Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T09:37:54.481Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Rawlsian Solution to the New Demarcation Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2023

Frank Cabrera
Frank Cabrera*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts Philosophy Department Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
*
Email: Francis_cabrera@uml.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the last two decades, a robust consensus has emerged among philosophers of science, whereby political, ethical, or social values must play some role in scientific inquiry, and that the ‘value-free ideal’ is thus a misguided conception of science. However, the question of how to distinguish, in a principled way, which values may legitimately influence science remains. This question, which has been dubbed the ‘new demarcation problem,’ has until recently received comparatively less attention from philosophers of science. In this paper, I appeal to Rawls’s theory of justice (1971) on the basis of which I defend a Rawlsian solution to the new demarcation problem. As I argue, the Rawlsian solution places plausible constraints on which values ought to influence scientific inquiry, and, moreover, can be fruitfully applied to concrete cases to determine how the conflicting interests of stakeholders should be balanced. After considering and responding to the objection that Rawls’s theory of justice applies only to the “basic structure” of society, I compare the Rawlsian solution to some other approaches to the new demarcation problem, especially those that emphasize democratic criteria.

Keywords

values in scienceinductive riskvalue-free idealdemarcation problemRawlsbasic structuredeliberative democracy
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 52 , Issue 8 , November 2022 , pp. 810 - 827
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abizadeh, Arash. 2007. “Cooperation, Pervasive Impact, and Coercion: On the Scope (not Site) of Distributive Justice.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 35 (4): 318–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2004. “Uses of Value Judgments in Science: A General Argument, with Lessons from a Case Study of Feminist Research on Divorce.” Hypatia 19 (1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Betz, Gregor. 2013. “In Defence of the Value Free Ideal.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 3 (2): 207–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biddle, Justin. 2007. “Lessons from the Vioxx Debacle: What the Privatization of Science Can Teach Us about Social Epistemology.” Social Epistemology 21 (1): 21–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biddle, Justin. 2013. “State of the Field: Transient Underdetermination and Values in Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 44 (1): 124–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanc, Sandrine. 2016. “Are Rawlsian Considerations of Corporate Governance Illiberal? A Reply to Singer.” Business Ethics Quarterly 26 (3): 407–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bright, Liam Kofi. 2018. “DuBois’ Democratic Defence of the Value Free Ideal.” Synthese 195 (5): 2227–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, MatthewJ. 2018. “Weaving Value Judgment into the Tapestry of Science.” Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 10 (10): 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Matthew J. 2020. Science and Moral Imagination: A New Ideal for Values in Science. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. 1997. “Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 26 (1): 3–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Marc A. 2010. “The Narrow Application of Rawls in Business Ethics: A Political Conception of Both Stakeholder Theory and the Morality of Market.” Journal of Business Ethics 97: 563–79.10.1007/s10551-010-0525-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuneo, Terrence, and Shafer-Landau, Russ. 2014. “The Moral Fixed Points: New Directions for Moral Nonnaturalism.” Philosophical Studies 171 (3): 399–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Melo-Martín, Inmaculada, and Intemann, Kristen. 2016. “The Risk of Using Inductive Risk to Challenge the Value-Free Ideal.” Philosophy of Science 83 (4): 500–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doppelt, Gerald. 1989. “Is Rawls Kantian Liberalism Coherent and Defensible?” Ethics 99 (4): 815–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather. 2000. “Inductive Risk and Values in Science.” Philosophy of Science 67 (4): 559–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather. 2005. “Inserting the Public into Science.” In Democratization of Expertise? Exploring Novel Forms of Scientific Advice in Political Decision-Making, edited by Maasen, Sabine and Weingart, Peter, 153–169. Dordrecht, Nether.: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather. 2009. Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh.10.2307/j.ctt6wrc78CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather. 2013. “The Value of Cognitive Values.” Philosophy of Science 80 (5): 796–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DuBois, W. E. B. 2008. The Souls of Black Folks. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Duhem, Pierre. 1991. German Science: Some Reflections on German Science/German Science and German Virtues. Translated by Lyon, John. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Dupré, John. 2007. “Fact and Value.” In Value-Free Science? Ideals and Illusions, edited by Kincaid, Harold, Dupré, John, and Wylie, Alison, 27–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1973. “The Original Position.” The University of Chicago Law Review 40 (3): 500–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Kevin C., and Richards, Ted. 2017. Exploring Inductive Risk: Case Studies of Values in Science. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elliott, Kevin C. 2017. A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Kevin C. 2020. “A Taxonomy of Transparency in Science.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1017/can.2020.21.Google Scholar
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 1985. Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Festenstein, Matthew. 2023. “Dewey’s Political Philosophy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023), edited by Zalta, Edward N.. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/dewey-political/.Google Scholar
