Smith, Adam C. (2024) Science Policy Advising & Political Legitimacy: A Feminist Public Reason Account. [Preprint]

Text Smith 2024 Manuscript - Science Policy Advising and Political Legitimacy.docx - Submitted Version Download (178kB)

Abstract

Public policies are binding to the public only if they are politically legitimate, and science advising is a major part of many public policies, e.g. climate and public health policies. Thus, we need an account of when public policies are politically legitimate and how science and science policy advising contributes to politically legitimate policies. One leading approach is to appeal to democratic values and a deliberative democracy account of political legitimacy. Building on existing objections, I argue that current democratic values accounts are underspecified and fail to adequately prevent the marginalization of knowledge and values of oppressed and minority groups in the science policy advising process. To better address the problem of marginalization, I propose we adopt Lori Watson and Christie Hartley’s (2018) feminist account of public reason to determine the political legitimacy of policies, thereby giving new criteria for appropriate value influence in science policy advising, namely: (i) the eradication of social conditions of domination and subordination and (ii) providing social conditions of recognition respect. I then argue that these criteria can be achieved in practice if science policy advising adopts a combination of Helen Longino’s critical contextual empiricism and Sandra Harding’s strong objectivity. A feminist political philosophy of science, like the one presented in this paper, is needed (i) to get clearer on the role of values in science and science policy advising such that they contribute to politically legitimate public policies, and (ii) for science policy advising to do its part in preventing the marginalization.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Smith, Adam C. adam.c.smith@utah.edu 0009-0007-9438-316X
Keywords:	values, public reason, deliberative democracy, political legitimacy, policy, science
Subjects:	General Issues > Feminist Approaches General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Science and Policy General Issues > Values In Science
Depositing User:	Adam C. Smith
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2024 13:00
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2024 13:00
Item ID:	24170
Subjects:	General Issues > Feminist Approaches General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Science and Policy General Issues > Values In Science
Date:	4 November 2024
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24170

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item