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I offer a view of the aims and responsibilities of science, and use it to analyze critically van Fraassen’s view that ‘objectifying inquiry’ is fundamental to the nature of science

Há propostas de que as políticas e as práticas de soberania alimentar, ao contrário daqueles sistemas alimentar/agrícola atualmente hegemônicos, provêm os meios para satisfazer e salvaguardar o direito à segurança alimentar para todos em todos os lugares. Meu principal objetivo nesse artigo é explorar como a pesquisa científica – utilizando que tipos de metodologias, e sendo construída sobre quais experiências e de quem – pode construtivamente informar tais práticas e políticas, e contribuir para avaliar essa proposta.

Neste artigo, oferecemos formulações padronizadas das principais ideias do modelo das interações entre as atividades científicas e os valores, proposto em anos recentes na revista Scientiae Studia. O modelo trata das várias funções desempenhadas pelos valores - éticos, sociais, políticos, cognitivos (epis têmi cos), religiosos etc. - nas atividades científicas e de seu impacto na viabilidade dos ideais (imparciali dade, abran gência, neutralidade, autonomia) da tradição da ciência moderna. In this article, we offer standardized versions of the principal ideas of the model of the interactions among scientific activities and values that has been proposed in recent years within Scientiae Studia. The model deals with the various roles played by values - ethical, social, political, cognitive (epistemic), religious, etc -in scientific activities, and with their impact on the viability of the ideals (impartiality, comprehensiveness, neutrality, autonomy) of the tradition of modern science.

O modelo das interações entre as atividades científicas e os valores (M-CV) fornece ferramentas para criticar as atividades científicas atualmente predominantes nas instituições científicas e identificar algumas possibilidades alternativas de pesquisa que nessas instituições não estão recebendo o devido reconhecimento. Sobretudo, o M-CV ajuda-nos a identificar uma incoerência profunda na autointer pre tação comum da tradição da ciência moderna e também a discernir que atualmente estão disponíveis duas alternativas coerentes e opostas - a "tecnociência comercialmente orientada" e a "pesquisa multiestratégica" -, capazes de eliminar essa incoerência e, ao mesmo tempo, de manter a continuidade do grande sucesso cognitivo da ciência moderna. The model of the interactions between scientific activities and values (M-CV) provides tools to criticize the scientific activities that are currently predominant in scientific institutions, and to identify some alternative possibilities for research that are not receiving due recognition in them. Most importantly, M-CV helps us to identify a deep incoherence in the common self-interpretation of the modern scientific tradition, and also to recognize that there are available two competing coherent interpretations - 'commercially oriented technoscience' and 'multi-strategy research' - that maintain continuity with the great cognitive successes of modern science.

In this paper I will propose six principles governing the proper role of moral and social values in the conduct of scientific investigation. I offer them for your consideration, and hope that together we can sharpen their formulation, explore their implications and test their acceptability. In making my proposals I draw considerably from my recent books, Valores e Atividade Científica (VAC, Lacey 1988) and Is Science Value Free? Values and Scientific Understanding (SVF, Lacey 1999a). The detailed argument, and elaboration of the technical notions that I use are to be found in them (and summarized in Lacey 1999c). The sketch of the argument that I offer here is intended to display the motivation behind the proposed principles.

Cognitive values are the characteristics that are constitutive of good theories, the criteria to which we appeal when choosing among competing theories. I argue that, in order to count as a cognitive value, a characteristic must be needed to explain actually made theory choices, and its cognitive significance must be well defended especially in view of considerations derived from the objective of science. A number of proposed objectives of science are entertained, and it is argued that adopting a par-ticular objective is dialectically intertwined with commitment to certain social values.Then, the ways in which science is, and is not value free is explored briefly, leading to the identification of a level of analysis where values may influence theory choice without causing paradox or threatening the impartiality of soundly-made scientific judgments.

