Expert testimony and epistemological free-riding: The mmr controversy

Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 61, Issue 244, 2011, Pages 496-517

  John, Stephen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79959721789     PISSN: 00318094     EISSN: 14679213     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2010.687.x     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. A.J. Wakefield et al., 'Ileal-lymphoid-nodular Hyperplasia, Non-specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children', The Lancet, 351 (1998), pp. 637-41.
2. See T. Boyce, Health, Risk and News: the MMR Vaccine and the Media (New York: Peter Lang, 2007);
3. R. Horton, MMR: Science and Fiction (London: Granta, 2004);
4. M. Fitzpatrick, MMR and Autism (London: Routledge, 2004).
5. See Boyce, Health, Risk and News, ch. I, for detailed data.
6. For discussion of how social and political institutions can facilitate or distort testimony, see M. Fricker, Epistemic Injustice (Oxford UP, 2007);
7. A. Goldman, Knowledge in a Social World (Oxford UP, 1999);
8. A. Buchanan, 'Philosophy and Public Policy: a Role for Social Moral Epistemology', Journal of Applied Philosophy, 26 (2009), pp. 276-90.
9. For discussion of the inferentialist/non-inferentialist debate, see P. Lipton, 'The Epistemology of Testimony', Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 29 (1998), pp. 1-31.
10. See R. Moran, 'Getting Told and Being Believed', in J. Lackey and E. Sosa (eds), The Epistemology of Testimony (Oxford UP, 2006), pp. 273-306.
11. See A. Goldman, 'Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?', in his Pathways to Knowledge (Oxford UP, 2002), pp. 139-63, at pp. 140-I.
12. See, e.g., J. Knobe and S. Nichols (eds), Experimental Philosophy (Oxford UP, 2007).
13. This list is not exhaustive. For example, as O. O'Neill and N. Manson argue in Rethinking Informed Consent (Cambridge UP, 2007), ch. 4, failure to abide by norms of communication may also impede testimonial transmission. Further refinement of a diagnostic model would take account of these issues, separate from my concerns in this paper.
14. See T. Sorell, 'Parental Choice and Expert Knowledge in the Debate about MMR and Autism', in A. Dawson and M. Verweij (eds), Ethics, Prevention and Public Health (Oxford UP, 2007), pp. 95-110.
15. My use of the term 'acceptance' follows that of B. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image (Oxford UP, 1982), esp. ch. 2, but unlike van Fraassen I treat belief as a special case of acceptance.
16. For further discussion, see M. Bratman, 'Practical Reasoning and Acceptance in a Context', Mind, 101 (1992), pp. 1-16;
17. D. Velleman, The Possibility of Practical Reason (Oxford UP, 2000), ch. II.
18. For examples, see J. Abraham, Science, Politics and the Pharmaceutical Industry (London: Routledge, 2003), esp. ch. 9.
19. See C. Cranor, Regulating Toxic Substances: a Philosophy of Science and the Law (Oxford UP, 1993), pp. 131-51.
20. See K. DeRose, 'Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 52 (1992), pp. 913-29;
21. for extended discussion, see J. Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests (Oxford UP, 2005).
22. A particularly important topic is how my arguments relate to the knowledge norm for action, as described in J. Stanley and J. Hawthorne, 'Knowledge and Action', Journal of Philosophy, 105 (2008), pp. 571-90.
23. See P. Godfrey-Smith, 'Signal, Decision, Action', Journal of Philosophy, 88 (1991), pp. 709-22
24. for discussion of these issues, and H. Douglas, Science, Policy and the Value-free Ideal (Pittsburgh UP, 2009), ch. 4, for their relevance to public policy and the philosophy of science.
25. This problem differs from that discussed by Jennifer Lackey of whether successful testimony requires experts to be able to adduce reasons for their beliefs: see her 'Assertion and Isolated Second-hand Knowledge', in J. Brown and H. Cappelen (eds), Assertion (Oxford UP, forthcoming). Roberta could provide reasons for her claim, but those reasons might leave the possibility that the plant is not safe.
26. This redefinition is related to a view which Axel Gelfert attributes to Kant, that being an expert is not simply a matter of reliability, but of having the opportunity and ability to express oneself 'according to rules'. In my proposal, the relevant rules are the standards appropriate to some context. See A. Gelfert, 'Kant on Testimony', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 14 (2006), pp. 627-52.
27. This position seems implicit in Tony Coady's account of expert testimony in the law, where assessment of whether individuals should be treated as true experts turns (partly) on whether they research in a field recognized as a genuine area of science; see T. Coady, Testimony (Oxford UP, 1995), p. 281.
28. The question of whether individuals meet the standards operative in some science is separate from whether they are accredited in that science; Roberta can be a 'botanical expert' even if she is not a professional botanist. For the relationship between expertise and accreditation, see H. Collins and R. Evans, Rethinking Expertise (Cambridge UP, 2007).
29. See Douglas, Value-Free Science;
30. S. John, 'In Defence of Bad Science and Irrational Policies: an Alternative Account of the Precautionary Principle', Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 13 (2010), pp. 3-18.
31. See J. Lackey, Learning from Words (Oxford UP, 2008), ch. 4, for illuminating discussion of this issue.
32. See J. Dupré, The Disorder of Things (Harvard UP, 1995), esp. ch. 10
33. For discussion, see Boyce, MMR.
34. See also I. Hargreaves et al., Towards a Better Map: Science, the Public and the Media (Swindon: ESRC, 2003), pp. 40-5.
35. For discussion of Condorcet theorems, see C. List and R. Goodin, 'Epistemic Democracy: Generalising the Condorcet Theorem', Journal of Political Philosophy, 9 (2001), pp. 277-306.
36. On free-riding, see G. Cullity, 'Moral Free Riding', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 24 (1995), pp. 3-34;
37. G. Klosko, 'Presumptive Benefit, Fairness, and Political Obligation', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 16 (1987), pp. 241-59.
38. See A. Dawson, 'Herd Protection as a Public Good: Vaccination and Our Obligations to Others', in Dawson and Verweij (eds), Ethics, Prevention and Public Health, pp. 160-78.
39. D. Coady, 'When Experts Disagree', Episteme, 3 (2006), pp. 68-79, at p. 77.
40. Otherwise free-riding would be an empty notion; see A.J. Simmons, 'The Principle of Fair Play', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 8 (1979), pp. 307-37.
41. For a useful account of how practical considerations can enter into assignment of degrees of belief, see J. Biddle and E. Winsberg, 'Value Judgments and the Estimation of Uncertainty in Climate Modeling', in P.D. Magnus and J. Busch (eds), New Waves in Philosophy of Science (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 172-97.
42. The relevant unfairness does not constitute what Fricker (Epistemic Injustice, ch. I) calls 'testimonial injustice': Jane may reason on the basis of a stereotype about scientists' epistemic abilities, but this stereotype is not inaccurate.
43. Previous versions were presented at the University of Cambridge 'Bioethics Forum', the 'New Directions in Bioethics Conference' at University College London ( July 2009)
44. and the Philosophy Department Seminar at the National University of Ireland, Galway. I am grateful to audiences at all three venues for useful feedback. I am particularly indebted to Nick Jardine, Nick Tosh, Jo Wolff, Theresa Marteau and Tim Lewens for extended discussion of key points, and to Charlotte Goodburn, Martin Kusch, Axel Gelfert, Arash Pessian, Alex Broadbent and John Coggon for very useful written comments on a previous draft.