Objectivity in science and law: A shared rescue strategy

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 64 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The ideal of objectivity is in crisis in science and the law, and yet it continues to do important work in both practices. This article describes that crisis and develops a shared rescue strategy for objectivity in both domains. In a recent article, Inkeri Koskinen attempts to bring unity to the fragmented discourse on objectivity in the philosophy of science with a risk account of objectivity. To put it simply, she argues that we call practitioners, processes, and products of science objective when they identify and manage certain important epistemic risks. We endorse this view and attempt to tailor Koskinen's strategy to the problem of objectivity in the legal context. To do so, we develop a novel notion of phronetic risk, and argue that we call practitioners, processes, and products of law objective when they identify and manage certain important epistemic and/or phronetic risks. Our attempt to rescue objectivity is especially important for work at the intersection of law and psychiatry. For that intersection represents a place where skeptical worries about objectivity in science and law work in tandem to pose serious critical challenges to contemporary practice; and our rescue strategy represents a promising way to negotiate those challenges.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Defending a Risk Account of Scientific Objectivity.Inkeri Koskinen - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1187-1207.
The Objectivity of Science.Howard Sankey - 2023 - Journal of Philosophical Investigations at University of Tabriz 17 (45):1-10.
Can scientists be objective?Malcolm Williams - 2006 - Social Epistemology 20 (2):163 – 180.
Objectivity.Lorraine Daston - 2007 - Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Edited by Peter Galison.
Objectivity: a very short introduction.Stephen Gaukroger - 2012 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Rescuing Objectivity: A Contextualist Proposal.Jack Wright - 2018 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 48 (4):385-406.
Objectivity in Legal Judgment.Heidi Li Feldman - 1994 - University of Michigan Law Review 92:1187-1255.
Objectivity, Intellectual Virtue, and Community.Moira Howes - 2015 - In Flavia Padovani, Alan Richardson & Jonathan Y. Tsou (eds.), Objectivity in Science: New Perspectives From Science and Technology Studies. Cham: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol. 310. Springer. pp. 173-188.
Epistemic relativism, scepticism, pluralism.Martin Kusch - 2017 - Synthese 194 (12):4687-4703.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-11-26

Downloads
20 (#656,480)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Katherine Furman
University of Liverpool

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references