Longino’s social and procedural account of objectivity

Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity revolves around effective transformative discourse within a scientific community. Effective transformative discourse enables the possibility of transformative critique; however, it does not ensure it.^{Footnote 9} The degree of objectivity of scientific knowledge is proportional to the amount of potentially transformative critique available to the scientific community in question. Transformative critique functions to limit or decrease the biases of individual scientists and the communities they form, resulting in the production of more objective scientific knowledge. Thus, where there is effective transformative critique, there are the sorts of successes that result from epistemic risk reduction – Koskinen (Reference Koskinen2018) argues that these successes are the hallmark of objectivity.

Transformative critique is facilitated by effective discursive interactions, which can only occur to the degree to which the following criteria are met: (1) there are venues for critical discourse; (2) there is uptake of critique by the scientific community; (3) there are public shared standards; and (4) a tempered equality of intellectual authority is upheld (Longino Reference Longino2002, 128-135). It is worth noting that these criteria are necessary but not sufficient for effective discursive interactions, and that effective discursive interactions do not guarantee transformative critique. Furthermore, the criteria are met in degrees, so objectivity, in turn, comes in degrees. We turn now to the four criteria, as they offer the potential for evaluation and provide a minimal basis for objectivity.

The first criterion, “Venues for critical discourse” refers to an epistemic community’s public modes of sharing and evaluating research in the field. It also requires granting criticism of research the same interest, emphasis, and number of locales as novel research. An increase in venues allows for more criticism to be shared in the community. The second, “uptake of critique” stresses the importance of paying attention and being responsive to criticism. An increase in uptake ensures that conversations between parties of different positions are reciprocal and encourages the transformative change that strives towards objectivity.

The third criterion, “public shared standards,” serves to ensure the quality of critiques, the quality of scientific theories, hypotheses, and practices, and quality communication across participants. The quality of critiques is influenced by the relevance of the criticism. For criticism to be relevant, it must appeal to something, such as shared standards that the criticized hold. The quality of scientific theories, hypotheses, and practices are influenced by the public nature of shared standards. Having public shared standards allows for the science and its practitioners to be held accountable. The quality of communication across participants is influenced by the presence of a shared language. In order for different parties to have a constructive and transformative discourse, they must use the same language (or near enough) to ensure they are evaluating the same phenomenon. Additionally, appealing to shared standards in critiques, scientific theories, hypotheses, practices, and communication furthers the reduction of individual, subjective biases in knowledge production and evaluation.

The limiting nature of public shared standards is pertinent to the fourth criterion, “tempered equality of intellectual authority.” This criterion refers to how members of an epistemic community regard others with respect to their capability for quality contribution. The requirement of tempered equality functions to open up discourse to those that are not in positions of power, allow for legitimate consensus based on the arguments and evidence provided (as opposed to social or political standing), and ensure scientific content is exposed “to the broadest range of criticism,” from different perspectives (Longino Reference Longino2002, 132).

As previously stated, transformative critique is not attainable through satisfaction of only one of these criteria. It is the interaction between venues, uptake, shared standards, and tempered equality that allows for new perspectives, interlocutors, and transformative critique. Each criterion is vital to increasing objectivity, and each influences the others. Of particular importance to us are the ways in which criteria number three and four - the public shared standards, and tempered equality – interact with each of the others. Specifically, Longino notes that repeated failure of uptake disqualifies a party from consideration as a tempered equal of intellectual authority. Public shared standards function as restrictions on who should be granted tempered equality of intellectual authority because they limit what counts as relevant criticism. Moreover, public shared standards can set the number, quality, and activity of the venues for critique. Tempered equality of intellectual authority is of special importance to feminist philosophers of science because this criterion allows for and requires cultivation of marginalized voices in the sciences. Cultivating the inclusion of marginalized voices allows for novel critique of the venues and shared standards that have excluded those voices.

