Untitled Document

Is Scientific Research Value-Neutral?

by Leslie F. Stevensen

A conventional view of scientific research, or at least of the "pure" kind traditionally done in universities, is that it is a completely value-free activity. The white coat of the scientist has been taken as a sign of the purity of his motives, in the sense that he is devoted only to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Beneficial (or sinister) applications of his work may come, but that is said to be not his concern: he is supposed to seek only for truth, for objective knowledge of the world. But when we realize how many of the world's scientists are presently working in the so called "defence" industries, the supposed purity of scientific activity can begin to look very mythical indeed.1 Even if we look at research which is supposedly directed to more peaceful and benign purposes, such as in medicine, we may feel qualms about the ways in which drug companies pursue profit, and about how the latest high technology treatments may contribute more to the fame of their creators than to the happiness of their patients.

The story of Frankenstein is an early expression of trepidation not just about misapplications of science, but about the process of scientific research itself. The image of the scientist there presented by Mary Shelley is of someone determined to gain knowledge of, and power over, some hidden and potentially dangerous aspect of nature: someone so obsessed with his project that he is prepared to risk the safety of himself, his collaborators, and perhaps his very society, in testing to the utmost his mental power to understand and his physical power to intervene.

So much has been done . . . more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.

So says Frankenstein at the outset of his research. But when he has 'discovered the causes of generation and life' and made himself 'capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter,' he immediately proceeds to try out his powers, and the mis-shapen monster he creates gets quite out of his control and ends up destroying all that is most dear to him, so that afterwards he says:

Learn from me ... how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.2

Thus by 1816 we find the early seventeenth-century optimism of Francis Bacon about the "effecting of all things possible,"3 the social benefits of the application of scientific knowledge, already very much clouding over.

Nowadays, when we think of the tremendous scientific technique that has been devoted to perfecting nuclear bombs and their delivery systems, of the research now being conducted into the militarization of space and into chemical and biological weapons, and into the possibilities for genetic engineering to produce new variants of living species, then the Frankenstein image of scientific research may seem more appropriate than that of white-coated purity.4 Recalling the Biblical story of the garden of Eden, some may even begin to wonder whether there is some knowledge which it is better that we should not have.

However, the conventional response to such pessimism dismisses it as quite unnecessarily apocalyptic.5 A distinction is commonly made between pure science on the one hand and applied science or technology on the other. It is said, first, that science offers us objective knowledge of how the world works, and hence of what would be the consequences of various possible interventions in it. But it is implied, by contrast, that there can be no such "objective knowledge" of whether we should make any particular interventions: a sharp distinction between facts and values is thought to rule out any knowledge of the latter, so that the adoption of values is a matter of merely "subjective" individual opinion.

It is said, second, that the only value recognized by the scientist as such is the value of knowledge for its own sake: he may welcome the possibility of applications of his research, but as a scientist he is a scholar devoted purely to the extension of human knowledge as an end in itself, like the philologist, the medieval historian, and the pure mathematician.

Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain. All that science can achieve is a perfect knowledge and a perfect understanding of the action of natural and moral forces. Each individual student must be content to find his reward in rejoicing over new discoveries, as over new victories of mind over reluctant matter, or in enjoying the aesthetic beauty of a well-ordered field of knowledge, where the connection and filiation of every detail is clear to the mind, he must rest satisfied with the consciousness that he too has contributed something to the increasing fund of knowledge on which the dominion of man over all the forces hostile to intelligence reposes.

The third element of the conventional wisdom is that the applications of scientific knowledge are for "society" to decide: the technologist is the servant of other people, applying his expertise towards ends that are chosen in whatever way it is that individuals and institutions decide what to aim at. Some may think there is knowledge of the right way for human beings to live—whether derived from a sacred book, a church, a theocracy of mullahs, the ideology of a ruling party, or an inspired leader— and all these can apply scientific knowledge towards their various ends. Those more sceptical of the possibility of knowledge of values typically appeal to the ideal of democracy at this point, and suggest that the ends to which scientific knowledge is to be applied should be decided by some democratic process by which decisions emerge from the mass of individual, "subjective," opinions.

