Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

The Value-Free Ideal, that the epistemic decisions in science should be free from the influence of social, cultural or political values, has been defended and challenged as the bulwark of objectivity. I will suggest that answering the normative question – should science aim to be value free? – requires a detailed explication. I will consider science to be a social practice, with attached role obligations, embedded in a larger, complex social system. A pragmatist approach to the value of norms (e.g. value-freedom, transparency) requires understanding their impact on practical experience. I will argue that a complex systems approach that identifies structural and functional networks and feedback dynamics in the formal and informal institutions that constitute a society can locate the sources of the values that guide scientific decisions and actions and expose causal pathways that permit focused criticism and the potential for effective change.