To the Journal editor:

Is it just to acquire knowledge using humanistic methodological justice or scientific methodological justice to give public awards in aesthetics (including the Academy Awards) and ethics (including TIME Person of the Year)?

We answer our question by defining humanistic methodological justice and scientific methodological justice, and applying our progression in methodological justice to make public policy and practice decisions.

What are humanistic methodological justice and scientific methodological justice?

Humanistic methodological justice subjectively uses personal elements, including belief/ideology/opinion, common sense/prejudice/culture, or experience, to construct a theory.

Examples of aesthetic theories justified by humanistic methodological justice are historical, New Historical, classical, and postmodern theories (Klages, Mary. Literary theory, 2017).

Examples of ethical theories justified by humanistic methodological justice are Democratic and Republican theories.

Scientific methodological justice objectively uses a theory or test accepted by a supermajority of scientists.

An example of an accepted scientific theory is evolutionary biology.

An example of an accepted test is ACT used in college admissions.

Contrasting methods, scientific methodological justice reveals the external world of the event, object, person, or process considered to receive the award, whereas humanistic methodological justice reveals the internal world of the person giving the award.

What is our progression to acquire knowledge to make public policy and practice decisions?

Our progression is revealed in our history when we progressed from using humanistic methodological justice to using scientific methodological justice.

In our founding, we used the ideology of wealthy white males that is part of humanistic methodological justice.

In our history we progressed through our many rights movements, including our civil rights movements and feminist rights movements, when we used valid and reliable data and logical reasoning that are part of scientific methodological justice. Examples are research proving great racial discrimination and sexual discrimination.

To answer our question based on our historical progression from using humanistic methodological justice to using scientific methodological justice to make public policy and practice decisions: It is just to acquire knowledge to give public awards in aesthetics and ethics if scientific methodological justice is used.

Since there is no aesthetic or ethical theory or test accepted by a supermajority of scientists, it is not just to give public awards in aesthetics (including the Academy Awards) and ethics (including TIME Person of the Year).

Use scientific methodological justice to give just public aesthetic and ethical awards.

Gordon Peterson

Marquette

Editor’s note: This letter writer should not be confused with Gordon J. Peterson, a retired funeral director who worked many years for Swanson-Lundquist Funeral Home in Marquette.