Abstract

This collection of articles by scholars from several disciplines is concerned for the most part, in one way or another, with the relation of science and values. Alasdair MacIntyre, in "Objectivity in Morality and Objectivity in Science," maintains that science is a social practice whose aim is given by the ideal of realism. Objectivity in science, according to MacIntyre, is the acceptance of certain features of the practice, including realism as its aim. Recent discussions of subjectivism and relativism in philosophy of science, MacIntyre says, recapitulate the history of ethics, because the scientific community is a moral community and objectivity a moral notion. In "The Moral Psychology of Science," Stephen Toulmin discusses the aims and motives of scientists in order to refute the view that the only respectable motive for doing science is the disinterested pursuit of value-free truth. Toulmin argues that this view is a barrier to understanding that science is not value-free.