Author: Dr Warren Pearce
“This is to imagine that there could be a point where ethics and politics could perfectly coincide, and this is precisely what I am denying because it means erasing the violence that is inherent in sociability, violence that no contract or dialogue can eliminate because it constitutes one of their dimensions.” (Mouffe, 2000, p.134)
Why might policymakers be less receptive to ethical advice than science advice? Or to put it another way, why might ethical advice be perceived as less successful than science advice, notably during the Covid-19 pandemic? One theme emerging from interviews with ethics advisers, researchers and policymakers is ethics advice and expertise being seen as less replicable and objective than science advice. For example, ethical knowledge may be perceived as more impacted than the experts’ position in society than science advice, or driven more by principles than empirical research. It’s not surprising that policymakers would prize objectivity in the advice they receive, but what could explain the divergence in attitudes to science and ethics?
Chantal Mouffe’s quote above points to the inherent friction where ethics and politics meet, and that trying to reach an accommodation between them must entail a reduction of plurality and prioritisation of some concerns over others. In other words, an issue must be closed down, at least temporarily, in order for a decision to be reached. Yet if ethical advice is being perceived as too subjective, how can it gain sufficient authority to be accepted as a meaningful policy input?
Here, I turn to a productive source of learning in knowledge politics over the last three decades: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The panel has established a level of epistemic authority, arguably unrivalled by any other global institution. One may argue whether the knowledge produced by the IPCC has been sufficiently influential, but it is seen as an exemplar for the assessment and synthesis of scientific knowledge. One pillar of this authority is its position of ‘policy neutrality’: “the IPCC won’t tell you what to do, just that something needs to be done, and that there is a range of possible things that you might do” (Mahony, 2022). This position helps ensure that IPCC reports are signed off by countries across the United Nations, from authoritarian petrostates to island states threatened by sea level rise. Yet as the IPCC enters its seventh assessment cycle, public debates are intensifying about whether this position remains fit for purpose as emissions continue to increase.
A recent paper (on which I was a co-author), outlines three potential pathways for the IPCC (Asayama et al., 2023). First, that it builds on its success as the world’s foremost authority on climate change, leaving the pillars of that authority essentially unchanged, including its position on policy neutrality. Critics propose a second, more radical pathway where the IPCC ‘gets off the fence’, leaving behind policy neutrality to become a policy advocate for equitable social transformation. Here, the IPCC puts its authority to greater use, making more muscular recommendations to governments. Even if this institutional transformation could be achieved, doing away with the pillar of neutrality will present new risks to the authority of the IPCC and the knowledge it produces.
It’s worth pausing here to compare this with the predicament for ethical expertise. The example of the IPCC demonstrates the importance of advice objectivity, which presents itself as neutral on questions of policy choice which lie with policymakers. Of course, many scholars have been deeply critical of this divide, arguing that values, prior assumptions and social norms inevitably play a role in structuring the assessment of knowledge and the provision of advice which follows. However, whether or not one agrees with the aim or believes that a boundary can be drawn, the IPCC has successfully established and maintained this boundary in its own work, which has in turn contributed to its own authority. The evidence from our research suggests that ethical expertise has not achieved such a position. Yet, it is questionable whether it is ever possible for ethical expertise to achieve such a boundary, given the epistemic differences with the physical sciences which the IPCC is most associated with, and which Mouffe alludes to in the quote above.
So, if ethical expertise is inherently unable to appear ‘objective’, is it condemned to remain the poor relation of science advice? Not necessarily, as the third potential pathway for the IPCC provides an alternative way forward: diversifying viewpoints. Can ethical advice place greater emphasis on public participation, highlighting the role of publics in deliberation and in directing priority issues for ethical professionals to assess? . This will be challenging in societies which often contain diverse viewpoints and may leave consensus out of reach on issues of ethical importance. Yet this approach also promises to highlight relations between issues which may lie beyond the boundaries of an issue’s definition within government. For example, that school closures flattening the curve of Covid infections may also impact educational attainment (as proved to be the case), or that achieving global temperate targets may require geoengineering technologies with uncertain social and political side effects. This is not to say that ethical expertise should merely be a cipher for the views of the lay public; there is a clear role for the expertise of ethics researchers, working in conjunction with policymakers to understand what inputs they need to help increase the ethical dimension of policymaking. Rather, that public participation can help enhance the authority of ethical expertise and, ultimately, the legitimacy of policymaking.
References
Asayama, S., De Pryck, K., Beck, S., Cointe, B., Edwards, P. N., Guillemot, H., Gustafsson, K. M., Hartz, F., Hughes, H., Lahn, B., Leclerc, O., Lidskog, R., Livingston, J. E., Lorenzoni, I., MacDonald, J. P., Mahony, M., Miguel, J. C. H., Monteiro, M., O’Reilly, J., … Hulme, M. (2023). Three institutional pathways to envision the future of the IPCC. Nature Climate Change, 13(9), 877–880. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01780-8
Mahony, M. (2022). Policy Relevance and Neutrality. In K. De Pryck & M. Hulme (Eds.), A Critical Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 197–206). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009082099.026
Mouffe, C. (2000). The Democratic Paradox. Verso.