Short abstract:

How should we understand the relation between empirical research and normative critique in STS research? This presentation will critically examine three common approaches to this question.

Long abstract:

How should we understand the relation between empirical research and normative critique in STS research? This presentation will critically examine three common approaches to this question. The first approach follows analytical philosophy and applied ethics to focus on making logically compelling normative arguments. It attempts to persuade people to adopt a particular position on controversial issues like GM foods or vaccine mandates. A second approach, more common in STS, rejects the perceived moralism of “a priori” modes of inquiry. Scholars taking this approach are suspicious of attempts to apply pre-given ethical principles as tools of analysis or critique. They advocate micro-level approaches that allow concepts and categories to emerge from empirical research, and they insist that actors rather than analysts should determine the meaning of normative concepts like justice or democracy. A third approach, also advocated by many STS scholars, promotes conversation between actors and analysts, and between conceptual and empirical research. According to a dialogical approach, analysts attempt to articulate and justify the normative concepts they bring to their empirical investigations, while allowing themselves to be challenged by the actors they study. Analysts might begin with actors’ concepts and ideas, but the analysts also draw on existing concepts and theories as tools of social critique. This presentation will discuss advantages and disadvantages of each approach, while making a case for the dialogical approach.