This social-procedural account of objectivity provides the groundwork for identifying “sciences” that fail to meet the minimal requirements for objectivity. In the next section, we demonstrate how this account can be used to disqualify Bloodstain Pattern Analysis as an objective science - thus rendering it unsuitable for legal judgements and its experts otiose to judicial decision making. Of course, this method for identifying problematic sciences for judicial decision making can be generalized for use in other cases.

Bloodstain pattern analysis

Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) is a forensic science that purports to recreate the events of a crime from spatters of blood found at the scene. According to bloodstain pattern analysts, their methods are reliable enough to convict people of murder, sending them to prison or worse. These high stakes judicial decisions suggest that this science should be held to a high degree of objectivity. However, BPA fails to demonstrate successes in meeting Longino’s four criteria for effective transformative discourse and, in turn, objectivity. This explains why our judicial system is currently turning away from BPA, disqualifying it for use in legal contexts according to Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity.

In 2006, Congress provided the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) $1,500,000 with which to conduct a study of forensic sciences within the United States (Gianelli Reference Gianelli2012). NAS formed two committees for the task, the Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community and the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The committees sponsored eight meetings throughout the three-year period, which consisted of research and testimony from representatives in the various fields of forensic science, laboratory administration, academia, statistics, and law. During the committees’ four closed meetings, they deliberated, reviewed, and drafted a report that was released in February 2009: “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward” (hereinafter, “the Report”).

Within three months of publication, Justice Scalia cited the Report in a United States Supreme Court decision (Gianelli, Reference Gianelli2012). He wrote in Melendez-Diaz v Massachusetts (2009): “Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation…. Serious deficiencies have been found in the forensic evidence used in criminal trials.”Footnote ¹⁰ Shortly thereafter, Congress held hearings, and multiple law schools held academic conferences, publishing written symposia and legal articles on the criticisms of forensic sciences and the recommendations proposed by the Report (Gianelli Reference Gianelli2012).

Since the Report’s revelations, the criticism of specific forensic science disciplines has become more pointed within the legal community.Footnote ¹¹ Articles and symposia have been hyper-critical of courts’ tendency to rely on forensic techniques and testimony that has been historically accepted when, in reality, “effectively no research exists to support the practice” (Beety Reference Beety2016, 555). In an article from the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Beety suggests that specific disciplines “arose out of crime scene investigations and law enforcement’s search for compelling evidence to convict. In this unusual development, forensic results were not tested in a lab but rather in the field. Their reliability and importance were indicated by the rate of convictions for crimes, not by impartial scientific assessments” (Beety Reference Beety2016, 544). Beety’s concern for the origins of forensic sciences, like bloodstain pattern analysis, is indicative of the general sentiment within the legal community, namely that, “forensic science is incredibly useful, but its findings have not only been overstated, they have been procured by poorly trained individuals without the rigor of developing the science in a lab, rather than in a courtroom” (Beety Reference Beety2016, 547). Expressly included in Beety’s criticism of forensic sciences is the discipline of bloodstain pattern analysis.

As so aptly put in an article published in the Mississippi Law Journal, referencing the Report:

The law journal articles referenced in this essay demonstrate that reform of the forensic sciences is strongly supported within the legal academic community. Perhaps more significant than that is the support from within the forensic science establishment. Leaders within this community have conceded the necessity of validating and creating oversight for forensic disciplines. Specifically, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences has embraced the recommendations of the Report, epitomizing the fact that validation of these forensic sciences—like bloodstain pattern analysis—is essential for preservation of the integrity of evidence in the court of law (Risinger Reference Risinger2018). Without validation and oversight, the current trend of law enforcement officers and “experts” testifying without any “scientific theories, methodologies, techniques, or data” in fields like bloodstain pattern identification will continue (Cooley & Oberfield Reference Cooley and Oberfield2007, 289). With this judicial landscape explored, we will now be able to more fully understand this landscape by examining how well BPA fares under scrutiny informed by Longino’s four criteria for effective, critical transformation.

