The Dutch documentary Raw (2008) shows a child who has only eaten raw food since he was five. The mother is accused of not feeding her child well and ultimately even of child abuse. While some may suspect the mother of being anti-scientific, she constantly refers to the evidence that underpins her actions. However extreme this situation may be, in some important respects it resembles other recurrent societal conflicts about particular (life) science domains.
In this lecture, I will argue that these conflicts should not be understood as a collision between two worlds apart, namely that of scientific truth and that of lay concerns. Nor should the key question be formulated as ‘how to convince people who persist in believing things that just aren’t true’.
For this to understand, we need to shift our attention to the hidden moralities of knowledge. Rather than being neutral, knowledge and technology are mediators of human relations and practices, in short, of morality. If we want to conduct a more fruitful discussion, uncovering this moral dimension is crucial. Conversation analysis can be used to reveal these everyday moralities. Knowledge claims are used to attribute or deny responsibilities and negotiate one’s identity. These concealed moralities should be articulated and become part of the public debate in order to make a real conversation possible.
Conversation analysis and discursive psychology offer unique perspectives for doing so, as they view knowledge as both mundane and deeply moral. They reveal how people in their communication indirectly refer to what is normal or proper, thereby making sense of their own and other people’s actions. Using topical examples from debates about healthy nutrition and ADHD, I will argue that the dialogue should (also) be on who we want to be rather than (only) about what we believe to be true.