How strong is the argument from inductive risk?

Abstract

Abstract The argument from inductive risk, as developed by Rudner and others, famously concludes that the scientist qua scientist makes value judgments. The paper aims to show that trust in the soundness of the argument is overrated – that philosophers who endorse its conclusion (especially Douglas and Wilholt) fail to refute two of the most important objections that have been raised to its soundness: Jeffrey’s objection that the genuine task of the scientist is to assign probabilities to (and not to accept or reject) hypotheses, and Levi’s objection that the argument is ambiguous about decisions about how to act and decisions about what to believe, that only the former presuppose value judgments, and that qua scientist, the scientist only needs to decide what to believe.

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