What Facts Should be Treated as ‘Fixed’ in Public Justification?

Reid, Andrew

doi:10.1080/02691728.2019.1637965

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Torcello says that ‘it is important that we take care to limit our public arguments to those consistent with scientific consensus when arguing in the public sphere’ 10 (p 204). Reid 11 and Kappel 12 hold similar views.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…This stands in stark contrast with what we call the scientific consensus view of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification. On this view, it is only permissible to appeal to empirical claims when they are based on a ‘body of knowledge that is the subject of an overwhelming and on-going consensus amongst scientists’ 11 (pp 493-4). 7–10 12 Hence, even if there are people in the general public who believe that vaccines cause autism, the fact that this has been thoroughly disproven by the relevant academic community over-rides this complaint.…”

Section: Empirical Claims In Public Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Public justification and expert disagreement over non-pharmaceutical interventions for the COVID-19 pandemic

Dahlquist

Kugelberg

2021

J Med Ethics

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A wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been introduced to stop or slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include school closures, environmental cleaning and disinfection, mask mandates, restrictions on freedom of assembly and lockdowns. These NPIs depend on coercion for their effectiveness, either directly or indirectly. A widely held view is that coercive policies need to be publicly justified—justified to each citizen—to be legitimate. Standardly, this is thought to entail that there is a scientific consensus on the factual propositions that are used to support the policies. In this paper, we argue that such a consensus has been lacking on the factual propositions justifying most NPIs. Consequently, they would on the standard view be illegitimate. This is regrettable since there are good reasons for granting the state the legitimate authority to enact NPIs under conditions of uncertainty. The upshot of our argument is that it is impossible to have both the standard interpretation of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification and an effective pandemic response. We provide an alternative view that allows the state sufficient room for action while precluding the possibility of it acting without empirical support.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Empirical Claims In Public Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public justification and expert disagreement over non-pharmaceutical interventions for the COVID-19 pandemic

Dahlquist

Kugelberg

2021

J Med Ethics

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“…One can also object to CSPR's "sufficiency claim": the idea that all scientific claims about which there is consensus can enter in to public justification. A number of authors have rejected this claim (Galston 1995;Jønch-Clausen and Kappel 2016;Reid 2019;Bellolio 2019;Kappel 2021). Jønch-Clausen and Kappel (2016) consider what happens when the general public rejects a scientific consensus.…”

Section: Consensus Science As Public Reasonmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Hedge or Not to Hedge: Scientific Claims and Public Justification

Ward,

Creel

2024

Philos. sci.

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Scientific hedges are communicative devices used to qualify and weaken scientific claims. Gregor Betz (2013) has argued – unconvincingly, we think – that hedging can rescue the value-free ideal for science. Nevertheless, Betz is onto something when he suggests there are political principles that recommend scientists hedge public-facing claims. In this paper, we recast this suggestion using the notion of public justification. We formulate and reject a Rawlsian argument that locates the justification for hedging in its ability to forge consensus. On our alternative proposal, hedging is often justified because it renders scientific claims as publicly accessible reasons.

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Science as Public Reason and the Controversiality Objection

Kappel

2021

Res Publica

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What Facts Should be Treated as ‘Fixed’ in Public Justification?

Cited by 5 publications

References 16 publications

Public justification and expert disagreement over non-pharmaceutical interventions for the COVID-19 pandemic

Public justification and expert disagreement over non-pharmaceutical interventions for the COVID-19 pandemic

To Hedge or Not to Hedge: Scientific Claims and Public Justification

Science as Public Reason and the Controversiality Objection

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