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There are many analogies between medical and judicial practice. This article explores one such analogy, between “medicalization” and “criminalization.” Specifically, drawing on an analogy between a judge’s speech act of delivering a verdict and a physician’s speech act of giving a diagnosis, it suggests a novel account of the phenomenon of “overdiagnosis.” Using this approach, we can make some headway in understanding debates over the early detection of cancer. The final section outlines the relationship between this approach and familiar debates in philosophy of medicine on the nature of disease and in philosophy of science on the “value-free ideal.”

Public health policy often involves a trade-off between promoting population health and protecting the interests of identifiable individuals. This paper analyses this trade-off as it arises in the context of decisions about the vaccination of children against Covid-19, where vaccination may be in the interests of society as a whole, as a means to stopping transmission, but not in the interests of individual children. The paper argues that the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation resolved this tension by appeal to a version of a non-maleficence principle. It argues that, while this principle can be a useful guide to some public health policy decision-making, it is inappropriate in the case of vaccination.

Objectivity is a key concept both in how we talk about science in everyday life and in the philosophy of science. This Element explores various ways in which recent philosophers of science have thought about the nature, value and achievability of objectivity. The first section explains the general trend in recent philosophy of science away from a notion of objectivity as a 'view from nowhere' to a focus on the relationship between objectivity and trust. Section 2 discusses the relationship between objectivity and recent arguments attacking the viability or desirability of 'value free' science. Section 3 outlines Longino's influential 'social' account of objectivity, suggesting some worries about drawing too strong a link between epistemic and ethical virtues. Section 4 turns to the value of objectivity, exploring concerns that notions of objectivity are politically problematic, and cautiously advocating in response a view of objectivity in terms of invariance.

With the number of COVID-19 deaths continuing to rise, a central issue moving forward remains the mitigation of COVID-19 transmission risk. Policies mandating face masks, frequent testing, and social distancing constitute public health tools in achieving this end. However, another tool available that has received less attention is risk communication. The pandemic raises unique ethical challenges concerning how risk should be communicated to citizens.

Screening for asymptomatic disease is a routine aspect of contemporary public health practice. However, it is also controversial, because it leads to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, with many arguing that programmes are “ineffective”, i.e. the “costs” outweigh the “benefits”. This paper explores a more fundamental objection to screening programmes: that, even if they are effective, they are ethically impermissible because they breach the principle of non-maleficence. In so doing, it suggests a new approach to the ethics of risk, justifying a concern with how policies affect individuals’ absolute ex-ante prospects. Part 1 sets up the tension between screening and non-maleficence. Part 2 introduces and motivates a novel interpretation of the non-maleficence principle, “ex-ante Do No Harm”, which resolves this tension. Part 3 defends and clarifies this principle by discussing its relationship to the ex-ante Pareto principle. Part 4 discusses the worry that risk estimates are too “subjective”.

It is commonly claimed that scientists should hold certain communicative virtues, such as sincerity, openness, honesty and transparency. This paper uses the case of climate science to argue against these claims. Rather, based on a novel account of the range of ways in which non-experts learn from experts (detailed in Section 1), there are reasons to deny that scientists are under any basic obligation to be sincere, honest, open or transparent. Furthermore, not only are these claims analytically confused, they are epistemologically and politically dangerous. Sections 2-4 argue for these claims. The conclusion proposes an alternative standard for ethical communication: that scientists should not engage in “wishful speaking”.

This paper argues for a novel way of addressing questions about the relationship between politics and science: in terms of norms of communication, rather than norms of cognition. The first half of the paper motivates this general shift through close study of the concept of "wishful speaking"; arguing that this vice - rather than the more familiar "wishful thinking" - better captures real-life cases, such as the Lysenko affair. The second half builds on the ethics of communication to develop an account of the proper role of non-epistemic values in justification in terms of "value-aptness".

