Non-cognitive Values and Methodological Learning in the Decision-Oriented Sciences
详细信息 查看全文
- 作者：Oliver Todt ; José Luis Luján
- 关键词：Non ; cognitive values ; Cognitive values ; Decision ; oriented science ; Methodological learning ; Risk regulation
- 刊名：Foundations of Science
- 出版年：2017
- 出版时间：March 2017
- 年：2017
- 卷：22
- 期：1
- 页码：215-234
- 全文大小：
- 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
- 刊物主题：Philosophy of Science; Methodology of the Social Sciences; Mathematical Logic and Foundations;
- 出版者：Springer Netherlands
- ISSN：1572-8471
- 卷排序：22
文摘
The function and legitimacy of values in decision making is a critically important issue in the contemporary analysis of science. It is particularly relevant for some of the more application-oriented areas of science, specifically decision-oriented science in the field of regulation of technological risks. Our main objective in this paper is to assess the diversity of roles that non-cognitive values related to decision making can adopt in the kinds of scientific activity that underlie risk regulation. We start out, first, by analyzing the issue of values with the help of a framework taken from the wider philosophical debate on science and values. Second, we study the principal conceptualizations used by scholars who have applied them to numerous case studies. Third, we appraise the links between those conceptualizations and learning processes in decision-oriented science. In this, we recur to the concept of methodological learning, i.e., learning about the best methodologies for generating knowledge that is useful for science-based regulatory decisions. The main result of our analysis is that non-cognitive values can contribute to methodological improvements in science in three principal ways: (a) as basis for critical analysis (to differentiate “sound” from “bad” science), (b) for contextualizing methodologies (by identifying links between methods and objectives), and (c) for establishing the burden of proof (in order to generate data that otherwise would not be generated).