ABSTRACT
This chapter is an introduction to the volume with short summaries of the contributions. By integrating historical, analytical, and empirical approaches, the contributions to this volume examine the complex questions of how the values of liberal democracy and the values associated with scientific research and science as a social institution can either mutually reinforce or conflict with one another. The chapters in this volume are sorted into three groups. Part I (“Academic Freedom and Other Values in Science and Society”) focuses on historical and contemporary analyses of different conceptions of academic freedom and their relation to the other social and moral values of the scientific community and liberal democracy. Part II (“Democracy and Citizen Participation in Science”) examines various definitions of “democracy” and the role that certain democratic values, notably participation and deliberation, could and should play in science policy and how and to what extent science should be “democratized”. Finally, Part III (“Freedom and Pluralism in Scientific Methodology and Values”) focuses in general on how value pluralism in certain domains should influence our understanding of scientific research and guide science policy in a free society.