Leuschner’s Critique

Anna Leuschner (Reference Leuschner2012) provides a critique of Longino’s account of objectivity that focuses on shared meta-standards,^{Footnote 12} those standards concerning who is able to contribute in potentially transformative discourse. Leuschner is most concerned with the designers and curators of the shared standards: those who construct and agree upon the public shared standards that, in principle, should allow for greater inclusion while at the same time maintaining the boundary between the theories and theorizers and a wider community. However, those who construct these influential shared standards must be those that are already involved and well entrenched in the scientific community. In other words, the biased, already entrenched scientists, who require the transformative critique for which Longino argues, are the same people who construct the standards that will or will not allow for effective transformative critique by way of inclusive practices.

Leuschner’s concern can be summarized as follows: (1) the public shared (meta) standards themselves are never held to the procedures that allow for transformative critique, and (2) an assumption that the already entrenched scientists can create unbiased shared standards seems to undermine the purpose of Longino’s project. In short, an echo chamber exists within Longino’s account that allows scientists to remain untouched by transformative critique when they are setting the conditions for entry to their science (shared meta-standards). Below we provide a brief overview of two responses to Leuschner’s concerns.^{Footnote 13}

Philip Kitcher (Reference Kitcher2001) provides a solution to the echo chamber around shared meta-standards and appeals to deliberative democracy by way of “ideal appropriate experts,” representative deliberators, and the general public. Ideal appropriate experts are already established experts who agree on the specific outcomes of research. These experts tutor deliberators who represent relevant perspectives. Behind a veil of ignorance, these deliberators come to agree on which research agendas should be pursued, and relay this information to the broader public. Ideal decisions are produced on a case by case basis through ideal conversations of this sort. The idea is that the pairing of experts and tutored non-expert stakeholders can direct (at least somewhat) the sciences toward questions that are not merely of the result of a scientific echo chamber. In effect, this solution walks the line between the cacophony of vulgar democracy and the insularity of the sciences. It, however, does not appear to suggest a means for introducing effective transformative discourse around the meta-standards, it merely suggests a work around.

Leuschner’s own solution to Longino’s echo chamber is an amendment to Kitcher’s solution (Leuschner Reference Leuschner2012). She argues that Kitcher’s solution is not sufficient because his account is also subject to an echo chamber problem, due to the insulation of the experts who tutor the deliberators when deciding who counts as having a relevant perspective. Moreover, this echo chamber is due to the impossibility of using the ideal deliberative process to choose the experts, because they must already be in place. Leuschner suggests expanding Kitcher’s deliberative model with the introduction of political regulation. She argues that regulations brought about through a process of negotiations, which consider both epistemic quality standards and non-epistemic requirements of inclusion and pluralism, ought to be imposed on research projects. Leuschner argues that the question of who is qualified to contribute to any given research project ought to be determined by democratically legitimated political instances. These political bodies would act as a case-by-case system for checking the experts and discursive panels introduced by Kitcher.^{Footnote 14}

We believe that emphasizing the echo chamber that Leuschner indicates, and which she and Kitcher address, is misleading. Rather than resolving the narrow echo chamber puzzle, we suggest that philosophers of science and those who rely on the objectivity of some science instead turn their attention to the science’s infrastructure. A science’s infrastructure provides critical information about the possibility of transformative critique over its set of core theories. Moreover, attending to the infrastructure and its dynamics provides information about how the core theories are changed, which will include information about bias and bias reduction. That is, we suggest that the echo chamber exists in an extremely pernicious way for some sciences and less so for others. Further, we believe that the focus on specific echo chambers is emblematic of holding that systems are, alone, responsible for ordering their own discourse around shared standards. In our view, the concern that sciences must walk a line between the stifling silence of insularity and the cacophony of vulgar democracy is the result of failing to see how scientific systems connect to other systems (their infrastructure).

