I analysed the controversy using Alan Gross's three interlinking frameworks for examining controversies (the paper is titled Scientific and technical controversy: Three frameworks for analysis if you wanted to find it somewhere).
Basically Gross uses three controversy frameworks made by others, and show how they all interlink to give a greater understanding of a controversy (although he states that these three would still not encompass everything needed for some).
So the three frameworks are:
1. Gusfield framework
This framework says controversies are all about clashes of moral orders. That when people change, challenge, or adapt moral orders different from the norm, controversies arise.
He also makes this statement at one point, ‘There is a more insidious effect of moral orders: by substituting displays of high feelings for reason, they distort and suppress public debate over the issues that are their concern.’ I'll come back to this later.
2. Turner framework
Turner's framework suggests that controversies are all about social drama. When the norms in societies are challenged drama is the result, and this is where controversies arise.
3. Habermas framework
Habermas says that controversies can be broken down into five categories, each which needs a different type of communicative action to be solved.
The five categories with their resolutions are:
• Political--Negotiation
• Ethical--Mutual tolerance
• Moral--Understanding and agreement
• Intellectual--Understanding and agreement
• Scientific--Experiment and controlled observation (with some understanding and agreement)
He also points out the difference between morals and ethics. Ethics are an individual's ideas or choices on what they accept of believe to be true. Morals are on a social scale, as in what is overall accepted socially (social ethics, I guess).
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