Hype and Public Trust in Science

Social scientists have begun elucidating the variables that influence public trust in science, yet little is known about hype in biotechnology and its effects on public trust. Many scholars claim that hyping biotechnology results in a loss of public trust, and possibly public enthusiasm or support for science, because public expectations of the biotechnological promises will be unmet. We argue for the need for empirical research that examines the relationships between hype, public trust, and public enthusiasm/support. We discuss the complexities in designing empirical studies that provide evidence for a causal link between hype, public trust, and public enthusiasm/support, but also illustrate how this may be remedied. Further empirical research on hype and public trust is needed in order to improve public communication of science and to design evidence-based education on the responsible conduct of research for scientists. We conclude that conceptual arguments made on hype and public trust must be nuanced to reflect our current understanding of this relationship.     

The Poor Lady Immured

This essay offers cautionary considerations on what has come to be called “public philosophy.” A conception of philosophy is set forth using Socrates as the paradigm of relentless philosophical questioning. The essay then outlines three types of public philosophy: a philosophy situated in a public setting, a philosophy whose content is modified for a varied public, and a philosophy that functions as normative consensus. The most important of these three is the philosophy modified for the public. The discussion notes examples of public philosophy from the history of philosophy, and examines the contribution of eighteenth‐century philosophers (such as David Hume) to a version of public philosophy. The risks of public philosophy are noted—in particular, that a modified philosophy may substitute the inculcation of belief over the modeling of philosophy. The essay concludes by noting that the university classroom remains an important but forgotten venue of public philosophy.     

Public trust and confidence in legal authorities: What do majority and minority group members want from the law and legal institutions?*

Discussions of public trust and confidence in the police and the courts often assume that the key to public feelings is the public's evaluation of the outcomes that the public receives from these legal authorities. In the case of the courts, discontent is often assumed to be linked to issues of cost and delay-instrumental concerns about the outcomes delivered to the public by the courts. In the case of the police, the inability to effectively control crime is frequently seen as driving public evaluations. This article presents an alternative procedural justice based model that links public trust and confidence to views about the manner in which legal authorities treat the public. Drawing upon psychological research about public evaluations of institutions and authorities it is argued that the key issue that shapes public views is a process based evaluation of the fairness of the procedures that the police and courts use to exercise their authority. Analyses from several studies exploring the basis of public views support this procedural justice based model of public evaluation. In addition, the results provide suggestions about the elements of procedures that are central to public judgments about their fairness.     

Public Option Versus the Market: Perceived Value Violations Drive Opposition to Healthcare Reform

The debate over healthcare reform in the United States has been divisive. Research demonstrates that beliefs that policy beneficiaries violate values strongly predict opposition to these policies. Similar dynamics may be happening regarding opposition to healthcare reform. Specifically, this study tested the hypothesis that opposition to a public option in healthcare reform results from stereotypes that public‐option beneficiaries violate values. In two studies utilizing three samples, beliefs about beneficiaries violating values of hard work consistently predicted opposition to a public option and an alternative market‐based healthcare reform plan, often proposed by public‐option opponents. Results also suggest that assertions that a public option would lead to bigger government increases opposition to a public option by indirectly masking underlying stereotypes about value violations.     

The Contested Publics of the UK GM Controversy: A Tale of Entanglement and Purification

Ten years ago the UK held one of the largest, most complex and politically charged exercises in the turn towards public engagement in the governance of the biosciences. Called ‘GM Nation’ this experiment arose as an attempt to mediate public concerns in the run-up to a government decision on whether to allow some varieties of GM crops to be commercially cultivated in the UK. Formed to mediate a controversy, ‘GM Nation’ itself became a focus of controversy, with claims that many of its public participants were already engaged in the GM issue and were thus not representative of a general public. In this way, the category of the public became a contested category, with at least two different versions of the public featuring in the GM controversy. Particularly important was the contrast between engaged or issue publics that emerged entangled in and increasingly familiar with the objects and issues of the controversy, and a general public, identified through its distance and disengagement from the GM issue. These different forms of public were articulated through different modes of engagement ranging from engaged publics found in hybrid forums such as local village meetings, to versions of the general public brought into being in some of the closed parts of ‘GM Nation’. Throughout all this, a wider public institutional architecture, improvised to govern the controversy, became the site of complex boundary work that attempted to separate science from politics, a feature that conditioned how these different versions of public would be articulated and received.     

