Abstract
There are many theoretical ghosts haunting supposedly factual research programs. One of these specters, positivism, was allegedly put to rest some twenty years ago by Hanson, Kuhn, Polanyi, Toulmin, and others.1 It has reappeared recently, in the work of some social scientists, engineers, and lawmakers who do technology assessments, environmental-impact analyses, and studies of science policy. The positivistic doctrine which some of these scholars promote is that technology assessments (TA’s), environmental-impact analyses (EIA’s), and other science-related studies ought to be wholly neutral and objective descriptions of the facts, and ought not to include any normative, evaluative, or theoretical components. As such, this position really comes down to two theses: (1) that wholly neutral and objective technology assessments and environmental-impact analyses are possible, and (2) that they are desirable. This latter thesis is particularly disturbing, since it amounts to proscribing the role of the normative scholar in TA and EIA and to condemning the attempts of applied philosophers to come to grips with some of the issues of ethics and scientific methodology which are at the heart of policy questions.
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Notes
See Norwood Russell Hanson, Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1958
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962, 1979
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, Harper and Row, New York, 1958, 1964
and Stephen Toulmin, Foresight and Understanding, Harper and Row, New York, 1961.
According to N. Abbagnano, ‘Positivism’, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed. by Paul Edwards), Macmillan, New York, 1967, vol. 6, p. 414, “the characteristic theses of positivism are that science is the only valid knowledge and facts the only possible objects of knowledge; that philosophy does not possess a method different from science.... Positivism, consequently... opposes any... procedure of investigation that is not reducible to scientific method”. As Laudan points out, because they have disallowed talk about developments in “metaphysics, logic [and] ethics… ‘positivist’ [sociologists,] philosophers and historians of science who see the progress of science entirely in empirical terms have completely missed the huge significance of these developments for science as well as for philosophy”. (Progress and Its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific Growth, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1977, pp. 61–62.)
Quoted by C. V. Kidd, ‘Technology Assessment in the Executive Office of the President’, in Technology Assessment: Understanding the Social Consequences of Technological Applications (ed. by R. G. Kasper), Praeger, New York, 1972, p. 131.
US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Annual Report to the Congress for 1976, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1976, p. 63; hereafter cited as: AR 76.
US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technology Assessment in Business and Government, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1977, p. 9; hereafter cited as TA in BG.
L. H. Mayo, ‘The Management of Technology Assessment’, in Kasper, op. cit., p. 107, and R. A. Carpenter, ‘Technology Assessment and the Congress’, in Kasper, op. cit., p. 40.
Dorothy Nelkin, ‘Wisdom, Expertise, and the Application of Ethics’, Science, Technology, and Human Values 6 (34), (Spring (1981), 16–17; hereafter cited as: Nelkin, Ethics. Inasmuch as Nelkin condemns philosophical discussion of the “rights and wrongs” of science policy, she disallows talk about the ethics of science policy. Hence her disallowing this talk about ethics is tantamount to subscribing to a positivistic model of the role of philosophy and of studies about science and technology.
Carpenter, op. cit., p. 42.
M. D. Reagan, Science and the Federal Patron, Oxford University Press, New York, 1969, p. 9.
See Helen Longino, ‘Beyond “Bad Science”: Skeptical Reflections on the Value-Freedom of Scientific Inquiry’, unpublished essay, March 1982, done with the assistance of National Science Foundation Grant OSS 8018095. Hereafter cited as: Longino, Science.
See Longino, Science, esp. pp. 2–3.
For discussion of these three examples from the history of science, see Harold I. Brown, Perception, Theory and Commitment, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,1977, pp. 97–100, 147, and
K. S. Shrader-Frechette, ‘Recent Changes in the Concept of Matter: How Does “Elementary Particle” Mean?’, in Philosophy of Science Association 1980, vol. 1 (ed. by P. D. Asquith and R. N. Giere), Philosophy of Science Association, East Lansing, 1980, pp. 302 ff.
Longino, Science, pp. 6–9.
Longino, Science, pp. 10–12.
Longino, Science, pp. 16–19.
