Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam, Virtue Epistemology and Value-Free Science

Online Symposium on Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology 2022
Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam (California State University, Northridge), “A Virtue Epistemological Rejection of the Value-Free Ideal”

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In a talk last(?) year, Wendy Parker used something like the proximate/distal ends distinction to argue for a weak version of the value-free ideal. IIRC the idea was that the distal ends set certain parameters for inquiry, but while actually engaged in inquiry scientists should focus on the aim of producing knowledge that satisfies those parameters. Sort of bracketing off any contextual/"non-epistemic" values. I think maybe, if you disagree with Parker, it's over what "epistemic responsibility" means. She thinks it requires bracketing off contextual values. Do you think that epistemic responsibility requires *not* bracketing off these values?

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Hey Dan, just seeing this. I’d love to look at Wendy’s paper - if you know of a draft available somewhere, please do let me know. While (your account of) her view seems similar to mine at first, particularly re: proximal and distal ends, I’m wondering how it might be possible to meet the epistemic ends at hand satisfactorily while bracketing off relevant non-epistemic values, assuming “bracketing off” means ignoring them while pursuing the epistemic ends. I don’t think (socio-epistemic) constraint setting and scientifically pursuing the relevant goal - arguably an epistemic activity - happen in a step-by-step linear way. Various social/ ethical values commonly crop up at each stage of inquiry, making “bracketing off” impossible, or at least very hard. What I meant in my talk was that within each such stage, the pursuit is epistemic (say, producing a model), WITH non-epistemic values constantly guiding/shaping it. Also on further thought, it occurs to me that social ends in this context play two roles: as the ends themselves, and as constraints/ guiding values in relevant scientific work. When talking of the latter - for ex., health/safety guiding data collection - the social component (here, safety) functions as a value or constraint in a given particular context, and is very much integral/ proximal to core scientific work and is a non-epistemic value guiding epistemic inquiry. But as an ultimate end more broadly, it can be seen as distal to the core of doing science. Of course in reality it seems unlikely that the two can be divorced - a scientist who considers non-epistemic values in her scientific inquiry presumably does so since she cares about that value qua ultimate social good, but it seems to me that this conceptual separation clarifies the proximal vs. distal contrast I originally had in mind. Thanks for the question! I’d welcome any further thoughts.