Overview

Scientific research is often influenced by financial interests, political interests, or personal career interests of the scientists involved. For instance, the pharmaceutical giant Merck manipulated clinical trial data in order to make sure that data confirmed the safety of one of its products, Vioxx, in order to serve the company's short-term commercial interests. This case is obviously unacceptable. But why exactly is it unacceptable? One way to account for this judgment is on the basis of the ideal of purity. According to this ideal, scientific decision-making should be pure- that is, unaffected by financial interests, political interests, career interests, and so on. Although this ideal is questionable, many people (including philosophers of science) still hold on to it. In Interests and Epistemic Integrity in Science: A New Framework to Assess Interest Influences in Scientific Research Processes, Jan De Winter first argues that it is better to fully abandon the ideal of purity, then proposes an alternative ideal to assess interest influences in science: the ideal of epistemic integrity. He spells out and systematically defends a new concept of epistemic integrity, using it not only to analyze the Vioxx debacle, but also to identify unacceptable interest influences in aerospace science, climate science, and biology, and to explain exactly why these interest influences are unacceptable. These analyses make a compelling case for the new concept of epistemic integrity which will be interesting and useful for philosophers of science, scientists, engineers, science policymakers, and anyone else concerned about the integrity of science.

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9781498529358

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De Winter, an ethics teacher, proposes that the ideal of purity, which suggests that science is only driven by the pursuit of knowledge, is misguided. In his first book, the author documents the range of interests that science pursues and suggests that occasionally, social, political, or financial interests of scientific pursuits can compete or interfere with its interest in producing reliable knowledge. Within this account, the role of the philosopher is to demonstrate which of the many interests that science pursues support or inhibit the acquisition of reliable knowledge. This book is notable for developing a framework for better understanding the interests that drive science; this framework is built on what de Winter calls the technological sciences -which range from medicine to software engineering and space science-rather than basic physics or biology, which have received the bulk of previous philosophical attention. The work is readable and proceeds deliberately, making it accessible and of broad interest to philosophers of science... Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. * CHOICE * De Winter hones his conceptual scalpel and with the astute skills of a philosopher re-examines, under a new lens, the enduring question: how do values and interests enter into science. If as, C.S. Peirce said, science is the best we have for fixing belief, then De Winter helps us understand how the social enterprise of science can conflict with its value to produce reliable knowledge. -- Sheldon Krimsky, Tufts University Jan De Winter's Interests and Epistemic Integrity makes an important contribution to our understanding of the epistemological foundations of research ethics. In this outstanding book, De Winter develops a concept of epistemic integrity to explain why some types of external influences over scientific research, such as financial interests or political ideologies, are epistemically problematic. The concept of epistemic integrity has applications for ethical issue in the practice of science, such as conflict of interest, misconduct, authorship, and data sharing, as well as theoretical issues in the philosophy of science, such as the science/values debate. The book is carefully argued, clearly written, and insightful. I recommend it highly. -- David Resnik, Bioethicist at National Institutes of Health

De Winter hones his conceptual scalpel and with the astute skills of a philosopher re-examines, under a new lens, the enduring question: how do values and interests enter into science. If as, C.S. Peirce said, science is the best we have for fixing belief, then De Winter helps us understand how the social enterprise of science can conflict with its value to produce reliable knowledge.--Sheldon Krimsky, Tufts University Jan De Winter's Interests and Epistemic Integrity makes an important contribution to our understanding of the epistemological foundations of research ethics. In this outstanding book, De Winter develops a concept of epistemic integrity to explain why some types of external influences over scientific research, such as financial interests or political ideologies, are epistemically problematic. The concept of epistemic integrity has applications for ethical issue in the practice of science, such as conflict of interest, misconduct, authorship, and data sharing, as well as theoretical issues in the philosophy of science, such as the science/values debate. The book is carefully argued, clearly written, and insightful. I recommend it highly.--David Resnik, Bioethicist at National Institutes of Health

Author Information

Jan De Winter earned his PhD in philosophy from Ghent University, and currently teaches ethics to children and adolescents.

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