The thesis that the practice and evaluation of science requires social valuejudgment, that good science is not value-free or value-neutral but value-laden, has been gaining acceptance among philosophers of science. The main proponents of the value-ladenness of science rely on either arguments from the underdetermination of theory by evidence or arguments from inductive risk. Both arguments share the premise that we should only consider values once the evidence runs out, or where it leaves uncertainty; they adopt a criterion of lexical priority of evidence over values. The motivation behind lexical priority is to avoid reaching conclusions on the basis of wishful thinking rather than good evidence. The problem of wishful thinking is indeed real-it would be an egregious error to adopt beliefs about the world because they comport with how one would prefer the world to be. I will argue, however, that giving lexical priority to evidential considerations over values is a mistake, and unnecessary for adequately avoiding the problem of wishful thinking. Values have a deeper role to play in science than proponents of the underdetermination and inductive risk arguments have suggested.

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Quantum mechanics describes certain systems as being in superpositions of their properties, yet every measurement on every system that we are able to perform yields a determinate result. The "orthodox" formulation of the theory builds this in by including a postulate that such superpositions "collapse" at the time of measurement. This strategy fails to really explain why such measurements are determinate, is unacceptably imprecise, and makes observation basic in fundamental physical theory, which looks like the wrong sort of process for the job. The problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics is the problem of finding a more satisfactory understanding of the formalism in the face of these problems. Carlo Rovelli's relational interpretation of quantum mechanics holds that a system's states or the values of its * This project began in an independent study with Craig Callender, who provided much help in terms of direction, discussion, comments, and continuing support. Thanks also to Jeffrey Barrett for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this paper, including helping me find some clearer and more economical way of putting some crucial points. 1 physical quantites as normally conceived only exist relative to a cut between a system and an observer or measuring instrument. Furthermore, on Rovelli's account, the appearance of determinate observations from pure quantum superpositions happens only relative to the interaction of the system and observer. Jeffrey Barrett has pointed out that certain relational interpretations suffer from what we might call the "determinacy problem," but the interpretations that Barrett considers make facts relative to branches of the universal wave function rather than to system/observer cuts. Thus, Barrett misclassifies Rovelli's interpretation, which differs from the interpretations that Barrett explicitly worries about and has the resources to escape his particular criticisms. Rovelli's interpretation still leaves us with a paradox having to do with the determinacy of measurement outcomes, which can be accepted only if we are willing to give up on certain elements of the "absolute" view of the world.

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