Infrastructure and objectivity

Our argument regarding the infrastructural approach to scientific systems is extrapolated from that of Edwards, Jackson, Bowker, and Knobel (Reference Edwards, Jackson, Bowker and Knobel2007), whose comprehensive account of the infrastructure framework was designed, specifically, for understanding issues surrounding cyberinfrastructures. In this report, they review several decades worth of theorizing about infrastructures, leaning heavily on an account of infrastructure from Star and Ruhleder (Reference Star and Ruhleder1996, 113), and flirt with the idea that the sciences can be understood using an infrastructure view. We embrace this flirtation, and suggest that understanding the social and dynamic dimensions of scientific epistemology as an infrastructure (1) resolves Leuschner’s concerns about echo chambers, though it replaces that concern with some other concerns, (2) provides a distinction between scientists and participants in a science, resolving concerns about vulgar democracy, (3) highlights the need for two kinds of inclusion to increase objectivity (i.e., bringing those with differing standpoints into a science as scientists and in other cases as participants in the science), and (4) provides new avenues for directing the normative toolkit of philosophers of science.

Edwards et. al. (Reference Edwards, Jackson, Bowker and Knobel2007) summarize infrastructures as networks rather than systems. The network emerges as various, independently constructed systems that become linked by gateways. It is built in a modular manner, as a series of specialized modules that connect to form a network. As the network becomes more stable, the infrastructure comes to have a number of reasonably consistent features. Infrastructures are not tightly controlled, functioning rather as a structure of coordination among various local systems. Infrastructures are dynamic and social, and face a number of predictable opportunities and challenges. Their dynamics include: (1) reverse salients - structural barriers that prevent or hinder connections to further systems, (2) gateway-orphan dynamics, where new systems are connected to the infrastructure and other systems become orphaned (disconnected) from it, and (3) path dependence, wherein the underlying structure becomes increasingly invisible and constraining to future growth and the possibility of including additional systems.

To illustrate their point, Edwards et. al. offer examples for each of these kinds of dynamics. One phenomenon that serves as a reverse salient in developing a variety of infrastructures, for instance, is intellectual property rights: the ownership of certain ideas or processes may create substantial financial, conceptual, or trust related barriers to connecting systems. The gateway-orphan dynamic is obvious in a number of technologies, of which USB technologies are a prominent example, orphaning numerous other connectors and eventually making it impossible to connect certain devices to others. Path dependence is more difficult to observe, since it involves part of the path becoming invisible, but one reasonably clear example is the inability of other interfaces to unseat the QWERTY keyboard layout. We are so well trained to use this interface that it has become invisible to us as a constraint on other possible keyboard setups (among other possible changes to the interface). Another reasonably obvious example is the virtual impossibility of a transition to the metric system for machine tools and parts; the imperial system is simply “assumed,” and constrains certain changes to how mechanics, at minimum, operate in the United States.

The exchange and evaluation of scientific ideas and processes, we argue, is subject to similar issues. For our purpose, of understanding the objectivity of a science, the focus is primarily on the second infrastructure dynamic - gateway-orphan dynamics. However, all three dynamic properties of infrastructures are worthy of attention from philosophers of science.^{Footnote 15}

We propose using Edwards et. al.’s infrastructural framework as a model for science, where a science is baptized in the legal context by the interests of the courts and policy makers. At the center of any science, from which an expert may be drawn, are the scientists who are directly tasked with developing, confirming, and creatively expanding the central set of theories of that science. In physics, for example, these theories might be something like classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics, statistical physics, special relativity, and quantum field theory (Stevens Reference Stevens1995). Physicists are the scientists who have facility with these theories, test them, and develop novel hypotheses and alternate accounts within this system of knowledge production. While physicists are the stewards of these theories, building them, manipulating them, and ensuring they are predictively successful, there are many others who participate, though less directly, in the transformative critique and transformation of these theories – they are participants in physics. The infrastructure of each science will be different. For example, physics has a reasonably rich infrastructure, while bloodstain pattern analysis does not, as will be described below.

