Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T12:14:19.515Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Science and Values: Are Value Judgments Always Irrelevant to the Justification of Scientific Claims?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Kristen Intemann
Kristen Intemann*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Washington, Box 353350, Seattle, WA 98195; [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Several feminist theorists have claimed that feminist values ought to influence theory choice. Susan Haack has argued that this is implausible because normative claims about what ought to be the case can never provide justification for descriptive claims. I argue against one of the premises of Haack's argument. Furthermore, I attempt to show that the most promising defense of this premise would cast doubt on a second premise of Haack's argument. My aim is to open up the possibility that value judgments can play a legitimate role in theory choice.

Type
Science and Values
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue S3: No. 3 Supplement: Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 2001 , 2001 , pp. S506 - S518
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

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

‡

I would like to thank Marc Lange, Mika LaVaque-Manty, David Nixon, and especially Andrea Woody for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This paper also greatly benefited from comments of audience members at the 2000 meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association.

References

American Psychiatric Association (1994), The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Amundson, Ron and Lauder, George V. (1998), “Function Without Purpose: The Uses of Causal Role Function in Evolutionary Biology”, in The Philosophy of Biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 227–257.Google Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth (1995a), “Feminist Epistemology: An Interpretation and a Defense”, Hypatia 10 (3): 50–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth (1995b), “Knowledge, Human Interests, and Objectivity in Feminist Epistemology”, Philosophical Topics 23 (2): 27–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth (1995c), “The Democratic University: The Role of Justice in the Production of Knowledge”, Social Philosophy and Policy 12:186–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariyo, Abraham, Haan, Mary, Tangen, Catherine, Rutledge, John, and Furberg, Curt (2000), “Depressive Symptoms and Risks of Coronary Heart Disease and Mortality in Elderly Americans”, Circulation 102: 1773.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bedau, Mark (1998), “Where's the Good in Teleology?”, in Allen, Colin, Bekoff, Marc, and Lauder, George (eds.), Nature's Purposes. Cambridge: MIT Press, 261–291.Google Scholar
Duhem, Pierre ([1906] 1954), The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Reprint. Translated by Philip P. Wiener. Originally published as La Theorie Physique: Son Objet, et sa Structure (Paris: Marcel Riviëre & Cie). Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Haack, Susan (1998), Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kendell, Robert (1975), “The Concept of Disease and Its Implications for Psychiatry”, British Journal of Psychiatry 127:305–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Longino, Helen (1990), Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Lynn Hankinson (1990), Who Knows? From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Nemeroff, Charles (1998), “The Neurobiology of Depression”, Scientific American June: 42–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. (1953), “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, in From A Logical Point of View. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 20–46.Google Scholar
Reznek, Lawrie (1991), The Philosophical Defence of Psychiatry. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rubin, Vera C. (1996), Bright Galaxies, Dark Matters. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Tiles, Mary (1987), “A Science of Mars or Venus?”, Philosophy 62:293–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Larry (1998), “Functions”, in Allen, Colin, Bekoff, Marc, and Lauder, George (eds.), Nature's Purposes. Cambridge: MIT Press, 51–78.Google Scholar
Yount, Lisa (1999), Women in Science and Math. New York: Facts on File, 83–85.Google Scholar