Charles Dickens’s novel of nineteenth century industrial working class misery, Hard Times, memorably opens with the wonderfully named Thomas Gradgrind lecturing a class of schoolchildren:
‘Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’
Hard Times is a powerful warning against the thinness of a life devoted to ‘nothing but facts’. Sometimes, however, people go too far the other way, in effect arguing that nothing is a fact. We only have opinions, points of view, theories or whatever.
I found myself discussing where the sensible mean is between these two extremes of fact-fetishism and fact-denial in two debates at the How the Light Gets In philosophy festival in Hay last week, with Ben Burgis, Ellen Clark, Sarah Garfinkel and Peter Godfrey-Smith. In particular, the question that came up on both occasions was: can science be value-free?
On the face of it, the answer obviously seems to be yes. What is the value judgement in E=mc²? I can’t think of a serious answer to this that isn’t ridiculous. Luce Irigaray was rightly mocked when she notoriously suggested that E=mc² could be a ‘sexed equation’. When I interviewed her and asked how this could possibly be true, her reply was ‘A certain time ago it was accepted in science that the way of thinking of a mathematician could be influenced, legitimised by the historical times. Why not?’ In other words, the way scientists work could also be affected by their sex. True, but that doesn’t mean the results of the work are sexed: women scientists come to the same conclusion as Einstein.
Pushed, she said ‘I think that masculine people, emerging from a maternal world, have constructed a more artificial world than women.’ Men abstract, which is why they come up with equations. Not only is this hopelessly essentialising – many women are better at abstract reasoning than men for example – it once again ignores the key point which is that these ‘abstractions’ are as true for women as they are for men.
However, ludicrous claims like Irigaray’s make it easy to dismiss the question of whether science can be truly value-free too quickly. First, almost everyone would agree that the practice of science is deeply value-laden. What gets researched, for example, is driven by economic, political and social forces, not pure scientific interest. Indeed, it is not even clear what the latter means. From a pure science point of view, there may be more to be discovered by investigating the workings of an obscure plant than finding out a little but more about cancers that kill millions. To say that the obscure plant research would have more pure scientific interest, you’d have to assert a value – prioritise an increase in the sum total of knowledge – which is not any kind of verifiable scientific fact. Pure science is disinterested and so contains within it no motivations, no priorities.
This links to the second way in which science is value-laden. When deciding between competing theories, scientists have to use criteria such as economy of explanation, explanatory power, replicability and so on. These are ‘epistemic values’, values that guide us in our quest for truth and understanding. Because they are very different from moral values, many assume that they are not really ‘values’ at all and can be taken instead to be simply good principles of reasoning. But they are called values for a reason: they are not brute facts. We have to decide which values we apply and we cannot establish them as immutable laws in the way that we can things like our old friend E=mc².
So there is a meaningful sense in which science is always value-laden. The problem I had in our discussion is what I sometimes refer to as the importance of intonation. It doesn’t only matter what we say but how we say it. Imagine the claim ‘There are no absolutely certain truths’ said once calmly and the other in an astonished, fearful screech. The same idea, but a very different implied implication: this could be fact we can accept with ease or a cause of existential anguish.
My worry is that if you push the idea that science is never value-laden too hard, you encourage those who think crazy things like E=mc² is a sexed equation, or that the science of Covid-19 is in reality ideology in disguise. The distinction between epistemic and moral values is important, but when people hear ‘values’ they tend to assume the moral kind.
At the same time, intonation needs to vary according to context. If I’m in a room full of excessively science-worshipping rationalist humanists who naively believe that every important question facing humanity can be answered in labs, it might be a very good idea to remind them that values cannot be squeezed out of scientific enquiry.
The same is true of the pursuit of truth in general. It is not as saturated in ideology and culture as the most sceptical and dismissive relativists claim. But nor is it as rarified and removed from human concerns as naive rationalists would wish. And although what is true is true whether we like it or not, what we need to stress at any given time does vary – and our values determine what that need is.
News
I’ve done a few interviews and written some pieces this last fortnight but only one has already come out: my appearance on Simon Kirchin’s Philosophy Takes On The News podcast. We were discussing Boris Johnson’s vote of no confidence; the Jubilee and national values; and food policy with Fiona Macpherson and Michael Hauskeller.
My next online Café Philosophique discussion exclusively with supporters will be on June 19 at 8pm UK time. After this we’ll take a summer break and restart the monthly conversations in September. Join now from £5 a month for this and there’s still time for me to give you named thanks in my next book, one of myriad benefits, for me as well as you.
I continue to host the Royal Institute of Philosophy podcast Thinking Hard and Slow, ‘Mind-expanding long-form philosophy talks and discussions that are both rigorous and accessible. Recorded live from our annual themed lecture series, special lectures and our big debate.’ The latest episodes are Culture and Value in Du Bois’ The Gift of Black Folk with Chike Jeffers and Decolonising Philosophy with Lewis Gordon.
A reminder that if you buy books online, you can avoid the tax-dodging giant and buy through my affiliate shop which gives 10% to independent bookshops and 10% to me.
On my radar
I don’t think that I’ve mentioned the New Books in Philosophy podcast before. From a production point of view it’s not the best: some of the hosts are a little stilted and it could do with more editing. But you do get at-length discussion of new books that are really interesting but, let’s be honest, we’re unlikely to read. Unlikely though it may seem from the title, I enjoyed The Dialogical Roots of Deduction: Historical, Cognitive, and Philosophical Perspectives on Reasoning by Catarina Dutilh Novaes and The Ethics of Microaggression by Regina Rini, but there are many more I’d like to listen to. (Isn’t it terrible I don’t even listen to the podcasts I want to listen to about the books I want to read but don’t!)
On BBC Sounds How to Steal a Trillion with Oliver Bullough ‘traces Britain’s vital role in the growth of “offshore” money laundering.’ The so-called land of fair play and the role of law turns out to be an oligarch’;s paradise by design, not accident.
It’s not just because I’m Bristol-based that I’m watching the second series of Stephen Marchant’s brilliant comedy drama The Outlaws. It’s funny, tense but also an astute study in moral psychology and ambiguity.
That’s it for now. If you’d like to receive these fortnightly newsletters direct to your inbox, sign up below. Until next time, if nothing prevents, thanks for your interest.