But all three elements of this conventional picture are very much open to question. Let us take them in reverse order. There is, of course, no such thing as "society" deciding: there are only the decisions of various institutions—governments, companies, universities, etc. And there are good reasons for wondering how far contemporary scientific research and its technological application is—or could be—under the democratic control of the citizens who contribute to its costs and are likely to be affected by its results. Much vital research is now conducted under conditions of military or industrial secrecy, and by the time its results become publicly known it is too late for anyone to argue that the effort and resources might have been better directed elsewhere. Such can be the situation facing a newly-elected politician being briefed about the technological programmes which have been going on behind the scenes. He will be advised by authoritative experts that "this is a project on which much has already been spent, which is soon to come to fruition, and which it would be madness to abandon at this late stage, just when we are about to gain an advantage over our rivals." The very nature of modern technology—the long lead-time needed for development, the large numbers of people with specialist expertise who have to be committed to it, and the very high costs of the process—means that it acquires a momentum of its own which makes it extremely difficult for any outside force, even a clear majority of public opinion, to stop. Another factor favouring those responsible for directing research is that because of its very technical nature and of the secrecy which usually surrounds it, they can usually retain the initiative in how the matter is presented to the public. With the aid of those skilled in the mass media, public opinion can be "moulded."7

Let us consider now the second point of the conventional picture: the claim that the only thing valued by the scientist is knowledge for its own sake. It would have to be a very "pure" scientist indeed who was content to hide his light under a bushel, who did not care about his scientific reputation, his professional advancement, and the power and rewards which this can bring. But the areas in which appointments, promotion, fame, and reward are to be found are determined by social forces outside the individual scientist. Perhaps in the past the relevant audience was simply the professional judgment of fellow-scientists, and the resources necessary for research could be provided by the average university laboratory. But for many parts of science the picture has now changed enormously—the era of "big science" has come. The leading edges of research and development have got to the point where to push them further forward requires large teams of specialists, and supplies of extremely expensive equipment. This means that hard choices have now to be faced about the direction and funding of research. Because of the huge costs involved, the concentration of research into larger units and its control by large institutions seem inevitable. Since the state itself is increasingly involved, there comes to be a political element in decision-making even about pure scientific research.

So even though the scientist may wish to say that his only professional commitment is to the increase of human knowledge, he will now have to recognize that the funds for his research will probably be given with a fairly close eye to possible applications, be they military, industrial, medical, or whatever. Such research cannot be said to be value-free. By accepting funds from certain sources, and agreeing to make his results available to them, the scientist is participating in social processes by which knowledge, and hence power, is given to certain social groups rather than others.8 The scientist may have to make a difficult choice between doing his research under these conditions, or not doing it at all. By his participation in the process as actually institutionalized, he displays tacit acceptance of the values of those institutions.

The Frankenstein Image never was very plausible for the average individual scientist—and the occasional fanatic is fairly easily controlled. What we surely need to worry about much more is the power of the institutions which increasingly direct scientific research—the research councils, the commercial companies and corporations, the rich private foundations, the weapons laboratories, the armed services, the defence departments, the state itself. Such bodies may be made up of reasonably well-meaning individuals, each of them examining their living and doing their duty as they conceive of it, yet the institutions can act like corporate Frankensteins, pursuing power or profit regardless of social consequences.

Let us return now to the first element in the conventional picture of the value-neutrality of science. A sharp distinction between facts and values has been commonplace in twentieth-century thought—not just in the philosophies of positivism and existentialism which have dramatized it most, but as a background assumption which conditions much everyday thinking. But there is of course a major philosophical issue here—the common assumption of the subjectivity of all values should certainly not be allowed to pass without question. For this represents a major claim in the theory of meaning, knowledge, and metaphysics—a philosophical thesis that there is some crucially important difference between the standards governing science and ethics. The philosophical debate about the objectivity of values which has been going on since Socrates at least shows no sign of flagging.

This is not the place to try to extend that debate. But it is worth noting here that there are two ways in which the allegedly unique objectivity of science might be rejected. It may be suggested that science does not really have the kind of objectivity commonly attributed to it, or it might be claimed that discussion of values can in principle attain an objectivity not significantly lower-grade than that of science. Examples of the latter kind of argument can be found in the work of Hilary Putnam9 and of Jurgen Habermas.10 Both writers question what Habermas calls "scientism"—the typical positivist assumption that our very standard of what is to count as knowledge should be defined in terms of the natural sciences: they thus attack the first element in our conventional picture above. Habermas recommends "reflection" on the ends of our actions, and in particular on the applications which we may consider making of scientific knowledge; his hope seems to be that if only the conditions of communication of knowledge, opinion, and argument were ideal, then the discussion of values could approach in rationality to the standard commonly recognized in the sciences. But adequate discussion of Habermas or Putnam would take us beyond the scope of this paper.

