A demanding test for thick concepts in science

Description

A demanding test for thickly evaluative concepts in science



A recent focus in the values in science debate has been on “thick concepts” in science, especially in the social sciences [e.g., Alexandrova 2017, Djordjevic & Herfeld 2021, Makineni, V. & Sarkar, S. (2021)].

Thick concepts in this debate are typically understood to combine evaluation and description, but this underspecifies what exactly it takes for a concept to be ‘thickly evaluative’. The notion of ‘thick concept’ is borrowed from the debate in metaethics. While there is widespread agreement that virtue and vice concepts are paradigmatically thickly evaluative concepts, there is not much agreement within metaethics as to which other concepts (if any) should count as thickly evaluative, nor is there an agreed upon understanding of what it takes for a concept to be ‘thickly evaluative’ [Roberts 2017, Väyrynen 2013]. As a result, different definitions of thick concepts have been imported into the philosophy of science debate, which risks over- or under-counting thick concepts, thereby misrepresenting the sense in which science is value-laden.



In this paper we introduce a recent demanding notion of thick concepts from metaethics [Roberts, forthcoming] into the debate over thick concepts in science to empower philosophers of science to apply more stringent ‘thickness’ tests to concepts of interest in their subfields. We apply this demanding understanding to the concept of INVASIVE SPECIES as an illustrative case study.

In the US, the official definition of invasive species states that ‘"Invasive species" means an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.’ [Clinton 1999]. In the EU, invasive alien species “means an alien species whose introduction or spread has been found to threaten or adversely impact upon biodiversity and related ecosystem services” [European Union 2016].

These definitions are value-laden, since they reference harm or adverse impacts as part of the definition of invasive species. But does this mean INVASIVE SPECIES is a thickly evaluative concept? This question matters, for if it turns out that the evaluative component of the invasive species concept can easily be separated from more descriptive components, then one can construct a value-free surrogate concept for use in the biological sciences, with the evaluative invasive species concept reserved for use in policy making.

According to our demanding understanding, for invasive species to be a thickly evaluative concept requires that evaluation and description cannot be neatly separated out. Only concepts that genuinely have evaluative and descriptive semantic content, where such content cannot be disentangled through analysis into thin evaluation combined with purely descriptive content, count as genuinely thick concepts on this demanding understanding of thick concepts. Close attention to the defining concepts will reveal that INVASIVE SPECIES is indeed a thick concept, in the demanding sense. By demonstrating the application of these metaethical tools to INVASIVE SPECIES, we hope that our paper will enable philosophers of science to apply stringent tests when assessing whether a concept of interest is indeed thickly evaluative.

References

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Period	19 Jul 2024
Event title	British Society for the Philosophy of Science Annual Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	York, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International