{"title":"Kolodny Against Hierarchy","authors":"Jake Zuehl","doi":"10.1111/papa.12273","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12273","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142213237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Individuality as Difference","authors":"Guy Kahane","doi":"10.1111/papa.12267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12267","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141510410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moral Understanding Between You and Me","authors":"Samuel Dishaw","doi":"10.1111/papa.12259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12259","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141197832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In modern liberal democracies, politically motivated disobedience of the law is generally tolerated as a way of challenging and changing social and legal practices. This paper concerns the role of civility in such political disobedience.1
In his seminal work on political disobedience, John Rawls identified three characteristics that many philosophers now take to be the crux of civility: openness, acceptance of legal consequences, and nonviolence. While Rawls and others thought that these features play an essential role in the internal logic of political disobedience, today civility faces increasing skepticism from both practitioners of political disobedience and philosophers who theorize about it. Many of the recent examples of political disobedience that have done the most to capture the public's attention, including Edward Snowden's whistleblowing, Extinction Rebellion's road blockades, Le mouvement des Gilets jaunes in France, and the trucker convoys in Canada, have all been decidedly uncivil in some way or another. Mirroring these real-life trends, many philosophers working on political disobedience have also become increasingly skeptical of civility and increasingly supportive of incivility. As Candice Delmas urges, “It is thus time to start thinking about uncivil disobedience—to wit, disobedient acts that are principled yet also deliberately offensive, covert, anonymous, more than minimally destructive, not respectful of their targets, or which do not aim to communicate to an audience the need to reform laws, policies or institutions.”2
To evaluate this shift in attitude toward civility, we first need to better understand what civility contributes to political disobedience. This, in turn, requires a detailed analysis of the mechanisms by which political disobedience is intended to influence the reasons of others. Philosophers who write on political disobedience have tended to focus on two of these mechanisms, which I will label “drawing attention” and “triggering conditional reasons,” and I will grant that civility is largely unimportant for these mechanisms. However, I will also argue that political disobedience often proceeds by other mechanisms, including the expression of speech acts like demands, requests, and testimony, and that civility is much more important in these mechanisms.
In Section II, I describe the formal characteristics of civility identified by Rawls (openness, nonviolence, and the acceptance of legal consequences), and argue that his account fails to identify a clear mechanism by which political disobedience affects the reasons of its audience. In Section III, I distinguish five mechanisms through which it might affect those reasons: drawing attention, giving testimony, triggering conditional reasons, making demands, and making requests. In Sections IV–IX, IV–IX, I discuss these mechanisms in detail and explore the role that civility plays in each of them.
I.引言在现代自由民主国家，出于政治动机而不服从法律的行为通常被容忍，以此来挑战和改变社会和法律惯例。1 约翰-罗尔斯（John Rawls）在其关于政治不服从的开创性著作中指出了许多哲学家现在认为是文明关键的三个特征：开放、接受法律后果和非暴力。虽然罗尔斯等人认为这些特征在政治不服从的内在逻辑中起着至关重要的作用，但如今，无论是政治不服从的实践者，还是对其进行理论研究的哲学家，都对公民意识持越来越怀疑的态度。最近，爱德华-斯诺登（Edward Snowden）的告密行动、"灭绝叛乱"（Extinction Rebellion）的封路行动、法国的 "青年运动"（Le mouvement des Gilets jaunes）以及加拿大的卡车司机车队（trucker convoys in Canada）等许多政治不服从的例子都在某种程度上表现出了明显的不文明。与现实生活中的这些趋势相呼应，许多研究政治不服从的哲学家也越来越怀疑文明，越来越支持不文明。正如坎迪斯-德尔马斯（Candice Delmas）所呼吁的，"因此，现在是时候开始思考不文明的不服从了--也就是说，不服从行为是有原则的，但也是故意冒犯、隐蔽、匿名、超过最低限度的破坏性、不尊重目标，或者不是为了向受众传达改革法律、政策或制度的必要性。这反过来又需要详细分析政治不服从意在影响他人理由的机制。研究政治不服从的哲学家们倾向于关注其中的两种机制，我将把它们称为 "引起注意 "和 "触发有条件的理由"，我承认，对于这些机制来说，文明程度基本上并不重要。在第二节中，我描述了罗尔斯所指出的文明的形式特征（公开、非暴力和接受法律后果），并认为他的论述未能指出政治不服从影响受众理由的明确机制。在第三节中，我区分了政治不服从可能影响这些理由的五种机制：引起注意、提供证词、引发有条件的理由、提出要求和请求。在第四-九节和第四-九节中，我将详细讨论这些机制，并探讨文明在每个机制中发挥的作用。
{"title":"The Role of Civility in Political Disobedience","authors":"Steve Coyne","doi":"10.1111/papa.12258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12258","url":null,"abstract":"<h2>I. INTRODUCTION</h2>\u0000<p>In modern liberal democracies, politically motivated disobedience of the law is generally tolerated as a way of challenging and changing social and legal practices. This paper concerns the role of civility in such political disobedience.1</p>\u0000<p>In his seminal work on political disobedience, John Rawls identified three characteristics that many philosophers now take to be the crux of civility: openness, acceptance of legal consequences, and nonviolence. While Rawls and others thought that these features play an essential role in the internal logic of political disobedience, today civility faces increasing skepticism from both practitioners of political disobedience and philosophers who theorize about it. Many of the recent examples of political disobedience that have done the most to capture the public's attention, including Edward Snowden's whistleblowing, Extinction Rebellion's road blockades, <i>Le mouvement des Gilets jaunes</i> in France, and the trucker convoys in Canada, have all been decidedly <i>uncivil</i> in some way or another. Mirroring these real-life trends, many philosophers working on political disobedience have also become increasingly skeptical of civility and increasingly supportive of incivility. As Candice Delmas urges, “It is thus time to start thinking about uncivil disobedience—to wit, disobedient acts that are principled yet