Values and Objectivity in Science The Current

This book offers an account of how values play an important role within scientific practices, and how this account illuminates many ethical issues that arise concerning scientific practices and applications.

Hugh Lacey is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College.

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

(16)

PART I: THE INTERPLAY OF SCIENCE AND VALUES

1 How the Sciences Are and Are Not Value Free

17

(28)

1.1 Values: the Modern Valuation of Control and its Presuppositions

18

(5)

1.2 Science as Value Free: Impartiality, Neutrality, and Autonomy

23

(5)

1.3 Links between Adopting Strategies and Holding Social Values-Materialist Strategies and the Modern Valuation of Control

28

(17)

2 Objectivity and Serving Human Well-Being

45

(14)

2.1 Objectivity

45

(9)

2.2 Science and Human Well-Being

54

(5)

3 The Distinction between Cognitive and Social Values

59

(22)

3.1 Values, Value Judgments, and Value-Assessing Statements

60

(3)

3.2 Social Ideals and Cognitive Ideals (The Aim of Science)

63

(4)

3.3 Strategies, Methodological Rules, Metaphysics, and Social Values

67

(9)

3.4 Three Moments of Scientific Activity

76

(5)

4 Incommensurability and "Multicultural Science"

81

(16)

4.1 Competing Strategies

81

(5)

4.2 Comparing Theories Constructed under Competing Strategies

86

(1)

4.3 Choosing to Adopt a Strategy

87

(5)

4.4 "Multicultural Science"

92

(5)

5 The Social Location of Scientific Practices

97

(28)

5.1 Scientific Practices as Lacking Historicity

98

(4)

5.2 Kuhn's Account of the Historicity of Science

102

(6)

5.3 The Role of Applications

108

(3)

5.4 Agroecological Strategies

111

(6)

5.5 Adopting a Strategy and the Social Location of Scientific Research

117

(3)

5.6 Social Location and Adopting a Strategy: Additional Support for Pluralism

120

(5)

PART II: CURRENT CONTROVERSY ABOUT TRANSGENIC CROPS

6 The Controversy about Transgenics: Structure and Opposing Interests

125

(23)

6.1 Controversy about the Legitimacy of Using Transgenics

126

(3)

6.2 Suppositions of the Proponents' and Critics' Arguments

129

(3)

6.3 The Value-Outlooks of the Proponents and the Critics

132

(7)

6.4 Efficacy and Legitimacy

139

(9)

7 Strategies for Research in Agricultural Science

148

(17)

7.1 Seeds and the Knowledge They Embody

149

(4)

7.2 Seeds and Their Sociocultural Location

153

(12)

8 Benefits of Using Transgenics

165

(17)

8.1 Current Benefits

166

(3)

8.2 Anticipated Benefits

169

(2)

8.3 Golden Rice

171

(11)

9 Environmental Risks of the Development and Use of Transgenics

182

(29)

9.1 Risk: General Considerations

184

(2)

9.2 The Role of the Modern Valuation of Control

186

(3)

9.3 Disputes about Risks

189

(3)

9.4 Burden of Proof

192

(6)

9.5 Risks That Derive from the Socioeconomic Context of Use

198

(5)

9.6 The Logic of Endorsing Propositions about Risks

203

(8)

10 Alternative ("Better") Forms of Farming

211

(30)

10.1 Agroecology: The Empirical Record

212

(5)

10.2 Defending "Transgenics Are Necessary to Feed the World"

217

(2)

10.3 The Challenge of Agroecology

219

(5)

10.4 How to Conduct Scientific Research?

224

(3)

10.5 Ethical Discourse and Scientific Inquiry

227

(3)

10.6 Ground of Legitimating Current Uses of Transgenics: Science or Market Interests?

230

(11)

PART III: PROLEGOMENON TO EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF FUTURE SOCIAL POSSIBILITIES

11 The Sociocultural Location of Alternatives to Transgenics

241

(20)

11.1 Empirically Investigating "...Is Not Possible"

242

(3)

11.2 Emancipatory Movements

245

(4)

11.3 The Movements of the World Social Forum and Opposition to Neoliberalism

249

(4)

11.4 A Question for Scientific Investigation: Is Another World Possible?

253

(8)

Appendix

261

(12)

Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms

273

(2)

Bibliography

275

(14)

About the Author

289

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Values and Objectivity in Science The Current Controversy about Transgenic Crops

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials