LTT: Joseph Wilson - How Games Help with Values Pluralism and the Value-Free Ideal

About this event

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh invites you to join us for our Lunch Time Talk. Attend in person at 1117 Cathedral of Learning or visit our live stream on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg .

Lunch Time Talk: Joseph Wilson

Tuesday, December 1st @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST

Title: How Games Help with Values Pluralism and the Value-Free Ideal

Abstract:

In this talk I consider one way that scientific practice can properly privilege epistemic aims and values while accommodating the denial of the value-free ideal (Douglas 2009) and values pluralism more generally. Philosophers have not only argued that research aims and practices are constrained by ethical values, but that they are irreducibly aesthetic (Turner 2019), and often practical (Parker 2020, Watkins 2024). From this pluralism, two problems arise – it is unclear in what sense science is a distinctly epistemic practice, and it is unclear how epistemic aims and values are properly insulated from trade-offs. Toward a solution, I sketch an understanding of scientific agency shaped by insights from the philosophy of games (Nguyen 2020). The proposed agency structures the practical activity of researchers such that acknowledged forms of values pluralism hold while maintaining a special place for epistemic aims.

This talk will also be available YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg .