The trust-based communicative obligations of expert authorities
Date
05/2021Author
Metadata
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Abstract
This article analyses the extent to which expert authorities have basic communicative obligations to be open, honest, and transparent, with a view to shaping strategies of public engagement with such authorities. This article is in part a response to epistemic paternalists such as Stephen John, who argue that the communicative obligations of expert authorities, such as scientists, permit the use of lying, or lack of openness and transparency, as a means of sustaining public trust in scientific authority. In this article, I elucidate John’s position and reject it. I argue that expert authorities have strong communicative obligations to be open, honest, and transparent, which are grounded in the insight that such authorities hold positions of public trust. After demonstrating how this insight undermines John’s position, I conclude the article by considering the implications regarding public engagement with expert authorities.
Citation
Kelsall , J 2021 , ' The trust-based communicative obligations of expert authorities ' , Journal of Applied Philosophy , vol. 38 , no. 2 , pp. 288-305 . https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12465
Publication
Journal of Applied Philosophy
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0264-3758Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Applied Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for Applied Philosophy. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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