Science as public service

authored by: Hannah Hilligardt
Abstract: The problem this paper addresses is that scientists have to take normatively charged decisions which can have a significant impact on individual members of the public or the public as a whole. And yet mechanisms to exercise democratic control over them are often absent. Given the normative nature of these choices, this is often perceived to be at odds with basic democratic principles. I show that this problem applies in similar ways to civil service institutions and draw on political philosophy literature on the civil service (e.g. Rosanvallon, 2011; Heath, 2022) to discuss when such normative judgements can nevertheless be said to be democratically legitimate. Concretely, I seek to show that normative judgements in research need not be democratically legitimated in order for science to be democratically legitimate. Indeed, it can be democratically legitimate for scientists to go against the expressed views of the public or political representatives if this is justified in light of, firstly, the role science has been asked to fulfil and, secondly, when it is in line with public institutions’ key principles. This is a counter-position to views currently held in the values in science debate (e.g. by Kitcher, 2011; Intemann, 2015; Schroeder, 2021; Lusk, 2021) which argue that value-laden judgements in science are legitimate if they are aligned with the public’s views or directly decided by public.
Organisation(s): Institute of Philosophy
Type: Article
Journal: European Journal for Philosophy of Science
Volume: 14
No. of pages: 25
ISSN: 1879-4912
Publication date: 09.2024
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-024-00607-3 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{87e931556d69425ea975bd5bc190c3cb,
title = "Science as public service",
abstract = "The problem this paper addresses is that scientists have to take normatively charged decisions which can have a significant impact on individual members of the public or the public as a whole. And yet mechanisms to exercise democratic control over them are often absent. Given the normative nature of these choices, this is often perceived to be at odds with basic democratic principles. I show that this problem applies in similar ways to civil service institutions and draw on political philosophy literature on the civil service (e.g. Rosanvallon, 2011; Heath, 2022) to discuss when such normative judgements can nevertheless be said to be democratically legitimate. Concretely, I seek to show that normative judgements in research need not be democratically legitimated in order for science to be democratically legitimate. Indeed, it can be democratically legitimate for scientists to go against the expressed views of the public or political representatives if this is justified in light of, firstly, the role science has been asked to fulfil and, secondly, when it is in line with public institutions{\textquoteright} key principles. This is a counter-position to views currently held in the values in science debate (e.g. by Kitcher, 2011; Intemann, 2015; Schroeder, 2021; Lusk, 2021) which argue that value-laden judgements in science are legitimate if they are aligned with the public{\textquoteright}s views or directly decided by public.",
keywords = "Civil service, Democratic legitimacy, New demarcation problem, Public interest science, Values in science",
author = "Hannah Hilligardt",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2024.",
year = "2024",
month = sep,
doi = "10.1007/s13194-024-00607-3",
language = "English",
volume = "14",
journal = "European Journal for Philosophy of Science",
issn = "1879-4912",
publisher = "Springer Netherlands",
number = "3",
}