Logic, methodology and philosophy of science VIII proceedings of the eighth international congress of logic, methodology and philosophy of science, and philosophy of science proceedings) ( PDFDrive ) 69

50 E AGAZZI was new was rather the fact that the borderlines were now meant to express clear-cut “separations”, rather than simple “distinctions”, and that the consequent “autonomy” of the different fields has quickly turned into a search for a kind of “freedom” or “liberation” The step from autonomy to freedom may be understood in the sense that the admission of autonomy led to the rejection of any form of tutelage or interference coming from “outside” the single domains This vindication of freedom was understood in different ways and as having different degrees In one sense it was conceived as an independence in the criteria of judgment, such that, e.g., a decision might be considered as politically sound in spite of being economically disadvantageous, a behaviour economically profitable in spite of being morally objectionable, a picture artistically beautiful in spite of being indecent This obviously means that, in turn, no consideration of economic or moral criteria (to remain with our examples) could improve the political, economic, or artistic value of actions or productions which are negatively judged in terms of their own internal criteria A common way of expressing this position is to say that politics, economics and art are “value-free”, and this is also and especially said concerning science A second and much more committed sense is the claim that the said autonomy also entails independence in action In the above examples, this would mean that one is entitled to perform a political action in spite of its being economically disadvantageous, an economic action in spite of its being morally objectionable, an artistic work in spite of its being indecent This means that the politician “as a politician”, the business man “as homo oeconomicus”, the artist “as artist” -and we can also add the scientist “as a scientist” -are legitimated in acting according to the pure criteria of their profession, at least to the extent that they are performing within this profession A third sense consists of not allowing controls or limitations to this performance to be exercised by external agents in the name of the protection or promotion of goals or values of a different nature It is clear that these different meanings of the “autonomy” are in an order of succession which is not that of an entailment, since the acceptance of the first does not imply that of the second, and this does not imply that of the third Nowadays, the tendency is clearly manifest to reconsider these points, especially since we are confronted with the outcomes of such a process of “liberation”, which has led to several intuitively unacceptable results: the autonomy of many single domains, if pushed to excess, brings them into