Representation, civility and democracy

i) Cognitive and intellectual authority

Haack prescribes meritocratic recruitment to professional inquiry: If what is meant with a democratic epistemology is “only that no one should be excluded from a scientific career on the basis of irrelevant considerations such as race, sex, or eye color”, this is “right” – but this

“democratic” norm of recruitment is “right” because it is “meritocratic in its thrust” (Haack 1998: 114). A prescription of simple, untempered meritocracy in recruitment is, however, an inadequate prescription – even if it could be argued that theoretical justification is value-free, and theories had consisted only of truth-claims. Let me, as a first step, elaborate why untempered meritocracy is not necessarily truth-functional.

Merit should be a decisive criterion for being recruited as a professional inquirer in a public institution. Helen Longino, in Manifesto pointed out as one of Haack’s main opponents, distinguishes between cognitive and intellectual authority. There is, she says, “equality of intellectual authority”; everyone has an equal “capacity to participate in critical discussion and thus to contribute to critical understanding”. This is, however, compatible with

“according greater cognitive authority on some matters to those one regards as having acquired more knowledge concerning those matters than others”: “While the criterion [equality of intellectual authority] imposes duties of inclusion and attention, it does not require that each individual, no matter what their past record or state of training, should be granted equal authority on every matter” (2002a: 131-133). Elizabeth Anderson argues in a similar way:

Expertise does, of course, matter in inquiry […]. Democracy is […] compatible with honoring merit in persons, with recognizing that some people are more skilled, accomplished, intelligent, persuasive, interesting, and trustworthy than others, and with supporting them for these reasons (original emphasis, 1995b: 205).

186 Science is not the only public institution where inquiry takes place. Inquiry with public relevance, takes place, for example, in what David Guston (2000) refers to as “boundary organizations”.

Genuine truth-seeking on different problems within different areas requires particular skills, and truth-seekers that can demonstrate such skills should be preferred to those who cannot.

The standard is, thus, “tempered equality” among truth-seekers: Intellectual equality tempered by reasonable cognitive inequality (Longino 2002a: 131).

ii) Tempered meritocracy in truth-seeking

Meritocracy in recruitment to truth-seeking needs, however, also to be tempered, if for no other reason, at least for the sake of truth. A community of inquirers is, according to Haack, epistemologically preferable to an individual inquirer. “[…] in a community of inquirers some will be more conservative in temperament, inclined to try adapting an old theory to new evidence, others more radical, readier to look for a new approach”: “Real scientists” are never

“single-mindedly devoted to truth” (Haack 1998: 97-98). In an investigating community “[…]

individual idiocyncracies or weaknesses may [however] compensate for each other” (ibid.). If this is the case, it is crucial to make sure that there are inquirers with relevant complementary

“idiocyncracies” present (ibid.).

Thus, Haack suggests herself that meritocracy in recruitment to inquiry should be tempered by representative concerns – for the sake of truth. To have different views represented may be truth-functional. This is John Stuart Mill’s famous instrumental argument: “He argued that the truth would most likely be discovered, disseminated, and entrenched in a society that permitted all points of view to be expressed and criticized” (Anderson 1995b: 194, Kitcher 2001, Longino 2002).

Different differences may be conceived as relevant. Haack suggests that both “radicals” and

“conservatives” should be present; both those who stick to the puzzle solving within the old paradigm (the conservatives), and those who opt for a new paradigm (the radicals) (op.cit.:

97-98).¹⁸⁷ Skirbekk argues that the presence of different “conceptual perspectives” or

“disciplines” in truth-seeking gives us “a truer picture” (2001: 10). Anderson argues that […] justification will be spurious if the community’s relations of inquiry systematically exclude or discount the testimony of rational inquirers who have access to a different set of evidence, or who would provide alternative critical perspectives that correct the biases of the community’s membership (1995b: 192).

187 Haack relies on Kuhn: “Kuhn says something not dissimilar […]” (1998: 103). This implies that Haack subscribes to a moderate interpretation of Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis (Hoyningen-Huene 1990).

