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A human-right approach to scientific progress. The deontic framework

Massimi, Michela (2022) A human-right approach to scientific progress. The deontic framework. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The Chapter starts with an analysis of the ‘right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications’ (REBSP). Its long history goes back to the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1966. Its importance and patchy implementation was reiterated by the UNESCO Venice Statement in 2009. The Chapter offers a diagnosis for the patchy implementation to date, back to a number of assumptions about scientific knowledge and its progressive nature that are common to what Massimi calls the ‘manifest image’ of progress and the ‘philosophical image’. The Chapter offers a different image of scientific knowledge and its growth, building on Massimi’s work on perspectival realism. It urges replacing individuals with situated epistemic communities, the siloed picture with interlacing scientific perspectives and a view of progress sub specie aeternitatis or “from here now” with one of progress “from within”. The Chapter lays out the contours of a possible ‘deontic framework’ as a way of reinterpreting the core content of REBSP in light of perspectival realism. By doing so, the REBSP can be read as a ‘cosmopolitan right’ no longer trapped between the strictures of individual rights vs. the rights of the communities to share in it. This epistemic shift brings with it much needed ‘cosmopolitan obligations’ when it comes to sharing in scientific knowledge and its advancements. It has ultimately the potential to change the legal landscape where the prescriptive force of REBSP currently remains delegated to the good will of individual nations ratifying ICESCR.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Massimi, Michelamichela.massimi@ed.ac.uk0000-0001-6626-9174
Additional Information: In Press in Y. Shan (ed.) New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progress, London: Routledge.
Keywords: scientific progress, perspectival realism, cosmopolitan rights, REBSP, UN Declaration of Human Rights, ICESCR, Venice Statement
Subjects: General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
General Issues > Science and Society
General Issues > Science and Policy
Depositing User: Michela Massimi
Date Deposited: 21 Apr 2022 04:09
Last Modified: 21 Apr 2022 04:09
Item ID: 20485
Subjects: General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
General Issues > Science and Society
General Issues > Science and Policy
Date: 19 April 2022
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/20485

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