The objectivity of science itself has been questioned by some, and it is appropriate to review their arguments briefly here. Paul Feyerabend adopts a radically relativist position, according to which science is just one tradition amongst others, such as ancient or primitive world-views, or religious or political belief-systems within Western culture.11 His crucial claim is that these various "traditions" cannot be rationally compared for truth, since all such judgments about truth or rationality can only be made from within one tradition. Along with this Protagorean relativism, Feyer-abend recommends "political relativism", namely a "free society" in which all traditions are given equal rights, equal access to education and other positions of power. This would involve a separation between science and state, like that presently acknowledged between religion and state in most Western democracies.

This splendidly provocative challenge to the conventional wisdom about the rationality of scientific method deserves a careful answer, and has received more than one.12 But the following point is worth making here. If Feyerabend is to be entitled to make a distinction between comparing rival theories within a tradition, and the alleged impossibility of any rational comparison between traditions themselves, he had better have a clearly-articulated criterion of identity for "traditions." He has to be able to tell us when a change in concepts or beliefs is merely a change within a tradition, and when it constitutes a change of tradition. Which description, for example, would he apply to the Copernican revolution in astronomy, to the advent of Darwinian theory or of relativity physics, or to the difference between organic and psycho-dynamic accounts of mental illness? Unless Feyerabend can give us a principled way of answering such questions, his claims about the limitation of rationality to within traditions are mere formal schemas, empty of real content.

Some years earlier, Herbert Marcuse conducted a verbal onslaught on scientific and technical rationality and its social consequences which is perhaps even more radical than that of Feyerabend.13 In his chapter on "technological rationality and the logic of domination" he claims that the way in which "scientific-technical rationality and manipulation are welded together into new forms of social control" is not just the result of a specific social application of science, but was already "inherent in pure science." He asserts: "the science of nature develops under the technological a priori which projects nature as potential instrumentality, stuff of control and organization" and "science, by virtue of its own method and concepts, has projected and promoted a universe in which the domination of nature has remained linked to the domination of man." Yet, he says, things could be radically different, for the structure of the scientific project could change: "its hypotheses, without losing their rational character, would develop in an essentially different experimental context (that of a pacified world); consequently, science would arrive at essentially different concepts of nature and establish essentially different facts."

Marcuse's vision of an alternative form of science, which would establish different concepts and facts from those presently acknowledged, also seems very schematic and philosophically undefended. He owes us an account of what he sees as definitive of science in whatever forms it may take, and of which features of present-day science he thinks it could alter, and how. I do not see that he does more than gesture at this. Of course, research might be pursued in some areas rather than others—for reasons of finance, social need, military pressure, ethical restrictions, or scientific fashionability. But Marcuse's thesis appears to be (if we take seriously the last sentence quoted from him above) that even on a given topic, an alternative way of doing science would yield different theories about the nature of the world. And presumably he does not mean just that there can be complementary theories of the same phenomenon (such as wave- or particle theories of light)—I take it that such differences would for him be within the "domineering" way of doing science, to which he wants to suggest a radical alternative. But unless he can characterize this with more than abstract words like "being," "logos," and "eros," we can be forgiven for wondering whether he really has an alternative to offer.

More recently, Jeremy Rifkin has published a manifesto in which he declares himself a "heretic" about the worthwhileness of our whole present scientific enterprise.14 He argues that we must rethink our basic assumptions about the pursuit of knowledge (not just our use of technology, and our economic systems), and he suggests that it is possible "for the mind to think in a radically different way." Ever since Bacon's time, we have been seeking scientific knowledge for its instrumental value, but "instead of pursuing knowledge to gain power and control, we could just as well pursue knowledge to experience empathy and participation." But Rifkin does not in this short popular book make it clear whether he has in mind a different epistemology of science, or just a different kind of motivation for pursuing and applying scientific knowledge as standardly understood.

