Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T05:19:06.152Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Ideal of Autonomous Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Dan Hicks
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article I first use Alasdair MacIntyre's conception of a practice to develop a version of the common, although increasingly controversial, ideal of value-free, value-neutral, or autonomous science. I then briefly show how this ideal has been used by some philosophers to criticize both governmental and commercial funding of science. I go on to argue that, far from being value neutral, certain elements of this ideal strongly resemble some controversial elements of libertarian political philosophy. I suggest that alternative ideals for science might be developed by drawing on egalitarian liberal and communitarian political philosophy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 1235 - 1248
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Alex Arnold, Elise Crull, Janet Kourany, Anna Rafalski, an anonymous reviewer at Philosophy of Science, and a questioner at the 2010 Philosophy of Science Association meeting for feedback on earlier versions of this article.

References

Brown, James Robert. 2008. “The Community of Science.” In The Challenge of the Social and the Pressure of Practice: Science and Values Revisited, ed. Carrier, Martin, Howard, Don, and Kourany, Janet, 256–95. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Caplan, Jeremy B., and Caplan, Paula J.. 2005. “The Perserverative Search for Sex Differences in Mathematical Ability.” In Gender Differences in Mathematics, ed. Gallagher, Ann M. and Kaufman, James C., 25–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Gerald. 1995. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Happer, William. 2003. “Harmful Politicization of Science.” In Politicizing Science: The Alchemy of Policymaking, ed. Gough, Michael, 27–48. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 2001. Science, Truth, and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. 2nd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Michaels, David. 2008. Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2006. Frontiers of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Petersen, Arthur C. 2000. “Philosophy of Climate Science.” Bulletic of the American Meteorological Society 81 (2): 265–71.Google Scholar
Petersen, Arthur C.. 2008. “The Practice of Climate Simulation and Its Social and Political Context.” Netherlands Journal of Geosciences 87 (3): 219–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 1962. “The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory.” Minerva 1:54–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schweber, Silvan S. 2000. In the Shadow of the Bomb. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Suárez, Mauricio. 2004. “An Inferential Conception of Scientific Representation.” Philosophy of Science 71 (5): 767–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suárez, Mauricio, and Cartwright, Nancy. 2008. “Theories: Tools versus Models.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science B 39 (1): 62–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1985. “Atomism.” In Philosophy and the Human Sciences, 188–210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Union of Concerned Scientists. 2004. Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists.Google Scholar