For the sake of truth, inquirers with different “ascribed social status[es]” should be represented in the community of inquirers; “race” “gender”, “class” and “ethnicity” may for example be relevant, because such statutes influence which “set of evidence” you have access to, and what “perspectives” and “biases” you have (op.cit.: 192, 205):

The internal knowledge-promoting aims of the university thus calls for measures to promote equality of access by all groups in society to memberships in its ranks. This is an argument for affirmative action¹⁸⁸ in university admissions and faculty hiring that recognizes the positive contributions that members of oppressed groups can and do make to enhancing the objectivity of research. Equality of access thorough affirmative action policies is not, therefore, an external political goal that threatens to compromise the quality of research. It is a means to promote the objectivity of that research (1995b: 198).

iii) Equal respect in truth-seeking

Truth-seeking qua argumentation on truth-claims implies a moral norm of equal respect. Our equal intellectual authority is linked to our equal “capacity to participate in critical discussion and thus to contribute to critical understanding” (Longino 2002a: 131):¹⁸⁹

In epistemic democracies, equality means that all communicatively competent persons are acknowledged as having the status of inquirers: they must be regarded as reason-givers and reason-takers, and their speech interpreted accordingly. All inquirers have a status that entitles them to call upon others to explain and justify their beliefs, and to offer reasons for them to change their beliefs, which mean that others are obliged to listen and respond in kind (Anderson 1995b: 205).

Thus, to approach each other as ‘reason-givers and reason-takers’, to give each other ‘the status of inquirers’, to treat each other with equal respect, with equal intellectual authority, is not only truth-functional, it is also what we presuppose as a moral norm when arguing over truth.¹⁹⁰

The norm of equal respect in truth-seeking, implies that no truth-seekers should be given

“second-class” authority for example “on account of his or her race, gender, class, ethnicity, or other ascribed social status” (Anderson 1995b: 205):

This means that the academy must structure its communicative relations by norms that ensure that inquirers have their say, that encourage them to pay attention to what other members say,

188 My discussion here and in the next sections raises difficult policy-questions, that I do not go into.

189 Longino refers here to Habermas.

190 Note that this is not in fact Longino’s and Anderson’s argument. They rely, in the end, exclusively on Mill’s instrumental argument, and argue that the norm of equal respect in inquiry is truth-functional. I thus re-contextualize their argument in this paragraph.

that discourage them from systematically discounting or distorting what others say, and that urge them to actively respond to criticisms and alternative perspectives by appropriately modifying the content and methods of their studies. These are norms of civility and mutual respect, by which inquirers recognize each others’ cognitive authority¹⁹¹ (op.cit.: 198-199).

Norms of civility¹⁹² should, however, not only regulate the professional community of inquirers; “all communicatively competent persons” ought to be “acknowledged as having the status of inquirers” (my emphasis, op.cit.: 205). This implies that also citizens that are not members of the epistemic democracy of the democratic university are to be considered as reason-givers and reason-takers with intellectual authority equal to the intellectual authority of the professional inquirers. “In a democracy […] merit must be demonstrated to the satisfaction of those who offer their support: they must be persuaded by arguments and evidence, not bullied into submission by those who claim epistemic superiority […]”

(19995b: 205). Those who “must be persuaded” are citizens (ibid.). Whether and how inquiry should be institutionalized is a question for citizens. Citizens should have their say when priories are made in the context of discovery¹⁹³ and in the context of practical application,¹⁹⁴ but also when theories are assessed as more or less warranted. When presented for the outcomes of inquiry; for the theories that professional inquirers consider warranted,¹⁹⁵ citizens should be approached as free, equal and reasonable: Professional inquirers should make

