or, conversely, used purported states of nature to avoid having to ex-
plain clearly the values to which they wanted people to cling. By aban-
doning the fact-value distinction, we committed ourselves to doat
least as wellas it had done, placing ourselves in the same situation as
the European Union, for which the abandonment of national frontiers
must not have the effect of reducing territorial security. As we see at a
glance from Figure 3.1, we have had very little trouble doing better: no
one can accuse us of diminishing the discussion or short-circuiting
quality control! On the contrary, laid end to end, the four imperatives
require that we not bring an end to perplexity too abruptly, that we
not unduly accelerate the consultation, that we not forget to look for
compatibility with established propositions, and finally that we not
register new states of the world without an explicit motivation. It is
true that at this stage, not having sufficiently retooled the “job descrip-
tion” of the scientist, the politician, the administrator, and the econo-
mist, I still cannot show that the virtue of a trajectory of exploration
will make it possible to do much better than the difference between
science and ideology. Readers will have to wait for me, then, on this
crucial point, and they will be right to be suspicious until I have
shown, in the following chapter, that the guarantees I offer are better
than those I am asking readers to abandon.
The fifth item of the set of specifications is easier to fulfill, but more
difficult to prove. If by “defense of the autonomy of science” and “pu-
rity of morality” we mean two spheres protected against all interfer-
ence, it goes without saying that we are incapable of satisfying that
condition. Such is precisely the misunderstanding that gave rise to the
“science wars.” We must make common sense accustomed to what
should have always been obvious: the more we interfere with the pro-
duction of facts, the more objective they become, and the more the
normative requirement gets mixed up with matters of concern, the
more it will gain in quality of judgment. Still, we can guarantee that
there are indeed two powers that must definitely not be mixed: the
power to take into account the number of entities and voices, on the
one hand, and the will of these entities and voices to form a common
world, on the other hand. Something essential would be lost if the
work of taking into account were shortened, trampled on, or en-
croached upon by the work of putting in order, and if the work of
putting in order were begun anew, interrupted, or called back into
A NEW SEPARATION OF POWERS
119