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Science and Informed, Counterfactual, Democratic Consent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Arnon Keren
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Abstract

On many science-related policy questions, the public is unable to make informed decisions, because of its inability to make use of knowledge obtained by scientists. Philip Kitcher and James Fishkin have both suggested therefore that on certain science-related issues, public policy should not be decided on by actual democratic vote, but should instead conform to the public’s counterfactual informed democratic decision (CIDD). Indeed, this suggestion underlies Kitcher’s specification of an ideal of a well-ordered science. This article argues that this suggestion misconstrues the normative significance of CIDDs. At most, CIDDs might have epistemic significance, but no authority or legitimizing force.

Type
Social Sciences and Policy
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1284 - 1295
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Work on this paper was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 714/12). For helpful comments, I am grateful to audiences at the PSA 2014, at a conference on the Special Role of Science in Liberal Democracy at the University of Copenhagen, and at colloquia at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Tel Aviv University, and to Aliza Avraham, Marcello Di Bello, David Enoch, Alon Harel, Martin Kusch, Boaz Miller, Assaf Sharon, and Daniel Statman.

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