In general, there are three sorts of gateways that connect a science to opportunities for transformative critique. First, there are gateways to other sciences. Second, there are gateways to practitioners, such as engineers, teachers, and lawyers, who use the theories but are not tasked with their stewardship. Third, there are gateways to other producers of knowledge who offer alternative theories, methods, and accounts of observations that appear to be about the same phenomena. We take indigenous knowledge or revolutionary science, such as heliocentric astronomy in the sixteenth century, to be examples of this third sort of system, to which a received science may open a gateway. These gateways are not “wide open.” The non-steward participants in a science do offer opportunities for transformative critique, but because of the stewardship (privileged) position of the science’s own scientists, as well as power dynamics, translational difficulties,^{Footnote 16} and path dependence, the flow of epistemic goods is uneven. In what follows, we briefly explore each of these three kinds of gateways, demonstrate that BPA lacks these gateways, and suggest that the study of these gateways is an important job for philosophers of science.^{Footnote 17}

Gateways between sciences offer opportunities for transformative critique. Not only do different sciences often involve facility with the same central theories, they also offer opportunities for what Adrian Currie (Reference Currie2018) calls methodological omnivory. As grounds for epistemic optimism, Currie argues that a science’s epistemic circumstances are vastly improved when it can readily “steal” methodologies and concepts from other sciences. In this way, there is a gateway for the flow of methods and ideas from other scientists, who now participate indirectly in the critique and transformation of the science in question. Here we find an opportunity for critiques of both the theories themselves and of the investigative standards of a community (and associated methodological theories). Attending to this sort of gateway may therefore reveal the presence of transformative critique of some shared standards, or opportunities for such critique.

Of course, in the case of BPA, there are no gateways to reveal the presence of transformative critique. As previously discussed, while BPA was grounded using certain principles of chemistry, this relationship has not been maintained. As a result, BPA has failed to entice chemists into further discussion that could lead to transformative critique of the central theories of BPA. Put another way, BPA could increase its objectivity by strengthening its ties to chemistry and physics. Additionally, if BPA analysts were to highlight their role as stewards of their underlying theories, there would be greater opportunity for transformative critique, which in turn would improve the objectivity of their science.Footnote ¹⁸

Gateways between sciences and practitioners, such as engineers, lawyers, and teachers, offer opportunities for transformative critique as well. These practitioners use theories and ideas in ways that offer opportunities not just for confirmation of theories, but for transformative critique, as the practitioners bend or break theories against the needs of their respective practices. Poznic (Reference Poznic2016) points to an example of this kind of gateway. There are cases where concrete models, built by engineers, in this case an “organ on chip,” become available to scientists as novel observations for the development and testing of theories. Moreover, practitioners do not share the same goals as the stewarding theorists, and yet share a language and facility with the central theories - this can generate opportunities for the transformative critique of the meta-standards as well.

Once again, BPA misses opportunities to open and make use of these gateways due to a lack of practitioners. The stewarding theorists are the experts upon whom lawyers depend, but there is no corresponding facility with the central theories of BPA on the part of the lawyers. As a result, these lawyers are not practitioners in the same way that engineers are in the case of physics, for example.

The third type of gateway for transformative critique, which BPA also fails to demonstrate, comes from engagements with “unorthodox,” or extra-academic, communities of knowledge producers, who offer competing accounts of observations and competing theories. These gateways offer the epistemic opportunities suggested by Alison Wylie’s “standpoint theory-derived principle” for extending Longino’s norm of tempered equality of intellectual authority (Wylie Reference Wylie, Padovani, Richardson and Jonathan2015). Wylie argues that “in order to counteract the risks of insularity and the effects of dysfunctional group dynamics that can insulate foundational assumptions and norms of justification from critical scrutiny, well-functioning epistemic communities should actively cultivate collaborations with external communities whose epistemic goals, practices, and beliefs differ from their own in ways that have the potential to mobilize transformative criticism (Wylie Reference Wylie, Padovani, Richardson and Jonathan2015, 13). Of course, Wylie notes, these gateways may not always reach the level of dynamic, interactive pluralism. The gateway may be more closed to collaborators, as in the case of what she calls syncretic (tolerant but non-interactive) pluralism, interactions that may open the door for the transformative critique of theories, but not the goals of theorists, and so on.

