Managing Values in Science: From Democratic Alignment to Systematic Value Pluralism

Abstract

Many philosophers of science now argue that value judgments can play a legitimate role in policy-relevant scientific research. This raises what has been called the New Demarcation Problem: how should we distinguish legitimate from illegitimate value influences in science? One prominent answer is the Democratic Alignment Approach, which holds that scientists should align their research-stage value judgments with democratically endorsed values. In this paper, I argue that the systematic implementation of this approach would come at a significant cost: it would weaken science's capacity to help democratic publics revise and improve their values over time. I then outline an alternative approach, Systematic Value Pluralism, and argue that it offers a more promising way of securing political legitimacy and public trust while preserving science's critical role in democratic self-correction.