5 - Justification

Summary

In Chapter 5, I extend the social and moral account of scientific work with a similarly social and moral account of scientific justification. My argument is that scientific justification should consist, not simply in the construction of evidentiary rationales, but in the refinement of the whole moral architecture of science. I insist that the “core competency” in training and oversight for psychological inquiry should be the justification – that is, the making just, right, and true – of research practices.Drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Helen Longino (among others), I argue that two forms of practice essential to such justification are an open disciplinary politics, or an institutionalized openness to uncertainty, critique, and correction by the widest possible range of qualified contributors, and a committed research praxis, or an approach to research where everyday scientific practices are interrogated and refined to become consistent with explicit values.