Ilya T. Kasavin
Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences
Social critique as a scientific virtue: an external scientific ethos in the making
Abstract. The article discusses the possibility of using the external ethics of science to formulate a new social contract between science and the state (society). To do this, it is necessary to re-think the value thesaurus inherited from the cold war and the arms race, when the state gave scientists a social order, concentrated resources and allowed the scientists them-selves to distribute them on the basis of anonymous (secret) expert reviewing and refereeing. The resulting model of relationships within the scientific community can be called Pareto-competition, in which the winner re-ceives everything and the vanquished are screened to the periphery. The current situation of Big Science and Distributed Knowledge puts on the agenda the question of transition to a different relationship in the style of Pare-to-collaboration. In it, both victory and defeat are common cause, each group is prescribed its share of obligations and advantages, and all scientists have a chance to move in the sys-tem of epistemic virtues and sins. The new state of the scientific community, described by the term “full constituency” (S. Fuller), not only leads to internal democratic consensus, but also allows for social criticism. Its desirable result is such a restructuring of the whole society, in which cognitive and moral values come to the fore.
Keywords: social contract, science-society, Pareto-competition, expert review, full constituency, external ethics of science
DOI: 10.32326/2618–9267–2021–4–2–73–82
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