The Democratic Control of the Scientific Control of Politics

The Democratic Control of the Scientific Control of Politics Matthew J. Brown ([email protected] 1 Overview Challenging the authority of science amounts to weakening or denying the existence of expertise in politics. I will argue for the combination of two theses that are each frequently defended but are apparently at odds: Instead of questioning the authority of science, we should question the autonomy of science (Douglas), and start to recognize its democratic obligations 1. The democratic control of science – the aims and activities of science should be subject to public scrutiny and oversight via democratic processes. Challenging the autonomy of science amounts to requiring that science be responsive to and guided by public interests, rejecting the linear model of expertise and the strict dichotomy between science and policy. 2. The scientific control of policy or technocracy – political processes should be problem-solving pursuits subject to the methods and results of science and technology. A second approach is a result of the value-ladenness of science long defended by feminist philosophers of science, among others, i.e., the idea that social, ethical, political values necessarily play a role in scientific activity. I propose that we can make sense of this combination by treating science and politics as parallel and mutually involving processes. Values can enter in to any number of stages of scientific inquiry: choice and characterization of problem, methodology, data characterization, proposal of hypotheses and explanations, testing and confirmation, application, or dissemination. I will sketch a framework for such an understanding science and politics. 2 @thehangedman) Why democratize science? Various theorists have given accounts of the way values work in each stage. (E.g., Neurath, Rudner, Longino, Kourany, Douglas.) There are many arguments for and many different meanings of “democratizing science.” If it is true that values play a necessary role in practice of science (even if we disagree on precisely where), then to the degree that the science has consequences for the public interest, those interests ought to be represented in those valuejudgments. Nobody in this discussion means that we should simply replace evidence with votes. I will emphasize two ways that we can show the need for democratizing science: based on the social status and role of science and based on the role of values in science. Question: if values are present in science, whose values should they be? (Douglas) First, a conflict arises when according any institution a high degree of both social authority and social autonomy. (Douglas) Answer: If the science bears on a matter of public interest, then the answer should be that the values should be democratic. Social authority is a feature of public institutions; in democratic societies, the legitimacy of that authority depends inter alia on that institution being democratically representative, authorized, and accountable. 3 The scientific control of politics Social autonomy is a feature of private pursuits, traditions, or ideologies, so long as they do not cause harm to non-members or the public interest. Public opinion doesn’t work for contemporary political problems; the problems are too technical; many current policy proposals are too complex for the public / non-experts to meaningfully evaluate. Matters of public interest arise as groups of people are impacted by the consequences of activities in which they do not participate, recognize those effects, and articulate them as such. The impacted group we might call a public. (Dewey) From issues of climate and environmental science to medicine and healthcare to economic and monetary policy, a number of prominent and powerful politicians show themselves to be incompetent to deal with the issues. Purely private concerns only affect those who are direct parties to the activity. Some have gone so far to argue that the reaction of the public and the behavior of politicians on these issues constitute a failure of democracy. The attempt to combine authority and autonomy in our treatment of science creates a serious conflict; those who respond to that conflict (e.g., Feyerabend, SSK) frequently challenge the authority of science. Even problems that seem non-technical require technical expertise. Many political debates turn on questions of what will work, i.e., the most effective resolution of a problem. 1 But whether some policy will work is not merely determined by social values, nor is it well-tracked by layperson opinion. Evidence must be gathered and evaluated. In the policy case, the perplexity that spurs the inquiry is a public quandary, as opposed to a merely private issue. Policymaking is a response to problems that are a matter of public interest. Often what is necessary in political problem-solving is the kind of expertise and inquiry that has proven effective in the sciences – but applied to a different subject matter. In the case of democratized political inquiry, perplexities of fact may arise that require scientific inquiry de novo. The political context frames the inquiry, and the inquiry is instrumental to and guided by that framing. Policy should be directed by expert at solving political problems. 4 Putting the two together Public Quandary These claims are apparently incompatible: Discrimination of Facts Problemstatement Hypothesis Reasoning Experimental Testing Policy Judgment Policy Inquiry 1. Science should be controlled democratically—guided by the public interest. Judgment of Fact 2. Policy should be decided by expertise and scientific inquiry, not layperson opinion (i.e., not democratically). Factual Perplexity The tension arises when our interpretation of (1) is guided by our ordinary conception of politics and (2) by a traditional conception of science. Observation Problemstatement Hypothesis Experimental Testing Reasoning Scientific Inquiry Further, there are many objections to technocracy that have made it seem an unpalatable response to the problems in §3. Figure 2: Policy inquiry spurring scientific inquiry de novo. The two can be coherently combined by thinking a little differently about the nature of both science and democracy, a view I will call democratic technocracy. In this model we can see that science and policy-making are both mutually involving and parallel processes. The model avoids the problems with bare technocracy, because it is guided by the public interest at every stage. Democratic technocracy regards the central process of politics as inquiry, in precisely the same sense of ‘inquiry’ as the central process in science and technology, governed by the same sorts of methods and norms. 5 We need to think about the jobs of scientists and policymakers as overlapping. On the other hand, the norms governing science include not only considerations of evidence and reasoning, but also democratic and ethical obligations. (§2) Policy-makers are (or ought to be) a kind of technical expert. Scientists have responsibilities as representatives of the public (Mark Brown). We can bring out the parallels between science, technology, ethics, and political action by thinking about inquiry much as John Dewey did, as an experimental problem-solving process, beginning with a state of perplexity and concluding with a judgment that resolves that perplexity. Perplexity Observation Problemstatement Hypothesis Reasoning Experimental Testing Conclusions Science should be thought of as a public trust / public institution. Policy should be thought of as an experimental, cooperative inquiry (Dewey). We need to think about policy interventions not just in the emergency measures but in the long view. Judgment Selected References Inquiry [1] Mark B. Brown (2009) Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institutions, and Representation Figure 1: The Pattern of Inquiry according to Dewey. This pattern applies as much to policy as to science, and perhaps to value-judgment. [2] John Dewey (1927) The Public and Its Problems [3] Heather Douglas (2005) Inserting the public into science. Democratization of Expertise? The same pattern can apply to research in physics, to medical diagnosis, or to deciding on a climate policy. [4] Heather Douglas (2009) Science, Policy, and the ValueFree Ideal Inquiry of any kind becomes democratized in two ways: (i) by allowing public input of value-judgments or situated knowledge into its different stages (e.g. the analyticdeliberative method of Understanding Risk ) [5] Paul Feyerabend (1978) Science in a Free Society [6] U.S. National Research Council (1996) Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society (ii) by the inquirers themselves acting as representatives of the public interest. 2