Abstract
This paper analyses the interpenetration of epistemic and political issues in understanding and resolving distrust in expert consensus. It is based around the case-study of debates over the safety and efficacy of the “triple vaccine” for Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR). The first section outlines a general model of trust in science, with a particular focus on how we learn from reports of consensus. The second section uses this model to develop an in-depth study of epistemic distrust in the scientific consensus surrounding the MMR vaccine. The final section explores the relationship between reasons for distrust and the concept of inductive risk, tentatively suggesting that arguments for deference to the consensus cannot focus only on epistemic issues but must also engage with substantive evaluative questions.
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Notes
- 1.
For discussion of “wishful thinking”, see John (Forthcoming).
- 2.
See (Domenicucci and Holton 2017) for some concerns about the notion that trust is a three-place relation: I suspect that Domenicucci and Holton’s view can be viewed as a version of the traditional view where we specify the domain of trust in terms of a fulfilment of a role. Again, this is orthogonal to the arguments which follow.
- 3.
For more on this model of trust, see my (John 2018)
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
Note that this case is a complex example of a far more general phenomenon: where non-experts distrust experts because the experts are addressing “the wrong question”. For example, failure to defer to scientists’ claims that GM crops are “safe” can be understood in terms of a concern that the scientists’ technical sense of “safety” is narrower than the sense employed by non-experts (Biddle 2018). The non-experts who refuse to defer to the consensus that GM crops are safe are not denying that the scientists are right that the crops are “safe” in their narrow sense, but doubt that “being safe” in this narrow sense is sufficient grounds for believing that the crops are safe in the wide sense.
- 7.
For some more general scepticism about the predictive powers of epidemiology, see (Broadbent 2013).
- 8.
This framing is heavily influenced by Martin Kusch’s excellent account of the political philosophy of risk (Kusch 2007).
- 9.
See my (John 2011) for a slightly different version of the same argument—the current argument builds on that argument in relating it far more closely to notions of trust and consensus.
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John, S.D. (2020). The Politics of Distrust. In: Fabris, A. (eds) Trust. Trust 2020. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 54. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44018-3_4
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