Fishkin, James S. 2009. When the People Speak. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, R. Edward. 2014. “Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation.” In Business Ethics Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality, 5th ed., edited by Hoffman, W. Michael, Frederick, Robert E., and Schwartz, Mark S., 184–91. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton. 2014. “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.” In Business Ethics Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality, 5th ed., edited by Hoffman, W. Michael, Frederick, Robert E., and Schwartz, Mark S., 180–83. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen J. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Hartley, Christie. 2009. “Justice for the Disabled: A Contractualist Approach.” Journal of Social Philosophy 40 (1): 17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havstad, Joyce C., and Brown, Matthew J.. 2017. “Inductive Risk, Deferred Decisions, and Climate Science Advising.” In Exploring Inductive Risk: Case Studies of Values in Science, edited by Elliott, Kevin C. and Richards, Ted, 101–23. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Havstad, Joyce C. 2022. “Sensational Science, Archaic Hominin Genetics, and Amplified Inductive Risk.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (3): 295–320. https://doi.org/10.1017/can.2021.15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicks, Daniel. 2011. “Is Longino’s Conception of Objectivity Feminist?” Hypatia 26 (2): 333–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicks, Daniel. 2014. “A New Direction for Science and Values.” Synthese 191 (14): 3271–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holman, Bennett, and Wilholt, Torsten. 2022. “The New Demarcation Problem.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 91: 211–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1998. “Normative Virtue Ethics.” In How Should One Live?, edited by Crisp, Roger, 19–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intemann, Kristen. 2005. “Feminism, Underdetermination, and Values in Science.” Philosophy of Science 72 (5): 1001–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intemann, Kristen. 2015. “Distinguishing between Legitimate and Illegitimate Values in Climate Modeling.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (2): 217–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intemann, Kristen. 2017. “Feminism, Values, and the Bias Paradox: Why Value Management Is Not Sufficient.” In Current Controversies in Values and Science, edited by Elliott, Kevin C. and Steel, Daniel. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keren, Arnon. 2015. “Science and Informed, Counterfactual, Democratic Consent.” Philosophy of Science 82 (5): 1284–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1990. “The Division of Cognitive Labor.” Journal of Philosophy 87 (1): 5–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 2011. Science in a Democratic Society. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder. 1999. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kourany, Janet. 2003. “A Philosophy of Science for the Twenty‐First Century.” Philosophy of Science 70 (1): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kourany, Janet. 2010. Philosophy of Science after Feminism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kourany, Janet. 2018. “Adding to the Tapestry.” Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 10 (9): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3998/ptpbio.16039257.0010.009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1977. “Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice.” In The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change, 320–39. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacey, Hugh. 2013. “Rehabilitating Neutrality.” Philosophical Studies 163 (1): 77–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 1990. Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 1996. “Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Values in Science: Rethinking the Dichotomy.” In Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, edited by Nelson, Lynn Hankinson and Nelson, Jack, 39–58. Dordrecht, Nether.: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 2002. The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 2013. Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lusk, Greg. 2021. “Does Democracy Require Value-Neutral Science? Analyzing the Legitimacy of Scientific Information in the Political Sphere.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 90: 102–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, Emily. 1991. “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles.” Signs 16 (3): 485–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2019. “In a Politically Polarized Era, Sharp Divides in Both Partisan Coalitions.” https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/12/17/in-a-politically-polarized-era-sharp-divides-in-both-partisan-coalitions/.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 2002. The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rachels, James. 2003. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Edited by Kelly, E.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rooney, Phyllis. 2017. “The Borderlands between Epistemic and Non-Epistemic Values.” In Current Controversies in Values in Science, edited by Elliott, Kevin C. and Steel, Daniel, 31–45. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudner, Richard. 1953. “The Scientist Qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments.” Philosophy of Science 20 (1): 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandel, Michael J. 1984. “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self.” Political Theory 12 (1): 81–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiebinger, Londa. 2004. Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, S. Andrew. 2021. “Democratic Values: A Better Foundation for Public Trust in Science.” The British Journal for Philosophy of Science 72 (2): 545–562. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axz023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, S. Andrew. 2021. “Values in Science: Ethical vs. Political Approaches.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 52 (3): 246–255. https://doi.org/10.1017/can.2020.41.Google Scholar
Singer, Abraham. 2015. “There Is No Rawlsian Theory of Corporate Governance.” Business Ethics Quarterly 25 (1): 65–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanford, P. Kyle. 2017. “Underdetermination of Scientific Theory.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter), edited by Zalta, Edward N.. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/scientific-underdetermination/.Google Scholar
Stark, Cynthia A. 2000. “Hypothetical Consent and Justification.” Journal of Philosophy 97 (6): 313–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Lori, and Hartley, Christie. 2018. Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: A Feminist Political Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Welch, Theodora, and Ly, Minh. 2017. “Rawls on the Justice of Corporate Governance .” Business Ethics Journal Review 5 (2): 7–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winsberg, Eric. 2012. “Values and Uncertainties in the Predictions of Global Climate Models.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 22 (2): 111–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winsberg, Eric, Oreskes, Naomi, and Lloyd, Elisabeth. 2020. “Severe Weather Event Attribution: Why Values Won’t Go Away.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 84: 142–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed