Principled Revisability in Science and Society. A Supplementary Approach to Respond to Infectious Disease Outbreaks under the Guidance of Science
# Principled Revisability in Science and Society ## A supplementary approach to respond to infectious disease outbreaks under the guidance of science Scrutiny and analysis of the credible- and trustworthy-making features of individual scientists, scientific institutions, and structures often takes center stage in philosophy of science. Still, the question of what would minimally be needed of members of the wider public for science to be aimed at its epistemic, but also non-epistemic aims, has not received as much diligent attention. A rather obvious answer to the question what members of society would minimally need to bring to the table is trust. Science relies on substantial sections of the public to trust scientific institutions and processes and its output. Further, members of society ought to be able to trust science, not only in terms of accepting its results, but also choose individual actions in accordance with science’s advice, recommendations, and warnings, if science is to be directed towards addressing our epistemic and non-epistemic interests. This has led philosophers to both, turn their attention inwards and outwards. That is, the relation between science in society is grasped via an inwards assessment of the inner workings of scientific institutions and claims to knowledge and expertise of individual scientists, to subsequently argue that many members of the public can only but blindly trust in scientific expertise, given their own lack of access to epistemic and practical resources. Granted – on the one hand, in lacking epistemic and practical resources and access the public may come to trust more willingly. At least, if scientists and experts are credible and trustworthy, and science as a collection of institutions is organized in a way that the public’s trust is warranted and upheld. Unaddressed by such an internal-facing view, however, remains, what would still be minimally required of the public to be willing and able to trust scientists, experts, and scientific institutions, in the first place. How much of a *Folk Philosophy of Science* would the public need to be able and willing to see and take science’s efforts to be credible and trustworthy as convincing and desirable, and thus lend their trust? In this dissertation I pick out one attitude (or virtue) that we would minimally require of individual members of the public for trust in science to get off the ground: Revisability-in-principle or principled revisability, i.e., the general willingness to modify, amend, replace one’s position on both claims to truth, given arguments and evidence, but also in regard to normative values, assumptions, interests, and needs that one holds. The first three chapters of the monograph locate this minimal epistemic requirement within existing discussions in philosophy of science, and immediately dispel a looming criticism of triviality. Chapter 5 and 6 introduce the context in which this notion of ‘principled revisability’ may be of special interest. That is, it is crucial in responding to infectious disease outbreaks in wider communities, such as but not exclusively restricted to the COVID-19 pandemic. The remaining chapters 7 through 11, seek to further strengthen the idea that principled revisability has its merits by connecting it with existing approaches, such as 'real-world experiments' and 'deliberative democracy, and with problems of collective decision-making, such as the 'deliberative dilemma'. All this serves to argue that societies, in which not only its members heavily rely on scientific guidance, but in turn society also relies on many of its members to put its mitigating and preventative measures into effective action, fostering principled revisability is a crucial scientific task.
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