191 Note that Anderson’s use of ‘cognitive authority’ is similar to Longino’s use of ‘intellectual authority’.

192 See also 2.4.2 on the institutional norms of science.

193 Confronted with citizens asking for justification of, for example, funding-priorities, it is “better”, Rawls argues, to refer to the value of democratic equality, than to use perfectionist arguments. The confrontation with citizens may “put […] in question whether society can allocate great public resources to pure science – to mathematics and theoretical physics, say – or to philosophy, or to the arts of painting and music, solely on the grounds that their study and practice realizes certain great excellences of thought, imagination, and feeling. No doubt their study does this, but it is far better to justify the use of public funds to support them by reference to political values. Some public support of art and culture and science, and funding museums and public performances, is certainly vital to the public political culture; to a society’s sense of itself and its history, and an awareness of its political traditions. But a large fraction of the social product for the advancement of mathematics and science requires a basis in advancing the good of citizens generally, say by the expected benefits to public health and preserving the environment, or to the needs of (justified) national defense” (Rawls 2001: 152). Rawls defines citizens as reasonable and rational persons; they have a sense of justice and ends they want to advance by fair cooperation (Rawls 1996: 48-54). Thus, obliging professional inquirers to justify their priorities to citizens as reasonable and rational persons is very different from obliging them to justify their priorities to consumers or capitalists.

194 Haack suggests that there are funding-priorities, principles and policies of recruitment, as well as applications of the outcome of inquiry that are more “just”, “moral” or more “morally objectionable” than others (1998: 14, 119, 167). Citizens should be included when such assessments are made: They have a right to have the decisions and procedures of public institutions justified.

195 Professional inquirers are, generally speaking, obliged to respond when asked by citizens to present the outcome of their investigations (because citizens have a right to have the decisions of public institutions, and the theories on which they are based, communicated publicly).

serious efforts to convince “those who offer their support” on the basis of evidence and rational arguments; “merit” should be “demonstrated”, not simply “claim[ed]” (ibid.).¹⁹⁶

The norm of equal respect implies, moreover, that professional inquirers should treat the subject-objects they are studying as reason-givers and reason-takers with equal intellectual authority. There are not only truth-functional reasons for taking the subject-objects reason-giving and reason-taking seriously.¹⁹⁷ Haack acknowledges that it may be truth-functional to take the subject-object seriously when she links treating all concerned subject-objects to the requirement of comprehensiveness:¹⁹⁸

True, if we are sociologists or anthropologists trying to understand the institution of polygamy in this society, or of slavery in that, then talking to wives and husbands, or to slaves and masters, would indeed be desirable as part of our evidence-gathering (original emphasis, 1998: 113-114).

Treating all with equal respect is, however, a universally binding norm of civility: Truth-seekers are obliged to treat their subject-objects civilized, whether they reckon it “desirable”

as part of their “evidence-gathering” or not (op.cit.: 114).

What principles of recruitment to professional inquiry does the norm of equal respect require?

I have so far argued that meritocracy in recruitment may be tempered by representational concerns, if this in fact is truth-functional. Is this compatible with treating all as free and equal? Or is this tempering of meritocracy for the sake of truth unjust? Do we have to choose between what is truth-functional and what is just? Haack defends “equality of opportunity” in recruitment to academia: Everyone should have equal opportunities to “a scientific career”

regardless of “irrelevant considerations” like “sex” or “race” (op.cit.: 114). Equality of opportunity is, in her view, truth-functional, but also just. This is a reasonable position.¹⁹⁹

196 Cognitive inequality between inquirers and citizens will complicate their deliberations. Many scientific theories are not easily understood by non-experts. Citizens will, moreover, often not scrutinize the conclusions of professional inquiry, due to lack of time or interest, or because they trust the professionals; they believe

professional inquirers make genuine investigations (they may, for example, consider the principles and policies of recruitment to professional inquiry to be truth-functional and just, and therefore trust what professional inquirers do). The citizen has, however, ultimately, a right to ask, and expect an argumentative response.

197 See 2.3.1.

198 Foundherentism prescribes justification faithful to considerations of supportiveness, of independent security and of comprehensiveness (see 1.2.3).

199 See Chapter 8.

Haack assumes that equality of opportunity in recruitment to professional inquiry requires only “procedural-fairness policies” or “anti-discrimination policies”, and is incompatible with

“affirmative action” or “preferential hiring policies” (op.cit.: 169). But letting anti-discrimination policies regulate recruitment to academia will not secure equal opportunities if the candidates of recruitment have an unequal standing. To secure all candidates of recruitment an equal standing requires protection of freedom of thought and speech and other civil rights, as Haack herself acknowledges. What Nancy Fraser (2003) refers to as “parity in participation” requires, moreover, socio-economic redestribution and cultural recognition.²⁰⁰ Thus, the alternative to Haack’s anti-discrimination policies is not necessarily preferential hiring policies. It could be anti-discrimination policies in combination with a broad set of policies developed to protect the equal standing of all. Preferential hiring policies are, however, not necessarily incompatible with equality of opportunity. Among others Ronald Dworkin (2000) has argued, that affirmative action may be designed in ways that are compatible with treating all individuals with equal respect.²⁰¹ Thus, to temper meritocracy by representational concerns, if this is truth-functional, is not necessarily unjust.

