Values and Objectivity in Science: The Current Controversy about Transgenic Crops

✍ Scribed by Hugh Lacey

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 304
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: THE INTERPLAY OF SCIENCE AND VALUES
1 How the Sciences Are and Are Not Value Free
2 Objectivity and Serving Human Well-Being
3 The Distinction between Cognitive and Social Values
4 Incommensurability and “Multicultural Science”
5 The Social Location of Scientific Practices
PART II: CURRENT CONTROVERSY ABOUT TRANSGENIC CROPS
6 The Controversy about Transgenics: Structure and Opposing Interests
7 Strategies for Research in Agricultural Science
8 Benefits of Using Transgenics
9 Environmental Risks of the Development and Use of Transgenics
10 Alternative (“Better”) Forms of Farming
PART Ill: PROLEGOMENON TO EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF FUTURE SOCIAL POSSIBILITIES
11 The Sociocultural Location of Alternatives to Transgenics
Appendix
Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms
Bibliography
About the Author