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A History of Metaethics and Values in Science

Franco, Paul L. (2024) A History of Metaethics and Values in Science. [Preprint]

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Abstract

I pursue Matt Brown’s (2020) and James Leach’s (1968a) historical suggestions that there is a relationship between metaethical noncognitivism and certain arguments for the value neutrality of the sciences. In particular, I relate C.L. Stevenson’s emotivism to arguments by Herbert Feigl, Carl Hempel, and Ernest Nagel for the sciences’ value neutrality. I also consider whether these arguments can be disentangled from their controversial metaethical claims by looking at Robert Alexander’s (1974) account of value neutrality based on the view that a scientist’s aims are discharged by making empirical statements. Drawing upon Leach’s (1968a; 1969b) defense of the argument from inductive risk, I argue Alexander fails to offer a metaethically neutral version of the value neutrality of the sciences. Though I do not explicitly explore this, I think the history I sketch is relevant to recent calls for philosophers of science to more fully characterize the ‘values’ in ‘values and science.’


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Franco, Paul L.pfranco@uw.edu0000-0002-2944-5252
Keywords: value-free ideal; values and science; history of philosophy of science; value judgments; metaethics
Subjects: General Issues > Ethical Issues
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > Logical Positivism/Logical Empiricism
General Issues > Values In Science
Depositing User: Dr. Paul L. Franco
Date Deposited: 05 Jun 2024 15:01
Last Modified: 05 Jun 2024 15:01
Item ID: 23523
Subjects: General Issues > Ethical Issues
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > Logical Positivism/Logical Empiricism
General Issues > Values In Science
Date: 2024
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23523

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