Dan Steel (UBC) will be giving his talk on Friday, October 16, 2015, in BUCH A202 at 3pm.
TITLE:
Confronting Ibsen’s Predicament: Epistemic Priority versus Aims Approaches to Values in Science
ABSTRACT:
This essay examines epistemic priority and aims approaches to values in science. Epistemic priority approaches permit influences of values if they do not override general standards of adequate science, while aims approaches insist that value influences upon science are legitimate so long as they promote the aims of inquiry. This essay objects to aims approaches on the grounds that it is possible for the aims of inquiry to conflict with the epistemic integrity of science. The concept of an Ibsen predicament, wherein promoting a valued social objective requires suppressing scientific knowledge, is developed to support this argument. Finally, I clarify epistemic priority approaches and explain how they are distinct from a maligned concept known as “the lexical priority of evidence.