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Nonepistemic Values and the Multiple Goals of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Kevin C. Elliott  and
Daniel J. McKaughan
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Abstract

Recent efforts to argue that nonepistemic values have a legitimate role to play in assessing scientific models, theories, and hypotheses typically either reject the distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values or incorporate nonepistemic values only as a secondary consideration for resolving epistemic uncertainty. Given that scientific representations can legitimately be evaluated not only based on their fit with the world but also with respect to their fit with the needs of their users, we show in two case studies that nonepistemic values can play a legitimate role as factors that override epistemic considerations in assessing scientific representations for practical purposes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

We thank Martin Carrier, Heather Douglas, Ashley Graham Kennedy, Hugh Lacey, Angela Potochnik, and three anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments on previous versions of this article. We also benefited from discussions with the participants at the “Cognitive Attitudes and Values in Science” conference at the University of Notre Dame, the “Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice” conference in Toronto, and the “State’s Stake in Science” conference at the University of Bielefeld. This article was made possible through the support of a grant provided to Daniel J. McKaughan from The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge, and the Templeton World Charity Foundation as well as by sabbatical leave provided to Kevin C. Elliott by the University of South Carolina.

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