The value of objectivity and objectivity as a value

This paper is an exploration of the issue of scientific objectivity and its relationship to social values. Though scientists from quite different political positions have pursued methodological objectivity science and its emergent technology, shapes and is shaped by external factors. However I do not argue for a form of social constructivism here, but rather that science is socially indispensable, yet to exist at all must necessarily be objective. I discuss two attempts to resolve the problem of social locatedness and objectivity, from Weber (1974) and Longino (1969). I conclude that a form of situated objectivity is possible, whereby objectivity is itself treated as a value, but a value that has the property of historical and social transcendence.