iv) Democracy in value-laden inquiry

Value-laden inquiry cannot be equated with truth-seeking, however. Inquirers are confronted with ethical and moral questions in the context of justification as well as in the context of discovery and in the context of practical application. I have three remarks in this connection.

First, it cannot be assumed that inquirers with cognitive authority in discussions of state of affairs are also better equipped than others in coming to conclusions that are also just and ethically reasonable. Cognitive inequality that is truth-functional is not necessarily functional in discussions of other validity-claims. Skills that might make us particularly competent to investigate what ‘is’ in the social or natural world, do not necessarily make us particularly competent to make judgments about what norms are valid or about goodness. Thus, that inquiry is value-laden, is an argument for taking another look at what skills we regard as relevant in recruitment to professional inquiry. All “members” of “a well-ordered society, that is, a society in which institutions are just and this fact is publicly recognized”, have, Rawls

200 See Chapter 8 for an elaboration of some of Fraser’s ideas.

201 It may, however, also be designed in ways that are incompatible with the norm of equal respect (see Chapter 8).

says, “a strong sense of justice, en effective desire to comply with the existing rules and to give one another that to which they are entitled” (1999: 274), as well as an ability to approach questions of justice as reason-givers and reason-takers: Justice requires motivation for justice as well as deliberative skills. The education of professional inquirers of a well-ordered society should, accordingly, focus on cultivating their sense of justice, and stress the significance of a deliberative approach to ethical and moral questions.²⁰²

Second, the fact that inquirers are confronted with moral and ethical questions, even in the context of justification, calls for another look at who are recruited to professional inquiry.

Letting meritocracy be tempered by representative concerns for the sake of truth is not necessarily incompatible with the norm of equal respect. A different question is whether living up to standards of rightness and ethical reasonableness in fact require that representative concerns are taken into account in recruitment to professional inquiry. In moral discourse all concerned are to be included as free and equal. Hence, it may be a problem from a moral point of view, if, for example, certain groups (such as women) are excluded from the moral deliberations of the community of professional inquirers, if these groups have concerns different from the concerns of groups that are included (such as men), due to, for example, differences in social situation.²⁰³ Also ethical reasonableness or ‘impartiality’ requires that different ‘sides’ and ‘arguments’ are taken into account. If certain groups (such as women) approach ethical questions systematically different from how other groups (such as men) approach them, due to, for example, differences in their social situation,²⁰⁴ it will thus be a problem if women are systematically excluded from professional inquiry, where inquirers are confronted with value-issues in addition to other issues.

A third question is whether different institutional solutions; “new advisory institutions” such as “lay juries” (Giæver 2004: 24, 27), are required to guarantee citizens reasonable influence on inquiry qua value-laden inquiry. It may be argued, of course, that such institutions may even be truth-functional.²⁰⁵ The fact that inquiry, even in the context of justification, confronts professional inquirers with questions of norms and values, makes the case for lay influence

202 To cultivate in all citizens a sense of justice is a primary task for the family and for public education (consider also my reflections on the conditions of individuation in Chapter 9)

203 Whether women’s social situation is different from that of men is a question of empirical investigation (see Chapter 4). To what extent women will veto moral norms that men will not veto, is a question that cannot be settled until moral deliberations have taken place where all concerned (women as well as men) participate as free and equal reason-givers and reason-takers.

204 Whether this is the case, is a question for investigation and deliberation.

205 Along the lines of John Stuart Mill.

stronger, however, because professional inquirers are experts in a particular field of empirical investigation, not on ethics and morality: It cannot be assumed that inquirers with cognitive authority in discussions of state of affairs are also better equipped than others in coming to conclusions that are also just and ethically reasonable.²⁰⁶

In document Feminism, Epistemology & Morality (sider 95-102)