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Values in Science: The Case of Scientific Collaboration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Kristina Rolin
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Abstract

Much of the literature on values in science is limited in its perspective because it focuses on the role of values in individual scientists’ decision making, thereby ignoring the context of scientific collaboration. I examine the epistemic structure of scientific collaboration and argue that it gives rise to two arguments showing that moral and social values can legitimately play a role in scientists’ decision to accept something as scientific knowledge. In the case of scientific collaboration some moral and social values are properly understood to be extrinsic epistemic values, that is, values that promote the attainment of scientific knowledge.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 157 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful to Kevin Elliott, Brad Wray, and the reviewers for Philosophy of Science for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. I also wish to thank the audiences at the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice meeting in Toronto and the workshop “The Role of Values in Social Inquiry” in Copenhagen in 2013. This research has been made possible by funding from the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki.

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