Opening these gateways provides additional objectivity to any science, just as Wylie suggests. As a result, we agree with the impulse behind Wylie’s principle and where sciences should open these gateways. Furthermore, we urge philosophers of science (or legal practitioners) to examine the nature (and presence) of such gateways when assessing the objectivity of a science for legal purposes.

Koskinen (Reference Koskinen2017) challenges Wylie’s extension of tempered equality of intellectual authority, suggesting that when gateways are created other problems may emerge. Koskinen has two worries for the democratization of science as it relates to the objectivity of a science. The first is that the boundaries of a scientific community may not be particularly obvious. The second is that there are difficulties in ensuring that effective transformative discourse flows across potential gateways. Koskinen illustrates these concerns by considering the use of indigenous knowledge about floods and geology, the kind of case Wylie uses to advance her “standpoint theory-derived” principle for inclusion. Koskinen outlines the various ways in which the gateway that leads to the inclusion of extra-academic sources, namely the flood myths of various indigenous people, in turn excludes folklorists’ critique of flood myths. Using the language of our framework, the folklorists are excluded, orphaned, from the infrastructure of geology. In sum, the boundaries of a community may be unnoticed, even where they would improve the opportunity for transformative critique, and favoring one standpoint may lead to orphaning other contested knowledge production endeavors. Koskinen suggests that these problems are exacerbated because the echo chamber of large transdisciplinary groups is not immune to orphaning relevant communities. As such, it becomes less clear who is to police the creation of gateways and attending to whether transformative critique can flow to the stewarding group.

The infrastructure framework offers a means for structuring both Wylie and Koskinen’s insights, and a new set of duties for epistemic experts, such as philosophers of science. Monitoring the dynamics of gateway and orphan creation and the flow of potential for transformative critique across a science’s infrastructure is consistent with sometimes applying Wylie’s principle to increase objectivity, but also with sometimes ensuring that a research program’s orphans (standpoint or otherwise) are attended to. Directing epistemic attention towards casting out to find methods, practitioners, and extra-academic agents of potentially transformative critique requires an asset-based attitude, where the stewards of the science and their collaborators (including epistemic experts, such as philosophers of science), look to non-scientists (or scientists of other sciences) for what they have to offer, rather than what they are lacking or what they can be given. Herein we find the primary novel suggestion of our infrastructural view of objectivity: attending to the gateway-orphan dynamics of the infrastructure cannot fall to the experts (scientists) of the science in question alone - it is their job to steward the theories and the possibility of transformation.^{Footnote 19} As Leuschner, among others, points out, they are not likely to be able to also monitor the epistemic infrastructure (especially the meta-standards), and are unlikely to be able to see the work of those who may be very different from them in an asset-based manner.

The infrastructure framework suggests, then, that the concerns regarding an echo chamber around meta-standards and investigative standards stems, at least in part, from thinking of sciences as largely isolated. They are not. Furthermore, a cacophony of vulgar democracy is not forthcoming, even if we look to include important, currently orphaned, standpoints. The central community’s shared standards and requirement for uptake will not simply be overrun by looking to include currently orphaned epistemic systems. Nevertheless, the dynamics of infrastructures are a double-edged sword - they provide stability and opportunity for transformative critique across theories, investigative standards, and meta-standards, but they risk becoming invisible and subject to orphaning helpful knowledge producing communities. In this way, the echo chamber re-emerges, not as a circle, but as an ongoing obligation to asset-based attention to gateway-orphan dynamics.^{Footnote 20}

In sum, then, our infrastructural account suggests the following are the correct steps in assessing whether an expert’s science is sufficiently objective for the purpose of legal judgements:^{Footnote 21}

1. (1) Identify the science of interest.