Nicholas Maxwell has made a similar-sounding plea (at much greater length, and with pretensions to philosophical depth) for a total transformation of our attitude to scientific knowledge.15 He argues that instead of the "philosophy of knowledge" (which would seem to be his version of the conventional image of science which I have been attacking above) we should espouse the "philosophy of wisdom," by which Maxwell means, in brief summary, that we should "give absolute intellectual priority to our life and its problems"—the idea seems to be that all inquiry should be aimed directly at goals of human value. But later it emerges that Maxwell is committed to more than a change in the motivation of scientific research, for he disputes the standard epistemology of science, which he labels "minimal standard empiricism." He claims to show that "empirical considerations alone cannot decide what theories are to be accepted and rejected in science: metaphysical considerations concerning the comprehensibility of the universe must be taken into account in addition." Maxwell thus takes us back into Feyerabendian territory, into issues in the basic epistemology of science which have already received extended philosophical consideration and which deserve more.

I mention these various writers here not just because they sense that there are problems about the way in which science is currently being applied, but because they make interesting and controversial claims about how the roots of those problems lie in philosophical assumptions about the nature of science, and of knowledge generally. These radical thinkers raise questions about science and its applications which are hardly mentioned by academically more prestigious philosophers of science.16 But it is one thing to ask good questions, and another thing to give good answers to them. The comments above give us reason to wonder whether either Feyerabend or Marcuse has a coherent philosophical position to defend. The programmatic remarks of Rifkin, and the more verbose "philosophy of wisdom" of Maxwell, leave it unclear whether they want to question not just the wisdom of our present applications of science, but the validity of scientific method as the way to find out the truth about the material world.

It is one thing to question the usefulness or point of any particular programme of scientific research, but quite another to question the epistemology of scientific method itself. Let us try to distinguish the different basic questions here. We can ask (about any given topic):

1. What is true?
and, if we want to know the answer, we will be led to ask:
2. How can we know what is true ? (What is the way to find out?)

That scientific method (in the general sense) is the answer to the second question is not doubted except by Feyerabend and his ilk—but still, this is a perfectly serious philosophical question which merits a more considered response than I can attempt to give here.

But even if we take it that there is a truth about a certain matter, and that scientific method is the way to discover what it is, it does not follow that it is worth anyone's while to find it out. The average weight of the pebbles on a beach can be estimated, but unless this fact is thought to be relevant to testing some wider theory, why should anyone bother to make the measurements? So we can also ask (about a given topic):

3. Why should anyone want to know?—and more concretely: Who wants to know, and why?

Yet any sort of scientific inquiry takes someone's time and effort (and usually costs some money). Even the nineteenth-century rural dean, botanizing on weekdays, can reasonably be asked why he should spend his time on this rather than something else (like ministering to the needs of his parishioners, perhaps). So even if we allow that there is some intrinsic value (perhaps fairly minimal—such as satisfying someone's curiosity, or extending the sum total of human knowledge) in knowing the truth about anything, we can still ask:

4. Is it worth the costs of finding out?

There are various different kinds of cost that may be involved, not all of them monetary. As noted above, there now tend to be very high financial costs in pursuing research; but there are many other factors which have to be weighed in the balance when answering questions of type 4. Sometimes there are safety risks in experimentation itself (e.g., when dealing with radiation, poisons, viruses or microbes); and these often cannot be realistically estimated in advance of the results of the research (consider the famous controversy of the 1970s about the unknown risks of the new techniques of genetic engineering).17 Sometimes there are ethical values which people may recognize, and yet hotly disagree whether the interest and possible benefits of scientific research should be allowed to override them in particular cases (e.g., animal suffering, fairness to human patients, honesty to subjects of experiments in social psychology, privacy of individual lives).

Even when a given individual or institution can answer question 4 to their own satisfaction, it does not follow that their answer will be equally acceptable to others. In military or commercial competition, one group wants to know something, but does not want its rivals to know it. Question 3 thus becomes vital. As noted above, the institutions funding research typically have interests in utilizing the knowledge gained, so it may in practice be possible to get results only on the condition that they are made available exclusively to a certain defence department or industrial company. A scientist may want to know something, both for its own intrinsic interest, and for the possibility of beneficial applications, and yet the institutional or social situation may be such that he must have serious doubts about whether the knowledge may not be misused. One may have excellent reason to suspect that the military or the corporation will use one's discoveries and inventions for their own purposes, with which one may well disagree. Or one may have good reason to predict that a new technique will be used in a certain society in ways one might not approve of—e.g., the availability of procedures to determine the sex of the foetus may lead, in countries where male children are preferred, to widespread abortion of female foetuses. And even if one does not have specific misuses in mind, there may be social choices, which on the whole we might prefer not to have to face, which could be forced on us simply by the further advance of scientific understanding. For example, however scientifically interesting the mechanisms of human genetics may be, do we really want to be given the opportunity of, and hence the responsibility for, deciding the genetic characteristics of our offspring?

