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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
INTRODUCTION
Churchman (4), Braithwaite (1), and Rudner (7) argue from premises acceptable to many empiricists to the conclusion that ethical judgments are essentially involved in decisions as to which hypotheses should be included in the body of scientifically accepted propositions. Rudner summarizes:
Now I take it that no analysis of what constitutes the method of science would be satisfactory unless it comprised some assertion to the effect that the scientist as scientist accepts or rejects hypotheses.
But if this is so then clearly the scientist as scientist does make value judgments. For, since no scientific hypothesis is ever completely verified, in accepting a hypothesis the scientist must make the decision that the evidence is sufficiently strong or that the probability is sufficiently high to warrant the acceptance of the hypothesis. Obviously our decision regarding the evidence and respecting how strong is “strong enough”, is going to be a function of the importance, in the typically ethical sense, of making a mistake in accepting or rejecting the hypothesis (7, p. 2).
The form of this reasoning is hypothetical: If it is the job of the scientist to accept and reject hypotheses, then the scientist must make value judgments. Now I shall argue (in effect) that if scientists make value judgments, then they neither accept nor reject hypotheses. These two statements together form a reductio ad absurdum of the widely held view which our authors presuppose, that science consists of a body of hypotheses which, pending further evidence, have been accepted as highly enough confirmed for practical purposes (“practical” in Aristotle's sense).
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