Scientific Research and the Public Trust

This essay analyzes the concept of public trust in science and offers some guidance for ethicists, scientists, and policymakers who use this idea defend ethical rules or policies pertaining to the conduct of research. While the notion that public trusts science makes sense in the abstract, it may not be sufficiently focused to support the various rules and policies that authors have tried to derive from it, because the public is not a uniform body with a common set of interests. Well-focused arguments that use public trust to support rules or policies for the conduct of research should specify (a) which public is being referred to (e.g. the general public or a specific public, such as a particular community or group); (b) what this public expects from scientists; (c) how the rule or policy will ensure that these expectations are met; and (d) why is it important to meet these expectations.     

Avoiding Empty Rhetoric: Engaging Publics in Debates About Nanotechnologies

Despite the amount of public investment in nanotechnology ventures in the developed world, research shows that there is little public awareness about nanotechnology, and public knowledge is very limited. This is concerning given that nanotechnology has been heralded as 'revolutionising' the way we live. In this paper, we articulate why public engagement in debates about nanotechnology is important, drawing on literature on public engagement and science policy debate and deliberation about public policy development. We also explore the significance of timing in engaging the public, and we make some suggestions concerning how to effectively engage publics. Our conclusions indicate the significance of scientific researchers, policy makers and representative consumer groupings in public reasoning towards a better public policy framework for debate about technological development.     

Multiple roles and successes in public bioethics: a response to the public forum critique of bioethics commissions

National bioethics commissions have been critiqued for a variety of structural, procedural, and political aspects of their work. A more recent critique published by Dzur and Levin uses political philosophy to constructively critique the work of national bioethics commissions as public deliberative forums. However, this public forum critique of bioethics commissions ignores empirical research in political science and normative claims that suggest that advisory commissions can and should have diverse of functions beyond that of being public forums. The present paper argues that the public forum critique too narrowly considers the roles that bioethics commissions can play in public bioethics and ignores the moral obligation of commissions to fulfill their mandates. Evaluations of commissions must consider that these institutions can serve in capacities other than those of a public deliberative forum and use additional measures to evaluate the multiple roles and successes of bioethics commissions in public policy.     

Global Public Reason,Diversity, and Consent

Abstract

In this paper, I examine global public reason as a method of justifying a global state. Ultimately, I conclude that global public reason fails to justify a global state. This is the case, because global public reason faces an unwinnable dilemma. The global public reason theorist must endorse either a hypothetical theory of consent or an actual theory of consent; if she endorses a theory of hypothetical consent, then she fails to justify her principles; and if she endorses a theory of actual consent, her theory will lead to a highly unstable political system. On either side of the dilemma, global public reason faces untenable implications. Although similar criticisms have been advanced against domestic public reason, my argument is not repeating points made before me. My argument is new, in that it raises these objections specifically against global public reason, and in that it shows how, due to increased diversity of belief in the global arena, these problems are more pressing for global public reason than they are for domestic public reason.     

Major Psychological Factors Determining Public Acceptance of the Siting of Nuclear Facilities

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that factors that determine public acceptance of nuclear facilities in a general situation are different from factors that determine public acceptance of nuclear facilities in a siting situation by using a causal model. A survey was conducted in Japan with 1,000 randomly selected adult participants. The results were that in a general situation, both perceived risk and perceived benefit are important for public acceptance of nuclear facilities. In addition, in a siting situation, perceived risk is very important for public acceptance of nuclear facilities, whereas perceived benefit has little importance for public acceptance. Thus, for discussions concerning public acceptance of a facility associated with risk, it is important to clarify whether the viewpoint of a general situation or the viewpoint of a siting situation should be adopted.     

