Softcover

ISBN 10: 0739111418 ISBN 13: 9780739111413

Publisher: Lexington Books, 2005

Values and Objectivity in Science illuminates many of the ethical issues that arise concerning scientific practices and applications, offering an account of how social and ethical values play important roles within science. Hugh Lacey develops and clarifies his previous analysis by arguing for the importance of research being conducted under a plurality of strategies, contrasting 'materialist strategies' with 'agro-ecological strategies.' By displaying the structure of current ethical controversies about the legitimacy of planting transgenic crops, this book illustrates that sound thinking on such issues must be grounded on an adequate philosophy of science, one that can clearly distinguish between the proper and the distorting roles of values in scientific practices. This book will prove useful for science students and practitioners as well as those interested in the growing ethical questions involved in scientific practices.

About the Author:

Hugh Lacey is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College.

Review:

This book successfully combines an original account of values and objectivity in science with an application to the case of transgenic crops. It brings careful analysis to a politically charged set of issues, and shows through this case study how philosophy of science has global import. (Miriam Solomon, Professor of Philosophy, Temple University)

Hugh Lacey is one of our most careful thinkers about the interrelations of social values and scientific inquiry. Values and Objectivity in Science updates his philosophical account of these relations and then applies them to illuminating a series of issues in contemporary agricultural science. It is a timely and welcome volume, indeed. (Helen Longino, University of Minnesota)

Hugh Lacey places his thoughtful and well-researched observations on the controversy that has surrounded the development of agricultural biotechnology within a new philosophical interpretation of objectivity and values in science. The result is a "must read" for anyone with a serious interest in transgenic crops, including working scientists, science administrators, regulators and scholars of this debate. His approach is also an important contribution to science studies (and especially the philosophy of science) that demonstrates how lack of attention to the philosophical dimensions of scientific inquiry and science policy can blossom into full blown public debate. (Paul B. Thompson, Michigan State University, W.K. Kellogg Professor of Agricultural, Food, and Community Ethics)

This book manifests long and serious engagement with the pressing issue of identifying the impact of social values on the pursuit of science, and then it provides informed arguments for separating legitimate and useful impacts from illegitimate and ideological ones. Its treatment of debates about multicultural science is especially sophisticated. (Michael R. Matthews, University of New South Wales)

Hugh Lacey‘s new book should be required reading for anyone interested in questions of values (or ethics) and their role in science. His discussion of research strategies also brings new insights concerning the nature and practice of science itself. The second part on transgenic agriculture is a brilliant and exemplary case study. (Peter Machamer, University of Pittsburgh)