2. (2) Analyze said science’s central system’s venues for critique, the uptake of critique, the public shared standards (both investigative and meta), and the degree to which it treats its participants with respect to intellectual authority.

3. (3) Analyze the other systems to which the central system connects, particularly other sciences, practitioners, and extra-academic communities.

4. (4) Note any identifiable, orphaned (excluded) systems.

These steps should produce judgements about the science underlying some expert’s testimony and whether it can be relied upon for legal judgements. A science that may be relied upon will have a wide and diverse infrastructure, wherein the infrastructure plays a role in in eliminating or reducing biases in the theory, investigation standards, and meta-standards and serves to direct the possibility of transformative critique towards its stewarded theories. Furthermore, a science that may be relied upon will have numerous venues for critique; its stewards will demonstrate uptake of critique from within and without, and they will treat participants with (tempered) equality of intellectual authority. Additionally, a science that may be relied upon must be identifiable as a science by a reasonably wide set of participants in legal decision making, otherwise it will not be baptized for judicial decision making. Finally, stewarding scientists (and other experts, such as philosophers of science) should attend to the dynamics of the infrastructure, including reverse salients, orphan-gateway dynamics, and path dependence.

It is also of note that the infrastructural account provides guidance with respect to another concern raised by Longino:

Where tempered equality has to walk the line between the potential cacophony of vulgar democracy and participation (inclusion), the infrastructural view provides a structure for answering these questions. Inclusion is critical to the central system, but that system needs to be connected by gateways to other communities. As a result, what appear to be unfinished questions for tempered equality are now questions about the infrastructure, and analyzed in terms of the flow of the potential for transformative critique across the infrastructure’s gateways toward the central theories, the investigative standards, and the meta-standards. Tempered equality stands as a standard for how we treat all participants, but not as a standard for how to determine how we include or exclude participants.

All that remains now is to consider the experts who are to deliver these sciences to legal decision makers (in at least U.S. legal contexts). Our account makes the communities that make up the infrastructure responsible for the science’s objectivity. As a result, it is possible that individual participants may or may not be well suited for the delivery of testimony regarding the science’s core theories and findings.

Objectivity and recalcitrant experts

In our account of objectivity, in legal contexts it is a science’s infrastructure that forms the basis for a judgement of its objectivity (i.e. whether a science may be relied upon for the purpose of legal judgements). Where the science is a mere system or is quite isolated from the possibility of transformative critique because it has not reached out or been reached out to by other epistemic communities, it is not sufficiently objective. This account, however, appears to fail to provide guidance on whether or not the objectivity of individual scientists, within a science, can be more or less reliable for legal purposes. We have in mind examples such as S. Fred Singer or the tobacco scientists of years gone by (Tong and Glantz Reference Tong and Glantz2007). Assuming that being objective is an aim of any good science, we have indicated that scientists (the stewards of the theories in question) and other participants in the science must assume a certain attitude: an asset-based attitude toward infrastructure dynamics (in particular, gateway-orphan dynamics), seeking out (especially) extra-academic or non-orthodox practitioners. Evidence of this attitude would serve as a way of identifying scientists who take the potential for transformative critique, and as a marker of the degree to which an individual practitioner is a more or less objective member of their community.