Scientific research cannot, then, be value-neutral. The general reason for this is that it is a human activity, and therefore involves choices of how to spend time, energy, and resources. The special reasons are those adverted to in this paper, more peculiar to the institutional character of scientific research in the late twentieth century and beyond. Besides continuing epistemological and metaphysical inquiry into scientific method, there is pressing need for philosophical discussion of under what conditions further scientific knowledge is likely to be worth the various costs of getting it.18

NOTES

1. It is obviously hard to quantify exactly, but Barry Barnes, for one, suggests that at least one-third of worldwide expenditure on research and development should be reckoned as military in nature (and that in Britain the proportion is more than half). See his About Science (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), p. 29.

2. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1816, Oxford University Press ed.), pp. 48, 52, 57.

3. Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1627).

4. Some writers identify here a compulsive masculine urge to penetrate the innermost secrets of passive feminine nature. See Brian Easlea, Fathering the Unthinkable (London: Pluto Press, 1983), an account of the invention of the atomic and hydrogen bombs in terms of such aggressively masculine motives. At the beginning of the modern scientific era, Bacon in The Masculine Birth of Time made a more peaceful and domestic application of the metaphor of scientific masculinity: "what I purpose is to unite you with things themselves in a chaste, holy, and legal wedlock; and from this association you will secure an increase beyond all the hopes and prayers of ordinary marriages, to wit, a blessed race of Heroes or Supermen who will overcome the immeasurable helplessness and poverty of the human race"—translated in Benjamin Far-rington, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1966), p. 72.

5. Peter Medawar wrote eloquently: 'To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind' (in "On 'The Effecting of All Things Possible,'" reprinted in Pluto's Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982) and in The Hope of Progress.

6. H. von Helmholtz in Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects, 1st series (London/New York, 1893); quoted in J. R. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (Oxford: Oxford Univenaty Press, 1971), p. 39.

7. For exanpte, consider how America's present rtHmifT*1 ifr*"" initiative has come to be popu-lady i*fcrP«* the 'star wars' programme—thus associating it n Ike public mind with popular science-fiction fihm, conveying the impression of something fabntic, exciting, even entertaining, and in winch good cm be guaranteed to defeat evil in the cod. Consider, too, how the vast investment in the SDI prognmme will limit the options open to Reagan's successor in 1989. Consider, e.g., the £20-auDion deal between Ox-ted Unnosuy and the Sqribb Corporation (the vnrid*s arvEBfh hvgest drag company) reported it Ufa* Sdemlut 116. no. 1583 (22/10/87). The cojapaap v« provide a new balding for the De-of fhanmrotogy, and will support research into treatment for brain diseases, in return for intellectual property rights on relevant results—researchers must keep them secret for long enough for the company to take out patents. 9. H. Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), esp. ch. 6.

10. J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971).

11. P. Feyerabend, Against Method (London: NLB, 1975), esp. ch. 18; and Science in a Free Society (London: NLB, 1978), esp. pt. 2.

12. W. Newton-Smith, The Rationality of Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), ch. 6.

13. H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), esp. ch. 6.

14. J. Rifkin, Declaration of a Heretic (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985).

15. N. Maxwell, From Knowledge to Wisdom (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).

16. An exception to this generalization is I. Hacking, 'Weapons Research and the Form of Scientific Knowledge,' Canadian Journal of Philosophy, suppl. vol. 12 (1986), pp. 237-60.

17. See S. Krinsky, Genetic Alchemy: The Social History of the DNA Controversy (Boston: MIT Press, 1982).

18. An early version of this paper was presented to an Anglo-French colloquium on social aspects of science at the University of Lille in May 1985, and an abbreviated version of the first few pages appeared in New Scientist, 1 September 1988.