Longino, Science, p. 25.
W. K. Foell, ‘Assessment of Energy/Environment Systems’, in Environmental Assessment of Socioeconomic Systems (ed. by D. F. Burkhardt and W. H. Ittelson), Plenum, New York, 1978, p. 196
US Congress, Technology Assessment Activities in the Industrial, Academic, and Governmental Communities, Hearings Before the Technology Assessment Board of the Office of Technology Assessment, 94th Congress, Second Session, June 8–10 and 14, 1976, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1976, pp. 66, 200, 220; hereafter cited as: TA in IAG.
See A. B. Lovins, ‘Cost-Risk-Benefit Assessments in Energy Policy’, George Washington Law Review 5 (45), (August 1977), 940.
See M. C. Tool, The Discretionary Economy: A Normative Theory of Political Economy, Goodyear, Santa Monica, Ca, 1979, p. 279.
See R. M. Hare, ‘Contrasting Methods of Environmental Planning’, in Ethics and the Problems of the 21st Century (ed. by K. E. Goodpaster and K. M. Sayre), University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, In., 1979, p. 65.
See Tool, op. cit., p. 280.
For statements of the OTA’s belief, see US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Annual Report to the Congress for 1976, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1976, p. 4
and US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Annual Report to the Congress for 1978, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1978, p. 7;hereafter cited as: AR76 and AR78, respectively.
A. L. Macfie, ‘Welfare in Economic Theory’, The Philosophical Quarterly 3 (10), (January 1953), 59, makes this same point.
H. P. Green, ‘The Adversary Process in Technology Assessment’, in Kasper, op. cit., pp. 51, 52, 55, 60, 61; hereafter cited as: Green, Adversary; and H. Fox, Chair, Technology Assessment: State of the Field, Second Report of the Technology Assessment Panel of the Engineers Joint Council, Engineers Joint Council, New York, 1976, pp. 3–5
and S. G. Burns, ‘Congress and the Office of Technology Assessment’, George Washington Law Review 5 (45), (August 1977), 1146.
A. D. Biderman, ‘Social Indicators and Goals’, in Social Indicators (ed. by R. A. Bauer), MIT Press, Cambridge Ma., 1966, p. 101.
Sergio Koreisha and Robert Stobaugh, ‘Appendix: Limits to Models’, in Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (ed. by Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin), Random House, New York, 1979, pp. 237–240.
Mr. Selwyn Enzer, speaking before the committee, as quoted in Congress, OTA, TA in IAG, p. 225, makes this same point.
The OTA itself admits this. See Congress, OTA, TA in BG, p. 13; Congress, OTA, AR76, pp. 63, 66.
For discussion of this topic, see K. S. Shrader-Frechette, ‘Technology Assessment as Applied Philosophy of Science’, Science, Technology, and Human Values 6 (33), (Fall 1980), 33–50; hereafter cited as: Technology Assessment.
H. Green, ‘Cost-Risk-Benefit Assessment and the Law: Introduction and Perspective’, George Washington Law Review 5 (45), (August, 1977), 908
hereafter cited as: Cost. See also T. Means, ‘The Concorde Calculus’, George Washington Law Review 5 (45), (August 1977), 1037.
See Lovins, op. cit., pp. 913–937; W. D. Rowe, An Anatomy of Risk, John Wiley, New York, 1977, pp. 145–147, 225, 243
and A. L. Porter, F. A. Rossini, S. R. Carpenter, and A. T. Roper, A Guidebook for Technology Assessment and Impact Assessment, North Holland, New York, 1980, pp. 266–267, all of whom discuss these points.
For an example of someone who holds this position, see C. Starr, Current Issues in Energy, Pergamon, New York, 1979, p. 10; hereafter cited as: CIE.
D. J. Epp, et al., Identification and Specification of Inputs for Benefit-Cost Modeling of Pesticide Use, EPA-600/5–77–012, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., 1977, p. 26, makes a similar point.
A. V. Kneese, S. Ben-David, and W. D. Schulze, ‘The Ethical Foundations of Benefit-Cost Analysis Techniques’, in Energy and the Future (ed. by D. MacLean and P. G. Brown), Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa, N.J., 1982, pp. 59–73.
