Values, Pluralism, and Pragmatism: Themes from the Work of Matthew J. Brown

This book offers eighteen original historical and philosophical essays focused on values in science, scientific pluralism, and pragmatism. These themes have been central in the work of Matthew J. Brown, and the book frames these topics through an engagement with Brown's broadly ranging work on values in science. The themes of this book are integrated and unified in the pragmatic and value-laden ideal of science defended by Professor Brown in his fascinating 2020 book, Science and Moral Imagination. Brown's ideal of moral imagination prescribes that scientists should recognize the contingencies in their work as unforced choices, examine morally salient aspects of these decisions, recognize the various interests of relevant stakeholders, explore and construct alternative options, and exercise fair and warranted value judgments to guide those decisions. The interdisciplinary essays in this volume engage with different aspects of Brown's philosophical research on scientific values as well as his historical research on figures such as John Dewey and Paul K. Feyerabend. With a fresh focus on topics such as moral imagination, inductive risk, and epistemic priority in various socially salient contexts (e.g., artificial intelligence, psychiatry, segregation research), this book is of great interest to a broad audience of researchers working in philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, history and philosophy of science, and science and technology studies.