Introduction
This article discusses several proposals to characterize the idea and ideal of objectivity in such a way that it is both strong enough to be valuable, and weak enough to be attainable and workable in practice. They begin with a natural conception of objectivity: faithfulness to facts, which is closely related to the idea of product objectivity. They motivate the intuitive appeal of this conception, discuss its relation to scientific method and discuss arguments challenging both its attainability as well as its desirability. Then they move on to a second conception of objectivity as absence of normative commitments and value-freedom, and once more they contrast arguments in favor of such a conception with the challenges it faces. The third conception of objectivity which they discuss at length is the idea of absence of personal bias. After discussing three case studies about objectivity in scientific practice (from economics, social science and medicine) as well as a radical alternative to the traditional conceptions of objectivity, instrumentalism.
1. Objectivity as faithfulness to facts
The idea of this first conception of objectivity is that scientific claims are objective in so far as they faithfully describe facts about the world. The philosophical rationale underlying this conception of objectivity is the view that there are facts “out there” in the world and that it is the task of a scientist to discover, to analyze and to systematize them. “Objective” then becomes a success word: if a claim is objective, it successfully captures some feature of the world.
In this view, science is objective to the degree that it succeeds at discovering and generalizing facts, abstracting from the perspective of the individual scientist. Although few philosophers have fully endorsed such a conception of scientific objectivity, the idea figures recurrently in the work of prominent 20th century philosophers of science such as Carnap, Hempel, Popper, and Reichenbach. It is also, in an evident way, related to the claims of scientific realism, according to which it is the goal of science to find out the truths about the world, and according to which we have reason to believe in the truth of our best-confirmed scientific theories.
2. Objectivity as absence of normative commitments and the value-free ideal
The previous section has presented us with forceful arguments against the view of objectivity as faithfulness to facts and an impersonal “view from nowhere”. How can we maintain the view that objectivity is one of the essential features of science—and the one that grounds its epistemic authority? A popular reply contends that science should be value-free and that scientific claims or practices are objective to the extent that they are free of moral, political and social values.
3. Objectivity as freedom from personal biases
This section deals with scientific objectivity as a form of intersubjectivity—as freedom from personal biases. According to this view, science is objective to the extent that personal biases are absent from scientific reasoning, or that they can be eliminated in a social process. Perhaps all science is necessarily perspectival. Perhaps we cannot sensibly draw scientific inferences without a host of background assumptions, which may include assumptions about values. But scientific results should certainly not depend on researchers' personal preferences or idiosyncratic experiences. That, among other things, is what distinguishes science from the arts and other more individualistic human activities—or so it is said. Paradigmatic ways to achieve objectivity in this sense are measurement and quantification. What has been measured and quantified has been verified relative to a standard. The truth, say, that the Eiffel Tower is 324 meters tall is relative to a standard unit and conventions about how to use certain instruments, so it is neither aperspectival nor free from assumptions, but it is independent of the person making the measurement.
We will begin with a discussion of objectivity, so conceived, in measurement, discuss the ideal of “mechanical objectivity” and then investigate to what extent freedom from personal biases can be implemented in statistical and inductive inference—arguably the core of scientific reasoning, especially in experimentally working sciences.
1. Objectivity as faithfulness to facts
The idea of this first conception of objectivity is that scientific claims are objective in so far as they faithfully describe facts about the world. The philosophical rationale underlying this conception of objectivity is the view that there are facts “out there” in the world and that it is the task of a scientist to discover, to analyze and to systematize them. “Objective” then becomes a success word: if a claim is objective, it successfully captures some feature of the world.
In this view, science is objective to the degree that it succeeds at discovering and generalizing facts, abstracting from the perspective of the individual scientist. Although few philosophers have fully endorsed such a conception of scientific objectivity, the idea figures recurrently in the work of prominent 20th century philosophers of science such as Carnap, Hempel, Popper, and Reichenbach. It is also, in an evident way, related to the claims of scientific realism, according to which it is the goal of science to find out the truths about the world, and according to which we have reason to believe in the truth of our best-confirmed scientific theories.
2. Objectivity as absence of normative commitments and the value-free ideal
The previous section has presented us with forceful arguments against the view of objectivity as faithfulness to facts and an impersonal “view from nowhere”. How can we maintain the view that objectivity is one of the essential features of science—and the one that grounds its epistemic authority? A popular reply contends that science should be value-free and that scientific claims or practices are objective to the extent that they are free of moral, political and social values.
3. Objectivity as freedom from personal biases
This section deals with scientific objectivity as a form of intersubjectivity—as freedom from personal biases. According to this view, science is objective to the extent that personal biases are absent from scientific reasoning, or that they can be eliminated in a social process. Perhaps all science is necessarily perspectival. Perhaps we cannot sensibly draw scientific inferences without a host of background assumptions, which may include assumptions about values. But scientific results should certainly not depend on researchers' personal preferences or idiosyncratic experiences. That, among other things, is what distinguishes science from the arts and other more individualistic human activities—or so it is said. Paradigmatic ways to achieve objectivity in this sense are measurement and quantification. What has been measured and quantified has been verified relative to a standard. The truth, say, that the Eiffel Tower is 324 meters tall is relative to a standard unit and conventions about how to use certain instruments, so it is neither aperspectival nor free from assumptions, but it is independent of the person making the measurement.
We will begin with a discussion of objectivity, so conceived, in measurement, discuss the ideal of “mechanical objectivity” and then investigate to what extent freedom from personal biases can be implemented in statistical and inductive inference—arguably the core of scientific reasoning, especially in experimentally working sciences.