The value-ladenness of transparency in science: Lessons from Lyme disease

Both philosophers and scientists have recently promoted transparency as an important element of responsible scientific practice. Philosophers have placed particular emphasis on the ways that transparency can assist with efforts to manage value judgments in science responsibly. This paper examines a potential challenge to this approach, namely, that efforts to promote transparency can themselves be value-laden. This is particularly problematic when transparency incorporates second-order value judgments that are underwritten by the same values at stake in the desire for transparency about the first-order value judgments involved in scientific research. The paper uses a case study involving research on Lyme disease to illustrate this worry, but it responds by elucidating a range of scenarios in which transparency can still play an effective role in managing value judgments responsibly.