At a time when endeavours in science and technology are primarily judged by their immediate economic use value, From Commodification to the Common Good offers a refreshing alternative that promotes research in the public interest. Through diligent attention to competing viewpoints, Hans Radder presents an in-depth philosophical argument for promoting scientific research in the ‘public interest’ to produce knowledge that is a ‘common good’. He juxtaposes this against the current state of affairs in which the products of scientific research are strongly commodified – most obviously and objectionably through product patenting. Each chapter involves a precise deconstruction of each noun in his title, plus the associated concepts of ‘knowledge’, ‘public’ and ‘democracy’, and their implications for his vision. This is not simply a diatribe against commercialization; Radder also explains which scientific knowledge can (and should) be a common good. Throughout, Radder is attentive to the real-world applicability of the principles discussed, setting out concrete strategies for increasing the public-interest aspect of scientific research and reducing its commodification. In doing so, his arguments are pertinent to questions of how we allocate funding, disseminate findings and promote specific areas of research.
Putting himself in conversation with major debates in the philosophy of science and technology, including the demarcation question and artefact agency, Radder offers a cross-disciplinary introduction to a range of theoretical perspectives. This is particularly true of Chapters 1 and 2, which consider how essentialists, social constructivists and empiricists have conceptualized the relationship between science, technology and society. Taking a synthetic-philosophy approach, Radder systematically evaluates key frameworks, like technoscience and technology-as-applied-science, and how they relate to each other. Radder describes these accessibly for a diverse audience of policy makers, scientists and social theorists. While providing necessary background, he advances his own position that science and technology share patterns of similarity and dissimilarity which blur the boundary between those categories without erasing it.
Chapters 3 and 4 analyse the role of commodification in the relationship explored in the first two chapters. Radder presents an ethical–legal case against patenting the products of scientific research, explaining the practice's incommensurability with the Mertonian values espoused by universities and other research institutions. Moving beyond analysis of the present, Chapters 5 and 6 set out an alternative to commodification. Here, Radder advocates for the promotion of science in the ‘public interest’ to produce knowledge that is a ‘common good’. The meaning of public interest and common good are thoroughly unpacked, and Radder is careful to explain that they are not absolute categories and necessarily involve normative judgements.
Applying the frameworks developed in the previous chapters, Chapter 7 evaluates whether some recent projects in science and technology can be deemed to be in the public interest. The whole book is interspersed with brief thought experiments and real-world examples, but this section represents the most in-depth empirical application of his criteria for what constitutes the public interest. Alongside a nuanced examination of open-access publishing, Radder defends a policy of promoting basic science without an immediate use case. Although most of the book takes natural sciences as the default lens of analysis, Chapter 7 forays into more specific commentary on the public interest of what he calls the ‘human sciences’. Encompassing the reflexive study of human societies past and present, this presents a convincing argument that humanities scholars can deploy in defence of their research.
Considering that the book is so focused on arguing against commodification and for public-interest science, its coverage is impressively wide-ranging. Throughout, Radder familiarizes the reader with debates in science and technology that have maintained academics’ interest over the past sixty or so years. In addition to obvious topics of the demarcation problem, technoscience and experimentation, he also integrates examinations of values, norms and democracy. Although definitively a work of philosophy, he draws on theoretical frameworks from studies on politics, economics, patent law and sociology. In that sense, the book makes for a valuable introduction to cross-disciplinary perspectives on science and technology.
Although this scope means that readers from any discipline will almost certainly learn something new, they may also find themselves bristling at occasional superficiality. Historians will likely be frustrated with the shallowness of any references to the past. Although Chapter 4 is dedicated to Mertonian values, these are evaluated ahistorically. Elsewhere, figures from Francis Bacon to twentieth-century environmental scientist Barry Commoner are used to represent different intellectual poisons on the nature of science that are likewise abstracted from their historical contexts.
Pre-twentieth-century science is only mentioned in passing and the increasing bureaucratization, hierarchicalization and commodification of higher education and scientific research from the 1980s are taken as self-evident. Institutional, economic and political contexts of the 1960s and 1970s receive more attention, although they mostly provide background for the academic literature Radder surveys. Greater attentiveness to historical specificity would likely have given some empirical weight to his predominantly theoretical case, particularly to his insistence that the judgement of any particular activity as more or less in the public interest is contingent on the broader sociocultural context. However, it is difficult to criticize this aspect too harshly. After all, it is, first and foremost, a philosophy book. Furthermore, in his concluding chapter, Radder acknowledges that his generalized approach could never match the detail found in more specialist elaborations.
Ultimately, the book succeeds in building a cogent case against the commodification of scientific research, and presents a blueprint for judging to what extent particular policies, practices or projects are in the public interest. Beyond its philosophical relevance, then, the book offers policy makers and funding bodies a practical guide for prioritizing those projects which best serve the present and future interests of society. For researchers disillusioned by the influence of commercial interests over their work, From Commodification to the Common Good provides a concrete strategy for, and a stimulating vision of, an alternative future.
