Science and Moral Imagination: A New Ideal for Values in Science

by Matthew J. Brown, Kim Stanley Robinson (Foreword)

The idea that science is or should be value-free, and that values are or should be formed independently of science, has been under fire by philosophers of science for decades. Science and Moral Imagination directly challenges the idea that science and values cannot and should not influence each other. Matthew J. Brown argues that science and values mutually influence and implicate one another, that the influence of values on science is pervasive and must be responsibly managed, and that science can and should have an influence on our values. This interplay, he explains, must be guided by accounts of scientific inquiry and value judgment that are sensitive to the complexities of their interactions. Brown presents scientific inquiry and value judgment as types of problem-solving practices and provides a new framework for thinking about how we might ethically evaluate episodes and decisions in science, while offering guidance for scientific practitioners and institutions about how they can incorporate value judgments into their work. His framework, dubbed “the ideal of moral imagination,” emphasizes the role of imagination in value judgment and the positive role that value judgment plays in science.

Genres: Philosophy

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 17, 2020

About the author

Matthew J. Brown is Director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he teaches in philosophy, history of ideas, and humanities. His primary areas of research include history and philosophy of science and engineering, the American pragmatist tradition in philosophy, and comics and pop culture studies. He is the founder of the Comics and Popular Arts Conference, which has taken place concurrently with DragonCon in Atlanta since 2008.

source: Amazon

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating book. I enjoyed it, although I did disagree with some - many? - of the arguments. But my mind furniture has been improved by engaging with these ideas.

Probing the nature of 'values' in science - there is attention to ethics, but also 'the philosophy of science.' Thankfully discarding the dire phrase 'science studies' early in the book - for which I am appreciative, and so is my intestinal tract - there is a focus on the stages and moments of 'decision', 'empathy' and 'values' in the scientific method.

It is a dense book, and requires multiple readings. It is worth the persistence. However, for me, the weakness is the lack of clear exploration of epistemology, ontology and methodology. While there is some focus on the spaces in the 'scientific method', the epistemological and ontological analyses are displaced to explore the blanket phrase, "the philosophy of science."

Worth the time and attention to read and explore. Some deep thinking created this book.

[Heather Browning · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book discusses the inescapable role of values in science, aiming to provide a framework (of moral imagination) through which scientists can work to ensure the values they use reflect their aims, and those of society. This is a strongly academic book, and one I think finds most use as aimed toward scientists who want to think about how values play out in their work, and the decisions that they can and do make with them.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science and values

This is more on philosophy rather than science. This book could be serve as how science and values could be coexist in the experiment or any other problems that arise from

[Mills College Library]

174.95 B8792 2020