Technoscientific research, a kind of scientific research conducted within the decontextualized approach (DA), uses advanced technology to produce instruments, experimental objects, and new objects and structures, that enable us to gain knowledge of states of affairs of novel domains, especially knowledge about new possibilities of what we can do and make, with the horizons of practical, industrial, medical or military innovation, and economic growth and competition, never far removed from view. The legitimacy of technoscientific innovations can be appraised only in the course of considering fully what sorts of objects technoscientific objects are: objects that embody scientific knowledge confirmed within DA; physical/chemical/biological objects, realizations of possibilities discovered in research conducted within DA, brought to realization by means of technical/experimental/instrumental interventions; and components of social/ecological systems, objects that embody the values of technological progress and (most of them) values of capital and the market. What technoscientific objects are - their powers, tendencies, sources of their being, effects on human beings and social/economic systems, how they differ from non technoscientific objects - cannot be grasped from technoscientific inquiry alone; scientific inquiry that is not reducible to that conducted within DA is also needed. The knowledge that underlies and explains the efficacy of technoscientific objects is never sufficient to grasp what sorts of object they are and could become. Science cannot be reduced to technoscience.

Este artigo, utilizando a distinção entre o endossamento e a aceitação de uma reivindicação, discute as responsabilidades que os cientistas devem assumir frente à necessidade de agir, de formular políticas e de estipular regulamentos pertinentes às inovações científicas, quando decisões inevitavelmente serão baseadas, em parte importante, em reivindicações que são apenas endossadas (e, assim, comprometidas com valores éticos e sociais controversos), e não aceitas de acordo com a imparcialidade. Então, depois da introdução da noção de "investigação imparcial", chega-se à conclusão de que é da maior importância para os cientistas assumir a responsabilidade de conduzir a investigação imparcial, a qual requer, não a exclusão dos valores éticos e sociais de papeis indispensáveis na pesquisa científica, mas a inclusão - em seus lugares apropriados - do leque completo de valores relevantes para as deliberações democráticas. This article, making use of a distinction between endorsing and accepting a claim, discusses the responsibilities that scientists incur in the light of the necessity to act, formulate policy, and to design regulations pertinent to technoscientific innovations, when decisions will inevitably be based, in important part, on claims that are only endorsed (and so implicated in compromises with ethical/social values), and not accepted in accordance with impartiality. Then, after introducing the notion of "impartial investigation", I conclude that the central responsibility of scientists is to engage in impartial investigation, and that this requires, not the exclusion of ethical and social values from having important roles in scientific research, but the inclusion, in their proper places, of the full array of values that are relevant to democratic deliberations.

A questão central aqui levantada é a seguinte: de que maneira a pesquisa científica deve ser conduzida de modo a assegurar que a natureza seja respeitada - que suas potencialidades regenerativas não sejam ulteriormente solapadas, e que sejam restabelecidas onde quer que seja possível - e que o bem-estar de todos, em todos os lugares, possa ampliar-se? Após salientar a importância do pluralismo metodológico na formulação de uma resposta aceitável e os obstáculos que emergem quando se identifica ciência com tecnociência - obstáculos que são reforçados pelo que denomino "o ethos científico-comercial" -, duas questões adicionais são aqui consideradas. Como a pesquisa científica, conduzida dessa maneira, poderia impactar o - e subordinar-se ao - fortalecimento de práticas e valores democráticos? O que está atualmente envolvido nas responsabilidades dos cientistas? Uma vez que não estão dadas as condições sociais apropriadas para o exercício das responsabilidades que são identificadas, o exercício dessas responsabilidades também envolve a participação dos cientistas nos esforços para o estabelecimento dessas condições. O artigo conclui com a sugestão de que o estabelecimento dessas condições deveria envolver uma dialética complexa, incluindo pelo menos oito elementos. The central question addressed is: How should scientific research be conducted so as to ensure that nature is respected, its regenerative powers not further undermined and wherever possible restored, and the well being of everyone everywhere enhanced? Then, after pointing to the importance of methodological pluralism for an acceptable answer, and the obstacles posed by identifying science with technoscience that are reinforced by what I call 'the commercial-scientific ethos', two additional questions are considered: How might research, conducted in this way, have impact on - and depend on - strengthening democratic values and practices? And, what is thereby implied for the responsibilities of scientists today? Since appropriate social conditions are not in place for exercising the responsibilities that are identified, exercising them also involves scientists participating in efforts to establish them. The paper concludes by suggesting that establishing these conditions would involve a complex dialectic that involves at least eight elements.