公共哲学的探索

The more diverse cultures and values a country perceives to be “normal” even “just”, the more it needs to search for a public philosophy. Having developed only recently, China, which is speedily progressing towards a market economy, can be considered this kind of country. This article takes Daniel Bell’s concept of modern society and public household as the basis for expatiating on some chief problems and the ways to solve them. It pays special attention to investigating the public ethic while probing public philosophy, and it argues that the public ethic is an ethic that deals with public affairs in the public realm, especially the social political realm; with respect to all people involved, it is a common ethic or an ethic with openness. It is also an ethic that appeals to public opinion and public reason, and tries to find consensus from the demands of different values. Furthermore, because it refers to fundamental public benefits, it has to be a normative ethic of universalism and of baseline holders. Translated by Su Jing from Zhexue Dongtai 哲学动态 (Philosophical Trends), 2005, (8): 3–8     

Public service motivation as a predictor of attraction to the public sector

According to public service motivation theory, individuals with a strong public service orientation are attracted to government jobs. This proposition was investigated in three studies by measuring public sector motivation at a pre-entry level as an individual difference variable affecting perceptions of fit and organizational attraction. Results were consistent with a positive relationship between public sector motivation and attraction to both public sector and non-profit organizations. Despite substantial overlap between the constructs of public sector motivation and agreeableness, the present research indicated that public sector motivation has utility in predicting employment interests beyond the general personality factor of agreeableness.     

Men behaving nicely: Public goods as peacock tails

Insights from sexual selection and costly signalling theory suggest that competition for females underlies men's public good contributions. We conducted two public good experiments to test this hypothesis. First, we found that men contributed more in the presence of an opposite sex audience, but there was no parallel effect for the women. In addition, men's public good contributions went up as they rated the female observer more attractive. In the second experiment, all male groups played a five round public good game and their contributions significantly increased over time with a female audience only. In this condition men also volunteered more time for various charitable causes. These findings support the idea that men compete with each other by creating public goods to impress women. Thus, a public good is the human equivalent of a peacock's tail.     

Public justification versus public deliberation: the case for divorce

I drive a wedge between public deliberation and public justification, concepts tightly associated in public reason liberalism. Properly understood, the ideal of public justification imposes no restraint on citizen deliberation but requires that those who have a substantial impact on the use of coercive power, political officials, advance proposals each person has sufficient reason to accept. I formulate this idea as the Principle of Convergent Restraint and apply it to legislators to illustrate the general reorientation I propose for the public reason project.     

程序公正、不确定性对公共政策可接受性的影响:情感信任、认知信任的中介作用

为了研究程序公正、不确定性与公共政策可接受性之间的关系,并进一步考察情感信任和认知信任在其中的中介效应,本研究选取公共政策领域,通过问卷调查的方法随机选取510名北京市民进行研究。研究发现,程序公正与公共政策可接受性正相关,不确定性与公共政策可接受性负相关,情感信任中介程序公正与公共政策可接受性,并对不确定性与公共政策可接受性之间有遮掩效应,而认知信任不存在显著的中介作用。     

程序公正与权威信任:公共政策可接受性机制

中国正处于深刻的社会转型和社会变迁时期,社会风险加剧。其中一个重要的表征就是群体性事件频发。事件的背后,反映出民众对公共政策的不认可,如果公共政策的制定和执行不能充分考虑民众的接受性,极有可能构成新的社会风险,威胁社会稳定。因此,如何有效地提高民众对公共政策的接受性已经成为我国亟需解决的重大问题。项目欲建立程序公正、结果宜人性和权威信任(认知信任和情感信任)对公共政策可接受性、政府满意度的影响模型,从而有效提升政策可接受性。拟在不同的公共政策情境中通过Scenario、实验室模拟实验和问卷调查,探明程序公正和结果宜人性对政策可接受性、政府满意度的交互作用机制,以及权威信任对此交互作用机制的边界效应,并在此基础上进一步分析认知信任和情感信任对于政策可接受性、政府满意度及其因子关系的调节作用。研究成果可用于提高民众对政策的满意度,为政府制定政策提供科学依据。     

现代公共卫生的概念特征及发展方向研究

现代公共卫生本质上是组织社会共同努力,预防疾病、促进健康的广泛的社会公共事业和人类健康相关的科学与实践活动,其理论观念、目标任务和工作模式等在传统公共卫生的基础上已发生了一系列重大变化.以健康为中心、与经济社会协调发展是现代公共卫生作的重要的发展方向.