Abstract
The fifth chapter reinforces the conclusions reached by the fourth. I will argue that moral evaluations are similar to empirical hypotheses, which are factually controllable. Without sacrificing the due distinctions, science and morality are different aspects of the same inquiry, since they use the same empirical process and the objective of both is the truth. The transactional conception of knowledge and reality will further confirm the presence of a moral dimension in scientific research. The inclusion of moral values in scientific research will lead to examining the responsibilities of science. Through historical examples and general arguments, we will see why the scientist does not just have a responsibility only towards truth. The last section will examine the problem of autonomy in science. The fall of the myth of value-free science does not pose any dangers to the autonomy of science. On the contrary, it is a necessary step to reaffirm it and defend it.
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- 1.
In particular important as it is, I will not deal here with the differences between Dewey’s pragmatism and utilitarianism, although both stress the importance of examining the consequences. On this see Dewey (1922, part III, Chapter 17). The argument is relevant because utilitarianism envisages full commensurability of the values, while it is questionable that commensurability is required by pragmatism. On the issue of incommensurability in morality, the literature is quite vast. Personally, I found the analysis made by Stocker (1990) interesting and clear. For the theory that rational choice does not require commensurability, see Richardson (1994). Richardson is clearly influenced by Dewey.
- 2.
See Dewey (1938: 73): “a situation is a whole in virtue of its immediately pervasive quality”.
- 3.
In other words, the end-in-view is formulated in consideration of the analysis of the situation and of the alternatives available: “The proposition in which any object adopted as an end-in-view is statable (or explicitly stated) is warranted in just the degree to which existing conditions have been surveyed and appraised in their capacity as means” (Dewey 1939: 213).
- 4.
In his later period, Dewey, as we will see (Sect. 5.2), prefers the term ‘transaction’ to emphasise the reciprocal transformation between the environment and the organism.
- 5.
See Dewey (Dewey 1939: 212): “The standing objection raised against this view of valuation is that it applies only to things as means, while propositions that are genuine valuations apply to things as ends. […] it may be noted here that ends are appraised in the same evaluations in which things as means are weighed”.
- 6.
See Dewey (Dewey 1939: 219): “Every person in the degree in which he is capable of learning from experience draws a distinction between what is desired and what is desirable whenever he engages in formation and choice of competing desires and interests. […] The contrast referred to is simply that between the object of a desire as it first presents itself (because of the existing mechanism of impulses and habits) and the object of desire which emerges as a revision of the first-appearing impulse, after the latter is critically judged in reference to the condition which will decide the actual result”.
- 7.
In Experience and Nature, Dewey (1925: 9), expresses himself in this way: “Values are naturalistically interpreted as intrinsic qualities of events in their consummatory reference”.
- 8.
See Dewey (1934: 30): “the reality of ideal ends as ideals is vouched for by their undeniable power in action”. In this, they are equal to the general ideals accepted by tradition: “such ends in any case are more or less blank frameworks where the nominal ‘end’ sets limits within which definite ends will fall, the latter being determined by appraisal of things as means”. (Dewey 1939: 229–30).
- 9.
Richardson focuses on the decision an individual environmentalist has to face. However, the specification process is essential also for collective decisions. Albeit from a different perspective, this is the message of the environmental philosopher Bryan Norton. See Norton (2005, especially Section 9.4).
- 10.
See Dewey (Dewey 1939: 219): “The ‘desirable’, or the object which should be desired (valued), does not descend out of the a priori blue nor descend as an imperative from a moral Mount Sinai. It presents itself because past experience has shown that hasty action upon uncriticized desire leads to defeat and possibly to catastrophe”. On this, see for example Hildebrand (2008), which is an excellent introduction to Dewey’s thought. On this issue, see also Gouinlock (1972: 137 ff.).
- 11.
The temptation to treat society as a whole is particularly evident in his early writings. See for example Dewey (1888). In his later writings, Dewey opens up to the existence of the conflict between values, but it is a subject that is never theorised in depth. Gouinlock (1972: 331) is unusually harsh on this point, which also concerns the more mature Dewey: “Dewey committed the fallacy of regarding society as a unitary thing with common values. This is an especially embarrassing mistake for someone who emphasized so much the pluralistic nature of national society”. This particularly negative evaluation refers to Dewey’s Ethics, see Dewey (1932). However, as we will see later (see Sect. 6.3), some of Dewey’s writings, such as The Public and Its Problems, are by no means irrelevant for an understanding of the social and value-based conflict.
- 12.
See Dewey (1946: 258–9): “[value-judgments] differ from other judgments, of course, in the specific material they have to do with. But in this respect inquiries and judgments about potatoes, cats, and molecules differ from one another. The genuinely important difference resides in the fact of the much greater importance with respect to the conduct of life-behavior possessed by the special subject-matter of the so-called value-judgments”.
- 13.
See Talisse (2007). This form of pluralism is defined as epistemic by Talisse, since it does not explain pluralism through the metaphysics of values. In addition, it is a weak form of epistemic pluralism, because it leaves the problem undefined as to whether moral disagreement is in principle insurmountable or not.
- 14.
Obviously, I am simplifying it here. Realism and idealism are broad ‘umbrellas’ under which very different philosophical positions fall. However, it is an appropriate simplification given the relatively modest aim I have set myself here: the correct understanding of the specific form of realism sustained by Dewey.
- 15.
- 16.