K. Shrader-Frechette, ‘Economic Analyses of Energy Options: A Critical Assessment of Some Recent Studies’, in Energy and Ecological Modelling (ed. by W. Mitsch, W. Bosserman, and J. Klopatek), Elsevier, New York, 1981, pp. 773–778.
D. Okrent, ‘A General Evaluation Approach to Risk-Benefit...’, UCLA-ENG-7777, UCLA School of Eng., Los Angeles, 1977, pp. 1–9.
Rowe, op. cit., p. 3, and W. Häfele, ‘Benefit-Risk Tradeoffs in Nuclear Power Generation’, in Energy and the Environment: A Risk-Benefit Approach (ed. by H. Ashley, R. Rudman, and C. Whipple), Pergamon, New York, 1976, p. 181.
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Reactor Safety Study: An Assessment of Accident Risks in US Commercial Nuclear Power Plants (WASH-1400), US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1975, Appendix XI, p.2–2; hereafter cited as: WASH-1400.
See, for example, C. Starr, ‘Benefit-Cost Studies in Sociotechnical Systems’, in Perspectives on Benefit-Risk Decision Making (ed. by the Committee on Public Engineering Policy), National Academy of Engineering, Washington, D.C., 1972, pp. 26–27.
See, for example, B. Fischhoff, P. Slovic, S. Lichtenstein, S. Read, and B. Combs, ‘How Safe is Safe Enough?’, Policy Sciences 9 (2), (1978), 150
and P. Slovic, B. Fischhoff, and S. Lichtenstein, ‘Facts and Fears: Understanding Perceived Risk’, in Societal Risk Assessment (ed. by R. Schwing and W. Albers), Plenum, New York, 1980, pp. 190–192.
See K. Boulding, Economics as a Science, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970
and E. J. Mishan, ‘Whatever Happened to Progress?’ Journal of Economic Issues 2 (12), (1978), 405–425.
See also K. Shrader-Frechette, Environmental Ethics, Boxwood, Pacific Grove, 1981, pp. 135–36, 212–216.
A. D. Biderman, ‘Anticipatory Studies and Stand-by Research Capabilities’, in Bauer, op. cit., pp. 272, makes these same points.
Biderman, op. cit., pp. 273–274.
Biderman, ‘Social Indicators and Goals’, in Bauer, op. cit., p. 97, makes the same point, as does Oskar Morgenstern, On the Accuracy of Economic Observations, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1963, pp. 26, 35–37, 62, 194–107.
E. Lawless, Technology and Social Shock, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J., 1977, pp. 497–498.
Epp et al., pp. 111, 73–78.
One problem with most assessments of carcinogens, for example, is that a test result of 0 tumors in 100 animals is statistically consistent with a true risk of 4.5% when an assurance level of 99% is employed. (See Epp et al., p. 55.) Another area in which similar statistical problems and difficulties with extrapolation occur is radiation hazards. Dose-response coefficients are determined by making a theoretical assumption (generally, that dose-response is linear) about the validity of extrapolating on the basis of high doses (See US Atomic Energy Commission, Comparative Risk-Cost-Benefit Study of Alternative Sources of Electrical Energy, WASH-1224, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1974, pp. 4–13, to 4–15.
See. S. G. Hadden, ‘DES and the Assignment of Risk’, in Controversy: Politics of Technical Decisions (ed. by D. Nelkin), Sage, Beverly Hills, pp. 118–119.
This point is documented by S. Hadden, op. cit., pp. 122–123.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Proceedings of a Public Forum on Environmental Protection Criteria for Radioactive Waste, ORP/CSD-78–2, US EPA, Washington, D.C., 1978, p. 121, letter from Dr. Thomas Mancuso. See also pp. 122–123, and I. Bross, Director of Biostatistics at Roswell Park Memorial Institute, in Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Radiation Health and Safety, US Senate, 95th Congress, First Session, No. 9549, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1977, pp. 176–177. For information on US radiation standards, see
K. S. Shrader-Frechette, Nuclear Power and Public Policy, Reidel, Boston, 1983, Chapter 2.
G. J. Lieberman, ‘Fault-Tree Analysis as an Example of Risk Methodology’, in Ashley, et al., op. cit., pp. 247–276, also discusses this point.
