology may show that science is value-laden in some sense, yet this does not imply that the ideal of value-freedom should be rejected as unachievable. This is because scientists can reduce the influence from non-epistemic values, inter alia, by employing debiasing techniques and other scientific procedures. The paper also replies that 2) the ideal of value-freedom in science does not violate the principle that ought implies can because scientists do not seem to need a philosophical vocabulary in order to make the relevant distinctions between different epistemic attitudes.
Notes
1. The classification is more complex according to some scholars, but this is irrelevant to the argument that we propose in this paper.
2. Douglas does not mean to imply that ’anything goes’, with regards to the direct role of values in the external stages. For example, scientists should obviously choose a methodology that elucidates the problem properly, rather than choosing a methodology that predetermines the results of research.
3. Miller’s critique of the ideal of value-freedom is a step in his defense of pragmatic encroachment (PE), the epistemological view that ‘standards of knowledge partly depend on a subject’s interests’ (Miller, Citation2014, 1). In particular, Miller argues that ‘PE states that knowledge is value-laden, which means that scientific knowledge is also value-laden. If PE is right, the value-free ideal is false’ (Miller, Citation2014, 4). Thus, because motivated reasoning reveals how knowledge (in general as well as scientific knowledge) is value-laden, this brings Miller closer to the conclusion that the ideal of value-freedom is false.
4. Lacey’s concept of endorsement is a modification of Rudner’s 1953 argument from inductive risk. This is the argument that non-epistemic values should influence the scientist’s reasoning about the sufficiency of evidence for a scientific hypothesis. See also Douglas (Citation2000, Citation2009).