Democratizing Social Scientists’ Words and Distinctions: Where and Why Moral Reasons Are Decisive

Sitting at your desk, working on your social science paper, you take yourself to be free to use key words and distinctions as you see fit. I argue that these decisions aren’t up to you. Instead, they should be made collectively, by the social science community you’re embedded in, talking to, and contributing to, along with its stakeholders. Such democratic and deliberative processes will be driven by the common good, as opposed to benefiting particular social scientists, schools, research programs, methods, or regions of the world. My book, Words and Distinctions for the Common Good, is an invitation: I invite social science communities to democratically work on how to use their key words and distinctions—and which epistemic and moral goods these uses should help attain.