 A standard view in philosophy of science for much of the 20th Century was that scientists should use only epistemic values in evaluating hypotheses (Reiss and Springer 2017). Non-epistemic values, such as moral or social values, should not be used in judging scientific hypotheses. This view is called the ‘Value Free Ideal’ (see Section 3 of the entry   scientific objectivity). The word ‘ideal’ is used to recognize that some non-epistemic values do affect the selection of scientific hypotheses (for example, through implicit bias), but scientists should strive as best they can to avoid using non-epistemic values when selecting hypotheses. Recently, a number of philosophers have argued that the Value Free Ideal cannot be achieved, and moreover we should not attempt to rid science of non-epistemic values (for example, Kourany 2010, Kitcher 2011). Instead of discussing the general issue of science and values further, let’s see how these issues arise when it comes to species. 