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In an influential paper, Simon C. May forcefully argued that, properly understood, there can never be principled reasons for moral compromise (May 2005). While there may be pragmatic reasons for compromising that involve, for instance, concern for political expediency or for stability there are properly speaking no principled reasons to compromise. My aim in the paper is to show how principled moral compromise in the context of moral disagreements over policy options is possible. I argue that when we disagree, principled reasons favoring compromises or compromising can assume a more significant part of what makes a position all things considered best, and in this way disagreement can ground moral compromise. ; In an influential article, Simon C. May forcefully argued that, properly understood, there can never be principled reasons for moral compromise (May, 2005). While there may be pragmatic reasons for compromising that involve, for instance, concern for political expediency or for stability, there are properly speaking no principled reasons to compromise. My aim in the article is to show how principled moral compromise in the context of moral disagreements over policy options is possible. I argue that when we disagree, principled reasons favoring compromises or compromising can assume a more significant part of what makes a position all things considered best, and in this way disagreement can ground moral compromise.

In an influential article, Simon C. May forcefully argued that, properly understood, there can never be principled reasons for moral compromise (May, 2005). While there may be pragmatic reasons for compromising that involve, for instance, concern for political expediency or for stability, there are properly speaking no principled reasons to compromise. My aim in the article is to show how principled moral compromise in the context of moral disagreements over policy options is possible. I argue that when we disagree, principled reasons favoring compromises or compromising can assume a more significant part of what makes a position all things considered best, and in this way disagreement can ground moral compromise.

Suppose we have a persistent disagreement about a particular set of policy options, not because of an underlying moral disagreement, or a mere conflict of interest, but rather because we disagree about a crucial non-normative factual assumption underlying the justification of the policy choices. The main question in the paper is what political legitimacy requires in such cases, or indeed whether there are defensible answers to that question. The problem of political legitimacy in fact-dependent policy disagreements has received almost no attention in political philosophy, which has focused mostly on value disagreements and proposed theories of legitimate coercive legislation in value-dependent disagreements. The paper presents an argument showing that under certain plausible assumptions regarding legitimacy, there are serious difficulties in identifying legitimate choices in fact-dependent policy disagreements. This may be unsurprising to political philosophers preoccupied with value-based disagreements, perhaps because it has been assumed that legitimacy-related concerns are irrelevant (or do not apply) to fact-dependent policy disagreements. The paper argues that this response is premature. If we should care about legitimacy at all, then it is by no means clear why we should ignore issues of legitimacy in policy-disputes that depend on factual disagreements. The paper ends by defining a set of possibilities that merit further exploration in search of a theory of legitimacy in fact-dependent policy disagreements. ; Suppose we have a persistent disagreement about a particular set of policy options, not because of an underlying moral disagreement, or a mere conflict of interest, but rather because we disagree about a crucial non-normative factual assumption underlying the justification of the policy choices. The main question in the paper is what political legitimacy requires in such cases, or indeed whether there are defensible answers to that question. The problem of political legitimacy in fact-dependent policy disagreements has received almost no attention in political philosophy, which has focused mostly on value disagreements and proposed theories of legitimate coercive legislation in valuedependent disagreements. The paper presents an argument showing that under certain plausible assumptions regarding legitimacy, there are serious difficulties in identifying legitimate choices in fact-dependent policy disagreements. This may be unsurprising to political philosophers preoccupied with value-based disagreements, perhaps because it has been assumed that legitimacy-related concerns are irrelevant (or do not apply) to fact-dependent policy disagreements. The paper argues that this response is premature. If we should care about legitimacy et al.l, then it is by no means clear why we should ignore issues of legitimacy in policy-disputes that depend on factual disagreements. The paper ends by defining a set of possibilities that merit further exploration in search of a theory of legitimacy in fact-dependent policy disagreements.

In this paper, we offer a novel conceptual framework of some of the most important aims for science communication efforts found in the contemporary literature on science communication. We identify several distinct aims present in the literature such as generating public epistemic and moral trust, generating social acceptance, and enhancing democratic legitimacy, and we discuss some of the relations between the different aims. Finally, we examine whether and, if so, to what extent these different aims can be said to have been successfully reached in practice and find that the empirical literature regarding the evaluation of science communications efforts is scarce. We conclude by suggesting that science communicators be attentive to formulating their communicative aim(s) in more precise terms, as well as conduct systematic studies of the effectiveness of their communicative efforts.

In this paper, we offer a novel conceptual framework of some of the most important aims for science communication efforts found in the contemporary literature on science communication. We identify several distinct aims present in the literature such as generating public epistemic and moral trust, generating social acceptance, and enhancing democratic legitimacy, and we discuss some of the relations between the different aims. Finally, we examine whether and, if so, to what extent these different aims can be said to have been successfully reached in practice and find that the empirical literature regarding the evaluation of science communications efforts is scarce. We conclude by suggesting that science communicators be attentive to formulating their communicative aim(s) in more precise terms, as well as conduct systematic studies of the effectiveness of their communicative efforts.

Should scientific facts and methods have an epistemically privileged status in public reason? In Rawls's public reason account he asserts what we will label the Scientific Standard Stricture: citizens engaged in public reason must be guided by non-controversial scientific methods, and public reason must be in line with non-controversial scientific conclusions. The Scientific Standard Stricture is meant to fulfill important tasks such as enabling the determinateness and publicity of the public reason framework. However, Rawls leaves us without elucidation with regard to when science is and is not 'non-controversial' and more importantly, we are left without a justification for a stricture which excludes certain controversial beliefs and methods of inquiry from the realm of political justification. In this article, we offer what we deem to be the most plausible interpretation of Rawls's Scientific Standards Stricture. We then use Rawls's general theoretical framework to examine various potential justifications for privileging these 'non-controversial' scientific methods and conclusions. We conclude that no viable justification is available to Rawls.

The European Court of Justice's recent ruling that the new techniques for crop development are to be considered as genetically modified organisms under the European Union's regulations exacerbates the need for a critical evaluation of those regulations. The paper analyzes the regulation from the perspective of moral and political philosophy. It considers whether influential arguments for restrictions of genetically modified organisms provide cogent justifications for the policies that are in place, in particular a pre-release authorization requirement, mandatory labelling, and de facto bans (in the form of withholding or opting out of authorizations). It is argued that arguments pertaining to risk can justify some form of pre-release authorization scheme, although not necessarily the current one, but that neither de facto bans nor mandatory labelling can be justified by reference to common arguments concerning naturalness, agricultural policy (in particular the promotion of organic farming), socio-economic effects, or consumers' right to choose.

This article clarifies the commonplace assumption that brands make promises by developing definitions of brand promise delivery. Distinguishing between clear and fuzzy brand promises, we develop definitions of what it is for a brand to deliver on fuzzy functional, symbolic, and experiential promises. We argue (a) that brands deliver fuzzy functional promises through encouraging and facilitating courses of actions that are conducive to the promised functionality; whereas (b) brands deliver fuzzy symbolic promises through encouraging and facilitating ways in which consumers can use brands as narrative material to communicate self-identity. Finally, (c) we propose that brands deliver fuzzy experiential promises through effectively motivating consumers to adopt and play a social role implicitly suggested and facilitated by the brand. A promise is an inherently ethical concept and the article concludes with an in-depth discussion of fuzzy brand promises as two-way ethical commitments that put requirements on both brands and consumers.