Varying Evidential Standards as a Matter of Justice

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8399149
AutoresAhmad Elabbar (0000-0003-0249-1985, University of Cambridge, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen77
Número3
Páginas643-669
Fecha de publicación2023-08-17
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/727429
OpenAlexW4385916310
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas99

The setting of evidential standards is a core practice of scientific assessment for policy.Persuaded by considerations of inductive risk, philosophers generally agree that the justification of evidential standards must appeal to non-epistemic values but debate whether the balance of non-epistemic reasons favours varying evidential standards versus maintaining fixed high evidential standards in assessment, as both sets of standards promote different and important political virtues of advisory institutions.In this paper, I adjudicate the evidential standards debate by developing a novel argument from justice, drawing on the IPCC's assessment of climate impacts as a case study.I argue that in assessments marked by background evidential inequality, maintaining fixed high evidential standards results in an unequal distribution of 'epistemic power' among stakeholders, producing a 'powerful assessment' for the data-rich (a high rate of findings) and a 'weak assessment' for the data-poor (a low rate of findings).Where such inequalities of epistemic power disadvantage those in data-poor regions with respect to fundamental interests, such as basic human rights, we have decisive reasons of justice to vary evidential standards

Economic Justice · Epistemology · Philosophy of science · Political science · Sociology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics