ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author suggests some modifications to Kevin Elliott’s understanding of the transparency and representativeness conditions and shows how they can be fulfilled committing to both epistemic productivity and democracy. Elliott’s first condition, transparency, is a frequently mentioned condition or requirement when considering how to deal with values in science. Unsurprisingly, the idea of transparency requirements has been received differently depending on the research approach one is working in. Scientific pluralism is a normative endorsement of there being plurality in science. A first interpretation of the idea of representativeness could be labeled as a political or democratic view focusing on priorities, advocating that the values used in the scientific process should be democratically justified. In response, the author developed a modified understanding of representativeness with an emphasis on social-epistemic constellations that could also benefit transparency (without having to codify it in a set of strict rules to follow) while avoiding the hampering of scientific pluralism.