Without using the term ‘transaction’ the concept is clearly present also in some previous works. In Logic, for example, Dewey (1938: 40), warns against the possible misunderstanding that might arise from the word interaction: “It will then be supposed that organism and environment are ‘given’ as independent things and interaction is a third independent thing which finally intervenes. In fact, the distinction is a practical and temporal one”. Dewey and Bentley (1949: 108) give the following definition of ‘transaction’: “Trans-action: where systems of description and naming are employed to deal with aspects and phases of action, without final attribution to ‘elements’ or other presumptively detachable or independent ‘entities’, ‘essences’, or ‘realities, and without isolation of presumptively detachable ‘relations’ from such detachable ‘elements’”.
- 17.
See Dewey (1925: 125): “Discovery of America involved the insertion of the newly touched land in a map of the globe. This insertion, moreover, was not merely additive, but transformative of a prior picture of the world as to its surfaces and their arrangements. It may be replied that it was not the world which was changed but only the map. To which there is the obvious retort that after all the map is part of the world, not something outside it, and that its meaning and bearings are so important that a change in the map involves other and still more important objective changes”.
- 18.
This philosophy has ancient roots in the history of economics, but the formulation that has most influenced contemporary economics is probably due to Robbins, see Robbins (1935). Robbins was so radical that he intended to confine welfare economics to a branch of ethics. His successors were less radical, however, they maintained his spirit.
- 19.
There are moderate anthropocentrists (the adjective serves to distance them from economists) and advocates who see nature as having an intrinsic value. Among them there is disagreement as to which entity is the bearer of intrinsic values (for example, is it the individual, the species, or an entire ecological system?) and the extent of their value (do all bearers of intrinsic values have the same level of value or should they be differentiated?). If economics provides an inadequate basis for defending nature, then frankly it must be admitted that the wide divergences that characterise environmental ethics do not appear to be promising in this respect. For an overview of contemporary environmental ethics there is a wide range of books. See, for example, Light and Rolston III (2003).
- 20.
Clearly, also in this case there are exceptions. One is these is Bryan Norton’s work. See, for example, Norton (2005).
- 21.
I should point out that here I am expressly referring to the mainstream of environmental economics. There are certainly heterodox approaches in which moral values are explicitly taken into consideration. An example of this is given by ecological economics, in which, for example, intergenerational justice plays a central role. However, also in ecological economics, values are juxtaposed, rather than integrated, with empirical analyses. For an overview of ecological economics see the excellent textbook by Common and Stagl (2005).
- 22.
Unlike consumer goods, environmental goods are goods that have the characteristics of non-rivalry and non-excludability. On this, I would refer to any textbook of environmental economics.
- 23.
This is one of the most recurring arguments in favour of the conservation of biodiversity. See, for example, Sarkar (2005).
- 24.
This comment was made, still in 1947, in a lesson held at MIT, see Oppenheimer (1955: 88). The complete sentence is: “In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose”.
- 25.
Bridgman (1947: 153): “If the human race is such a sort of creature that it cannot be made to feel that intellectual activity and satisfaction of the craving for understanding are goods in themselves, then we might as well shut up shop here and now […]. The challenge to the understanding of nature is a challenge to the utmost capacity in us. In accepting the challenge, man can dare to accept no handicaps. That is the reason that scientific freedom is essential and the artificial limitations of tools or subject matter are unthinkable”.
- 26.
Bridgman (1947: 149–50): “The miner of iron ore is not expected to see to it that none of the scrap iron which may eventually result from his labors is sold to the Japanese to be used against his country. […] if I personally had to see to it that only beneficent uses were made of my discoveries, I should have to spend my life oscillating between some kind of forecasting Bureau, to find what might be the uses made of my discoveries”.
- 27.
See Dewey (Dewey 1939: 214): “The words ‘inherent’, ‘intrinsic’, and ‘immediate’ are used ambiguously, so that a fallacious conclusion is reached”.
- 28.
For a more in-depth discussion on the concept of responsibility, see Forge (2008), who I will make reference to several times.
- 29.
I am referring, in particular, to the controversial note on the possibility of a planned economy, a dispute that is not only theoretical, given the importance of the Soviet experiment. Note that Polanyi was also a fine economist and had first-hand knowledge of the controversy. See, for example, Polanyi (1951, Chapter 8).
- 30.
It should be acknowledged that in Bush there are also references to the intrinsic value of truth that Polanyi would have shared. As Kitcher notes (Kitcher 2001: 139): “Less prominently, the report contained hints of the intrinsic value of scientific discoveries – recognition of epistemic as well as practical significance – in Bush’s reference to ‘cultural progress’ in the letter of transmittal and sometimes more explicitly: “Moreover, it is part of our democratic creed to affirm the intrinsic cultural and aesthetics worthy of man’s attempt to advance the frontiers of knowledge and understanding””.
- 31.
- 32.
See Guston (2012: 368–9): “Polanyi maintains that the ability to discuss the future practical uses of a discovery must be grounded in the most concrete and complete technical understanding – as if the outcome must be a necessary conclusion of that technical understanding”.
- 33.
This idea is already evident in one of Polanyi’s first philosophical works, see Polanyi (1946).
- 34.
See, in particular, Polanyi (1951), which we have already referred to.
- 35.
For a more detailed historical analysis of the Lysenko case, refer to Graham (1987), Chapter 4)
- 36.
- 37.
As Kitcher (2011: 35) writes: “Your goals adjust and evolve as you encounter unanticipated difficulties. Value-judgments are constantly made, and the investigation cannot be reduced to some neat division of context that allows values to be factored out at the end”.
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Barrotta, P. (2018). Values, Transactional Relationships and the Autonomy of Science. In: Scientists, Democracy and Society. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74938-9_5
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