Douglas, Heather (2008) The role of values in expert reasoning. [Preprint]

Text Role of Values in Expert Reasoning.pdf Download (304kB)

Abstract

Despite the prevailing norm that expert reasoning should be as free from ethical and social influences as possible, it is argued that this norm is an undesirable norm for experts and needs to be replaced. Because of the importance of expertise in public life, experts have a responsibility to consider carefully the consequences of error when making empirical claims. This responsibility is no threat to expertise, because it is dubious that the authority of expertise rests on following internal disciplinary norms only, and because the integrity of expertise can still be protected from politicization by following a different norm, one that requires values serve only to weigh the importance of uncertainty. These new norms provide a clearer understanding of bias in experts. Finally, the new norms also clarify what should be at stake in technically based public issues, which is both what the available evidence indicates and what consequences of error we are willing to risk.

---

Export/Citation:

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

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Douglas, Heather dougl239@msu.edu 0000-0003-1068-8948
Subjects:	General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Values In Science
Depositing User:	Prof. Heather Douglas
Date Deposited:	01 Jan 2026 13:33
Last Modified:	01 Jan 2026 13:33
Item ID:	27679
Subjects:	General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Values In Science
Date:	2008
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27679

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item