Experts and Consensus in Social Science

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction: Experts and Consensus in Social Science

   • Marcel Boumans, Carlo Martini

   Pages 1-13

3. Consensus in Practice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

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   2. The Institutional Economics of Stakeholder Consultation; How Experts Can Contribute to Reduce the Costs of Reaching Compromise Agreements

      • Frank A. G. den Butter, Sjoerd A. ten Wolde

      Pages 17-48

   3. Model-Based Consensus

      • Marcel Boumans

      Pages 49-69

   4. Explicating Ways of Consensus-Making in Science and Society: Distinguishing the Academic, the Interface and the Meta-Consensus

      • Laszlo Kosolosky, Jeroen Van Bouwel

      Pages 71-92

4. Frameworks of Consensus

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93

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   2. Judgments About the Relevance of Evidence in the Context of Peer Disagreements and Practical Rationality

      • Amir Konigsberg

      Pages 95-114

   3. Seeking Consensus in the Social Sciences

      • Carlo Martini

      Pages 115-130

   4. Struggling Over the Soul of Economics: Objectivity Versus Expertise

      • Julian Reiss

      Pages 131-152

5. Attributing Standards of Expertise

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 153-153

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   2. Epistemology as a Social Science: Applying the Neyman-Rubin Model to Explain Expert Beliefs

      • Aviezer Tucker

      Pages 155-170

   3. The Expert Economist in Times of Uncertainty

      • Maria Jimenez-Buedo

      Pages 171-189

   4. Validating Expert Judgment with the Classical Model

      • Roger M. Cooke

      Pages 191-212

   5. The Truth About Accuracy

      • Filip Buekens, Fred Truyen

      Pages 213-229

6. The Democratic Dimension

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 231-231

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   2. Expert Advisers: Why Economic Forecasters Can Be Useful Even When They Are Wrong

      • Robert Evans

      Pages 233-252

   3. The Role of Experts in the Condominium Model as Republican (Re-) Solution of Social, Economic, and Political Problems

      • Rafał Paweł Wierzchosławski

      Pages 253-274

   4. Private Epistemic Virtue, Public Vices: Moral Responsibility in the Policy Sciences

      • Merel Lefevere, Eric Schliesser

      Pages 275-295

7. Back Matter

   Pages 297-305

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This book brings together the research of philosophers, sociologists, and social scientists. It examines those areas of scientific practice where reliance on the subjective judgment of experts and practitioners is the main source of useful knowledge to address and possibly, bring solutions to social problems. A common phenomenon in applications of science is that objective evidence does not point to a single answer or solution, to a problem. Reliance on subjective judgment, then, becomes necessary, despite the known fact that hunches, even those of putative experts, often provide information that is not very accurate, and that experts are prone to fallacies and biases. The book looks at how experts reach consensus in the social sciences, and which experts are relevant to which problems. It aims to answer many questions, the main one being: Can we start building a normative theory of expertise on the basis of the evidence that social scientists, sociologists and philosophers have uncovered?

• Applying the Neyman-Rubin Model
• Attributing Expertise in Uncertain Times
• Consensus and Its Critics
• Consensus in Science
• Consensus in the Social Sciences
• Disagreement, Compromise, and the Problem of Relevance
• Expert-Based Consensus
• Experts and Evidence in Economics
• Institutional Economics of Stakeholder Consultation
• Model-Based Consensus
• Philosophies of Experts and Consensus
• Politics of Expertise
• Rational Consensus
• Scientific Expertise
• Social, Economic and Political Problems
• Validation of Experts
• Validation of Experts

• Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

  Carlo Martini

• Department of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  Marcel Boumans

Policies and ethics