从众,还是自治?——专家自治的合理性之争

Conformity or Autonomy?——Disputes over the Rationality of Expert Autonomy

专家的认知自治对于助推科学事业朝正确方向发展至关重要,它有助于在科学群体中形成有效分工,拓展多样化的研究空间。然而,专家自治面临两项主要质疑,一是面对同辈分歧与负面证据,专家“固执己见”,坚持认知自治有悖认知理性;二是专家自治可能伴随沉重代价,如研究者自我欺骗、学术炒作与造假及破坏公众对科学的信任等。通过对专家自主性与自治语境性的强调,可以纠正对于认知自治概念的一个常见误解,即认知自治只是对于证据的部分抵制,而非对频繁改变想法的抵制。专家自治不应被斥为理性的失败,基于特定语境,权衡证据与非证据因素而进行认知自治,恰是理性反思平衡的结果。

Expert autonomy is of great importance to promote the development of science on track.It helps efficiently divide scientific labor and keeps scientists pursuing a diversity of researches.However,expert autonomy is confronted with two main queries.For one thing,experts seem irrational when they are still stubborn in their views in the face of peer disagreements and adverse evidence.For another,the cost of expert autonomy can be quite high,including causing the self-deception of researchers and academic fraud and undermining public trust in science.Based on the emphases on experts’deliberation and the contextuality of autonomy,a common misunderstanding about expert autonomy could be revised,that is,expert autonomy is just a partial resistance to evidence,and it involves a willingness to change one’s mind.We argue that expert autonomy is not the failure of rationality,on the contrary,it is favorable when it reflects experts’contextually calculation of evidentiary and non-evidentiary factors.