Saana Jukola raises this concern regarding science done by “commercialized” researchers in her 2016 paper, “The Commercialization of Research and the Quest for the Objectivity of Science,” where she focuses on the particular case of tobacco researchers. In it, she agrees that objectivity is not properly identified by looking at properties of individuals, but rather that the objectivity of an individual is derivative of the properties of the community to which they belong.^{Footnote 22} Communities that are organized around commercial practices suffer several problems (Jukola Reference Jukola2016). Jukola argues that the interests and funding of research for commercial purposes impact research by (1) limiting the critical point of view, (2) restricting or limiting study design options, and (3) restricting publication and data sharing. In our framework, the commercialization of research restricts the opportunities for gateways which increase the possibility of transformative critique.^{Footnote 23}

Jukola’s concluding remarks suggest that she does not see the individual as a good target for analysis of objectivity, and that instead groups are responsible for the trustworthiness of a research program. Her central concern is to draw the attention of philosophers of science to the greater context in which research occurs, especially including science policy decisions. Science policy, she argues can directly impact the motivations, attitudes, and attention of scientists, and steer them away from quality self-policing (and away from behaviors that increase the possibility of transformative critique). As a result, in order to retain a dedication to the possibility of transformative critique for investigative and meta standards, researchers must adopt negative attitudes towards isolating behaviors and should assess their communities for troubling motivations.

Longino’s Reference Longino2002 account of objectivity provides a good way of thinking about the concern that Jukola raises about the fact that Longino’s uptake criterion and her tempered equality criterion appear to be at odds. How can we cultivate truly dissenting voices while expecting those same dissenters to genuinely meet the uptake criterion on the individual level? Jukola’s take on this is as follows: scientists’ funding and policy context makes it difficult for them to take certain results or views seriously. Jukola’s solution is to suggest that researchers should increase participation (perhaps including philosophers of science to monitor the relation between these contexts and the conditions of research) and to make visible shared standards around the role of funding and policy in research. That is, uptake and dissention do not have to take place in individuals, but rather in well-formed communities. Our solution is similar: sufficiently objective communities will include gateways to other communities that provide transformative critique of the investigation and shared meta-standards of the stewarding group, members of the stewarding group must adopt an attitude of tempered equality toward members of the gatewayed groups, and efforts must be made by members of the stewarding group to seek out orphans of their infrastructure. As a result, we agree that this problem for Longino is one of appearance only - communities, not individuals, must balance dissention, uptake, and the other transformative critique enhancing practices.

The resolution of the apparent problem does leave us with an unresolved issue in legal contexts, though. Since individual scientists, not communities, provide testimony to the courts, individual experts need to be sufficiently objective, not just by way of participation in a community, but also in terms of willingness and ability to present the received view of the stewarding group. This seems to fly in the face of the feminist project to which Longino’s conception of objectivity so rightly belongs. Experts must expressly dissent from stewarded views when those views are not sufficiently objective (especially insofar as they may be sexist, racist, and so on). As a result, we believe that in legal contexts the science itself should be judged for sufficient objectivity in the ways we have argued, but the individual providing the testimony must also reflect the same good making features of the community - the individual expert must also demonstrate the attitudes that align with increasing the possibility of transformative critique. That is, the individuals may not be mere dissenters when they provide testimony in legal contexts. If they dissent from the stewarding group’s received view, they must also display uptake (an ability to express the received view in shared terms) and an asset-based attitude toward gateway-orphan dynamics (i.e. they must be able to attend to other communities in the infrastructure and have some sensitivity to the orphaning of other communities). Of course, these attitudes are required of those presenting the received view as well. As a result, not just any scientist can offer testimony in a way in which it may be relied upon for legal judgement - only some scientists are capable of properly expressing the science and its objectivity. Additionally, this is not at all to say that sciences should not include dissenting scientists for the purpose of increasing objectivity.

We suggest that individual experts can be evaluated based on their epistemic attitudes that align with increasing (or at least not thwarting) the possibility for transformative critique. This attitude allows us to judge individual scientists on the basis of the role they can (and are willing to play) for the purpose of making legal decisions. Also, in agreement with Jukola, we hold that scientists must have appropriate content knowledge (facility with the confirmed theories of their science), and, as a result, it is for the stewarding scientists to provide testimony, not just any participant in the science.^{Footnote 24}