Just be Transparent about your Values? – The Extent of Engagement in Transparency Requirements and its Effect on Trust in Scientific Expertise
Hanna Metzen
25 April 2024
Many philosophers think that value transparency will promote trust in scientific expertise. In this regard, it also is a frequent institutional requirement, for instance for advisory committees or when writing policy papers. Yet, as especially Elliott (2022) has pointed out, transparency is a complex concept. I will add to this complexity and argue that transparency requirements come with a varying extent of engagement: merely disclosing information (mere transparency), providing information that is publicly accessible (publicity), or having additional sanctioning mechanisms in place (accountability). It is often not clear in which sense transparency requirements are to be understood in the context of trust in expertise. However, each sense involves different backfiring effects: Transparency can make expertise less trustworthy and less credible. Merely talking about transparency in a very general sense hides these possible trade-offs. This also shows that transparency is not the easy, minimally intrusive solution it sometimes appears to be – it is a form of regulation.
