Introduction

Science and values is a familiar topic for philosophers. Most standard philosophy of science readers have contained a small section of papers at the end of the volume under such a heading. ¹ Yet, with but rare exceptions, those who wrote on such topics thought that they were addressing two distinct phenomena and a relation between them that science could control, at least in principle. “Science” was assumed to refer to inquiry processes that could be made value free and thus capable of transcending any particular cultural context. “Values” (or “society”) was taken to refer to cultural and political values, interests, and ways of thinking that tended to sneak or march into scientific research processes and results, thereby restricting the growth of knowledge as well as often harming innocent people, or that shaped the uses of otherwise value-free sciences and their technologies. From this perspective, “Nazi science,” Hiroshima, environmental destruction, the alienation of labor, and scientific sexism and racism were the consequence either of “bad science” or of the misuse and abuse of pure science’s technologies and applications.