2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

PSA Abstracts
Kristina Rolin University of Helsinki
Rational Grounds for Trust in Science
Whereas philosophers of science agree that trust plays an epistemic role in
science, they are divided by the question: When is it rational for one scientist
to trust another scientist? I argue that neither John Hardwig not Philip Kitcher
provide an adequate account of reliable testimony. Hardwig’s account leaves
room for systematic gender bias in perception of intellectual character. Kitcher’s
account is able to counter such bias more efficiently than Hardwig’s but the
method of direct calibration cannot be the sole foundation of epistemic
authority. It has to be supplemented with a method that evaluates the testifier’s
epistemic resources. Epistemic resources should be understood in a broad sense
to include those social arrangements that create opportunities for inclusive
and responsive dialogue in science.
William␣ A. Rottschaefer Lewis and Clark College
The Scientific Naturalization of Ethics
I outline a program for the scientific naturalization of ethics, focusing on
metaethics and the sciences of biology and psychology. I suggest that
metaethical questions can be framed in terms of questions about the nature,
acquisition, activation, justification and function of moral agency. I present a
model of moral agency based on current theories and findings in human
sociobiology, developmental psychology, operant theory and social cognitive
theory. In particular, I propose a selectionist model, based on natural, behavioral,
and social/cultural selection, to explain the origin, development, and operation
of moral agency.
238
Robert Rynasiewicz Johns Hopkins University
Definition, Convention, and Simultaneity: Malament’s Result and Its
Alleged Refutation by Sarkar and Stachel
The question whether distant simultaneity (relativized to an inertial frame)
has a factual or a conventional status in special relativity has long been disputed
and remains in contention even today. At one point it appeared that Malament
(1977) had settled the issue by proving that the only non-trivial equivalence
relation definable from (temporally symmetric) causal connectability is the
standard simultaneity relation. Recently, though, Sarkar and Stachel (1999)
claim to have identified a suspect assumption in the proof by defining a nonstandard
simultaneity relation from causal connectability. I contend that their