Kitcher on Well-Ordered Science: Should Science Be Measured against the Outcomes of Ideal Democratic Deliberation?

Abstract

What should the goals of scientific inquiry be? What questions should scientists investigate, and how should our resources be distributed between different lines of investigation? Philip Kitcher has suggested that we should answer these questions by appealing to an ideal based on the consideration of hypothetical democratic deliberations under ideal circumstances. The paper argues that we have no reason to adopt this ideal. The paper examines both traditional arguments for democracy and Kitcher's own reasons for adopting this ideal, as presented in Kitcher (2001) and in Kitcher (2011b), and argues that none of these supports adoption of Kitcher's proposed ideal.