R. Zeckhauser, ‘Procedures for Valuing Lives’, Public Policy 4 (23), (Fall 1975), 444.
Burns, op. cit., p. 1150.
Dr. Don E. Kash, Director of the Science and Public Policy Program, University of Oklahoma, in Congress, OTA, TA in IAG.
See note 5. H. Skolimowski, ‘Technology Assessment as a Critique of Civilization’, in PSA 1974 (ed. by R. S. Cohen, et al.), D. Reidel, Boston, 1976, p. 461, points to a similar condemnation of applied ethics and normative policy analysis. He cites an article by Genevieve J. Knezo, ‘Technology Assessment: A Bibliographic Review’, which was published in the first issue of the periodical, Technology Assessment. He says that Knezo condemns all normative literature as “emotional, neoluddite, and polemic” in nature, and “designed to arouse and mold mass public opinion”. At the same time, says Skolimowski, Knezo praises all allegedly “neutral” work, and says it “usefully serves inform the public, through a responsible press, of the pros and cons of a public issue of national importance”.
See Nelkin, Ethics, pp. 16–17, for an example of someone who holds this position. See note 51.
For two quite diverse views of future energy consumption, see Ford Foundation, Final Report, Energy Policy Project, A Time to Choose, Ballinger, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974, and W. G. Dupree and J. S. Corsentino, United States Energy through the Year 2000 (revised), US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Washington, D.C., 1975.
See Dupree and Corsentino, op. cit.
See note 45. See also Skolimowski, op. cit., p. 461.
C. H. Weiss and M. J. Bucuvalas, Social Science Research and Decision Making, Columbia University Press, New York, 1980, p. 26, makes this same point.
For another discussion of this same point, see E. S. Quade, Analysis for Public Decisions, American Elsevier, New York, 1975, pp. 269 ff.
This same point is also made by C. E. Lindblom and D. K. Cohen, Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1979, p. 64.
See notes 5 and 51.
See, for example, Shrader-Frechette, Technology Assessment, pp. 35–38.
Nelkin, Ethics, p. 17, argues that scholars ought to engage in nonevaluative description. See also Knezo (note 51).
See R. M. Hare, ‘Contrasting Methods of Environmental Planning’, in Goodpaster and Sayre, op. cit., p. 76, who outlines this rationale of positivists.
See John Caiazzo, ‘Analyzing the Social “Scientist”’, The Intercollegiate Review 2 (16), (Spring/Summer 1981), 96.
Nelkin, Ethics, p. 17.
Ruth Benedict, cited in Caiazzo, op. cit., p. 96.
For an account of this episode, see Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (trans, by S. Bergmann), Crown, New York, 1954, pp. 205–210
Albert Einstein, The World As I See It (trans, by A. Harris), Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 81–89
and Philipp Frank, Einstein: His Life and Times (trans, by G. Rosen), Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1947, pp. 234–235.
Notebooks (trans, by J. O’Brien), Knopf, New York, 1965, p. 146.
Quoted by J. Primack and F. von Hippel, Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena, Basic, New York, 1974.
See, for example, W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1930, Chapter 2.
Congress, OTA, TA in IAG, pp. 233–234.
D. Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology, Universe Books, New York, 1975, p. 189, makes a similar point: “the stress placed on the cultural importance of abstract science legitimates the ideology of scientism, yet disguises not only the exploitative way in which science is put to practical use through technology, but also the very fact that the existence of contemporary science — in terms of support for R and D — results directly from this practical use. A further aspect of scientism is that it promotes a passive acceptance of an existing state of affairs.… It dismisses as irrational or unscientific any attempts to challenge our contemporary situation in terms of the class interests which it maintains”. See also pp. 186–195.
Nelkin, Ethics, pp. 16–17.
