TY - JOUR

T1 - The social contract for science and the value-free ideal

AU - Douglas, Heather

AU - Branch, T. Y.

N1 - Funding Information: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Award Number: 468417282 (T.Y. Branch). Funding Information: Indeed, with the core components of the old social contract undermined or rejected, the contract itself needs to be substantially revised or replaced. We will need an account of what constitutes scientific freedom and responsibility, and some ontology of the kinds of scientific endeavors we might fund (and how to allocate funds and evaluate success for funding projects). As noted above, “freedom from responsibility” has been replaced with “freedom with responsibility,” but the specific terms of societally responsible science remain to be developed fully. What should scientists be responsible for, and just as important, what are they not responsible for? Which structures need to be reconfigured, which dismantled, and which created anew in order to facilitate properly responsible science in the 21st century? Answering these questions is beyond the scope of this paper, but this is the kind of work that needs the attention of philosophers of science and will be central to settling debates about the role of values in science. Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh for supporting this work and for a robust discussion from the audience at a Center talk on this topic in Fall 2021. We are also grateful for the feedback received at the Workshop on the Legacy of the Value-Free Ideal of Science at the University of Uppsala in Winter 2023, organized by Ádám Tuboly and Philippe Stamenkovic. We also received helpful feedback on drafts of this paper from Dave Guston, Ted Richards, and three anonymous reviewers. Finally, we thank Torsten Wilholt and Bennett Holman for instigating this collaboration with their ‘new demarcation problem’. Publisher Copyright: © 2024, The Author(s).

PY - 2024/2

Y1 - 2024/2

N2 - While the Value-Free Ideal (VFI) had many precursors, it became a solidified bulwark of normative claims about scientific reasoning and practice in the mid-twentieth century. Since then, it has played a central role in the philosophy of science, first as a basic presupposition of how science should work, then as a target for critique, and now as a target for replacement. In this paper, we will argue that a narrow focus on the VFI is misguided, because the VFI coalesced in the midst of other important shifts in the relationship between science and society. In particular, the mid-twentieth century saw the acceptance of the “social contract for science,” a tacit agreement between scientists and government officials, and more broadly between science and society. It was built around three core concepts: a distinction between basic and applied science, a conception of scientific freedom that limited social responsibility for scientists, and a justification for public funding of basic science in the form of the linear model. Within the conceptual framework of the social contract for science, it is clearer both (1) why the VFI was adopted, (2) why it is difficult to replace the VFI within the old social contract, and (3) how we need to revise the social contract for science in order to replace the VFI.

AB - While the Value-Free Ideal (VFI) had many precursors, it became a solidified bulwark of normative claims about scientific reasoning and practice in the mid-twentieth century. Since then, it has played a central role in the philosophy of science, first as a basic presupposition of how science should work, then as a target for critique, and now as a target for replacement. In this paper, we will argue that a narrow focus on the VFI is misguided, because the VFI coalesced in the midst of other important shifts in the relationship between science and society. In particular, the mid-twentieth century saw the acceptance of the “social contract for science,” a tacit agreement between scientists and government officials, and more broadly between science and society. It was built around three core concepts: a distinction between basic and applied science, a conception of scientific freedom that limited social responsibility for scientists, and a justification for public funding of basic science in the form of the linear model. Within the conceptual framework of the social contract for science, it is clearer both (1) why the VFI was adopted, (2) why it is difficult to replace the VFI within the old social contract, and (3) how we need to revise the social contract for science in order to replace the VFI.

KW - New demarcation problem

KW - Science funding

KW - Scientific freedom

KW - Scientific responsibility

KW - Social contract for science

KW - Value-free ideal

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182869241&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11229-023-04477-9

DO - 10.1007/s11229-023-04477-9

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85182869241

VL - 203

JO - SYNTHESE

JF - SYNTHESE

SN - 0039-7857

IS - 2

M1 - 40

ER -