Recent Arguments for the Ideal of Value-Free Science

This chapter reviews and assesses major recent arguments for the ideal of value-free science. These arguments move upstream against a near-consensus against the value-free ideal and are generally found to miss the mark. The most important arguments turn out to be best understood as considerations for how values should be managed in value-laden science rather than genuine defenses of the value-free ideal. Readers may be interested in these Handbook chapters as well: Kevin C. Elliott, “Arguments Against the Value-Free Ideal”; Tarun Menon and Jacob Stegenga “Democracy, Consensus, and the Value-Free Ideal”; Wendy S. Parker, “An Intermediate Approach to Value Management”; Zina B. Ward, “What Does It Mean to Say that Science is Value-Laden?”.