This paper re-interprets the precautionary principle as a “social epistemic rule”. First, it argues that sometimes policy-makers should act on claims which have not been scientifically established. Second, it argues that, given how scientists ought to solve “inductive risk” problems, such guidance is required not only under actual conditions, but under any plausible conditions. Third, it suggests that procedural fairness may provide policy-makers with reasons to be very reluctant to act on claims which are not scientifically established. The restriction of precautionary reasoning to contexts of significant environmental or public health disaster may respond to this problem.

In this article I ask two questions prompted by the phenomenon of ‘politically patterned’ climate change denial. First, can an individual's political commitments provide her with good reasons not to defer to cognitive experts’ testimony? Building on work in philosophy of science on inductive risk, I argue they can. Second, can an individual's political commitments provide her with good reasons not to defer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's testimony? I argue that they cannot (at least, in the way identified in the first part of the article), because of the high epistemic standards which govern that body's assertions. The conclusion discusses the theoretical and practical implications of my arguments.

National and international policies aimed at mitigating and adapting to anthropogenic climate change are highly controversial. This is unsurprising, given that climate change raises a “perfect moral storm” of ethical and political issues (Gardiner 2012). However, public climate debates involve disagreements over basic factual questions as well as normative issues. For example, in a 2012 UK poll only 26% of respondents agreed that it had been shown that climate change is anthropogenic (BBC, 2012). A summary of research in the USA, the world’s second largest producer of greenhouse gases, suggests that even those who believe that climate change is occurring typically believe “that climate change poses no significant threat within one's own lifetime and that the causes of climate change remain scientifically controversial” (Torcello 2016: 25).

In a recent paper, Gregor Betz has defended the value-free ideal: “the justification of scientific findings should not be based on non-epistemic (e.g. moral or political) values”against the methodological critique, by reference to the work of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This paper argues that Betz’s defence is unsuccessful. First, Betz’s argument is sketched, and it is shown that the IPCC does not avoid the need to “translate” claims. In Section 2, it is argued that Betz mischaracterises the force of the methodological critique. Section 3 shows why the methodological critique still applies to the work of the IPCC even on a refined version of Betz’s argument. Section 4 then considers an alternative way of defending the work of the IPCC which is in-line with, but does not clearly vindicate, the value-free ideal.

In recent years, the argument from inductive risk against value free science has enjoyed a revival. This paper investigates and clarifies this argument through means of a case-study: neonicitinoid research. Sect. 1 argues that the argument from inductive risk is best conceptualised as a claim about scientists’ communicative obligations. Sect. 2 then shows why this argument is inapplicable to “public communication”. Sect. 3 outlines non-epistemic reasons why non-epistemic values should not play a role in public communicative contexts. Sect. 4 analyses the implications of these arguments both for the specific case of neonicitinoid research and for understanding the limits of the argument from inductive risk. Sect. 5 sketches the broader implications of my claims for understanding the “Value Free Ideal” for science.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was disagreement over whether the science supported facemask mandates. This paper interrogates debates over this question, paying particular attention to an ambiguity between two scientific virtues: epistemic caution and epistemic responsiveness. I suggest that there is an argument from each virtue to reasons to trust scientists’ claims in policy debate. However, as the case of facemask debates illustrates, it is not clear that scientists can possess both virtues simultaneously: the two virtues are in tension. After showing how this general framework can help us better understand debate, I turn to consider some possible ways of resolving this tension, arguing that none of them is entirely satisfactory.

Are lockdown measures ethically justified? This paper outlines some of the key issues relevant to answering that question, paying particular attention to how decisions are framed. Section 1 argues that ethical reasoning about lockdown ought to be guided by a distinction between prudential and ethical reasons, grounded in a concern to respect the separateness of persons, but also that���as public health messaging implies���it can be unclear whether measures are in individuals��� prudential interests or not. Section 2 suggests that a similar set of problems affect attempts to adopt alternative cost-benefit-analysis frameworks for assessing lockdown. Section 3 suggests an answer to these shared problems: we need a process for determining when wellbeing claims and systems of categorization are ethically apt. Section 4 argues that settling the question of aptness is our key ethical task in assessing lockdown.