W. Häfele, ‘Energy’, in Science, Technology, and the Human Prospect (ed. by C. Starr and P. Ritterbush), Pergamon, New York, 1979, p. 139.
For arguments to this effect, see K. Shrader-Frechette, ‘Economics, Risk-Cost-Benefit Analysis, and the Linearity Assumption’, in PSA 1982, Volume 1 (ed. by P. D. Asquith and T. Nickles), Edwards, Ann Arbor, Michigan, pp. 219–220; hereafter cited as: Economics.
For arguments to support this claim, see K. Shrader-Frechette, Economics, pp. 219–223.
R. Kasper, ‘Perceptions of Risk and their Effects on Decision Making’, in Societal Risk Assessment (ed. by R. Schwing and W. Albers), Plenum, New York, 1980, p. 77, makes the same point.
H. Green, Cost, p. 901, makes this same point.
M. Lutz and K. Lux, The Challenge of Humanistic Economics, Benjamin/Cummings, London, 1979, p. 3, makes the same point.
L. Winner, Autonomous Technology, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1977, pp. 10–11.
Cited by Tool, op. cit., p. xvi.
R. Andrews, ‘Substantive Guidelines for Environmental Impact Assessments’, in Environmental Impact Analysis (ed. by R. Jain and B. Hutchings), University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1978, p. 40, substantiates this point, as does B. Gross, ‘The State of the Nation: Social Systems Accounting’, in Bauer, op. cit., p. 165.
Gross, op. cit., pp. 268–271.
Gross, op. cit., pp. 266, also holds this position.
Lovins, op. cit., pp. 941—942; Green, Cost, p. 910, and Green, Adversary. See also S. Enzer, Associate Director, Center for Futures Research, Graduate School of Business, University of Southern California, op. cit., p. 235 (note 17);Biderman, op. cit., p. 134; Congress, OTA, TA in IAG, p. 198, statement by D. Kash, Director of the Science and Public Policy Program, University of Oklahoma; and A. Kantrowitz, ‘Democracy and Technology’, in Starr and Ritterbush, op. cit., pp. 199–211.
M. Bauser, ‘The Atomic Energy Commission’s ECCS Rule-Making’, Atomic Energy Law Review 1 (16), (Spring 1974), 74, for example, says that the “adversary system of trial… is not compatible with an objective presentation and scholarly, detached evaluation of technical information”.
H. Green, Adversary, p. 58, defends this point.
Green, Adversary, pp. 58–59, makes many of these same points.
A similar point is made by R. Cohen, ‘Ethics and Science’, in For Dirk Struik, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, XV (ed. by R. Cohen, J. J. Stachel, and M. W. Wartofsky), D. Reidel, Boston, 1974, p. 310. See also Hare, op. cit., p. 65, and Sko-limowski, op. cit., p. 459, as well as Porter et al, op. cit., p. 255; Lovins, op. cit., p. 936
and J. R. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971, pp. 400–401, 431–432.
Nelkin, Ethics, p. 16.
Nelkin, Ethics, p. 16.
Nelkin, Ethics, p. 16.
Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin, ‘The End of Easy Oil’ in Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (ed. by R. Stobaugh and D. Yergin), Random House, New York, 1979, pp. 4, 6, 11. See also ‘Conclusion: Toward a Balanced Energy Program’ in Stobaugh and Yergin
ibid., p. 227. Also in the same collection, see the essay by M. A. Maidique, ‘Solar America’, p. 211. See also Laudan, op. cit., (Note 1), pp. 59–61.
Nelkin, Ethics, p. 16, ascribes problems to politics rather than to faulty methodology.
G. E. Brown, California, member of the Technology Assessment Board, OTA, in Congress, OTA, TA in IAG, p. 201, has emphasized this point.
Dr. D. Kash, op. cit., p. 202, agrees with this point.
K. E. Boulding, quoted by B. M. Gross, ‘Preface’, in Bauer, op. cit., p. xvii.
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Shrader-Frechette, K.S. (1985). The Retreat from Ethical Analysis. In: Science Policy, Ethics, and Economic Methodology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6449-5_3
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