Description:
<jats:p>Kitcher has proposed an ideal-theory account—well-ordered science (WOS)—of the collective good that science’s research agenda should promote. Against criticism regarding WOS’s action guidance, Kitcher has advised critics not to confuse substantive ideals and the ways to arrive at them, and he has defended WOS as a necessary and useful ideal for science policy. I provide a distinction between two types of ideal theories that helps clarifying WOS’s elusive nature. I use this distinction to argue that the action-guidance problem that WOS faces remains even under the aims/means distinction because the WOS’s failure is more basic than critics have suggested.</jats:p>