also deliberately offensive, covert, anonymous, more than minimally destructive, not respectful of their targets, or which do not aim to communicate to an audience the need to reform laws, policies or institutions.”2</p>\u0000<p>To evaluate this shift in attitude toward civility, we first need to better understand what civility contributes to political disobedience. This, in turn, requires a detailed analysis of the mechanisms by which political disobedience is intended to influence the reasons of others. Philosophers who write on political disobedience have tended to focus on two of these mechanisms, which I will label “drawing attention” and “triggering conditional reasons,” and I will grant that civility is largely unimportant for these mechanisms. However, I will also argue that political disobedience often proceeds by other mechanisms, including the expression of speech acts like demands, requests, and testimony, and that civility is much more important in these mechanisms.</p>\u0000<p>In Section II, I describe the formal characteristics of civility identified by Rawls (openness, nonviolence, and the acceptance of legal consequences), and argue that his account fails to identify a clear mechanism by which political disobedience affects the reasons of its audience. In Section III, I distinguish five mechanisms through which it might affect those reasons: drawing attention, giving testimony, triggering conditional reasons, making demands, and making requests. In Sections IV–IX, IV–IX, I discuss these mechanisms in detail and explore the role that civility plays in each of them.</","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140107597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Which Majority Should Rule?","authors":"Daniel Wodak","doi":"10.1111/papa.12257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12257","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140037036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The idea that voting procedures should be accessible to every citizen who wishes to participate is a fundamental principle of democracy. In recent years, however, this idea has been challenged. As part of a resurgent skepticism about the epistemic qualities of democracy, some political philosophers have argued that participation in voting practices should be made conditional, through specifically designed formal mechanisms or procedures, upon having a sufficient level of political competence. Call these mechanisms epistemic constraints on voting (ECV).
The idea of employing criteria of competence to restrict participation in voting practices is taken, by many, to be inherently incompatible with political equality. In this paper, my purpose is to challenge this common claim and to show how, once properly reframed, the idea of setting up ECV need not violate political equality in any normatively significant fashion. I intend to do so by suggesting that it is possible to construct a justification for ECV that overcomes at least two problems that egalitarians commonly associate with ECV: the disrespect problem and the hierarchy problem.
Such a justification, which provides an alternative to the standard instrumental one presented in the literature, appeals to non-instrumental reasons. More precisely, it appeals to the idea that, qua participants in a shared practice, voters stand to one another in a normative relation that obligates them to act in an epistemically responsible fashion and makes them reciprocally accountable for their conduct in this regard. Modest ECV are justifiable because they ensure that voting practices conform to this relation and to the requirement of epistemic responsibility that follows from it. Call this the civic accountability justification for ECV.
The paper is structured in two parts. The first part clarifies the scope and assumptions of the paper (1) and sketches the broad outline of the civic accountability justification for ECV (2), with a particular focus on explicating its distinctive non-instrumental commitments. The second part discusses how the civic accountability justification for ECV can overcome two prominent issues of political equality: the disrespect problem (3) and the hierarchy problem (4).
For what concerns the former, which rests on a commitment to pay proper respect for the political judgments of all citizens, I will argue that the civic accountability justification does not resort to the kind of considerations of competence—i.e., comparative assessments, competence rankings, educational qualifications, etc.—that can be plausibly regarded as disrespectful. As for what concerns the latter, which rests on a commitment to avoid hierarchical social relations, I will argue that the civic accountability justification for ECV is based precisely on the idea that participation in voting creates a new normative relation, one that commands an
{"title":"Political Equality and Epistemic Constraints on Voting","authors":"Michele Giavazzi","doi":"10.1111/papa.12255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12255","url":null,"abstract":"<h2>I. INTRODUCTION</h2>\u0000<p>The idea that voting procedures should be accessible to every citizen who wishes to participate is a fundamental principle of democracy. In recent years, however, this idea has been challenged. As part of a resurgent skepticism about the epistemic qualities of democracy, some political philosophers have argued that participation in voting practices should be made conditional, through specifically designed formal mechanisms or procedures, upon having a sufficient level of political competence. Call these mechanisms <i>epistemic constraints on voting</i> (ECV).</p>\u0000<p>The idea of employing criteria of competence to restrict participation in voting practices is taken, by many, to be inherently incompatible with political equality. In this paper, my purpose is to challenge this common claim and to show how, once properly reframed, the idea of setting up ECV need not violate political equality in any normatively significant fashion. I intend to do so by suggesting that it is possible to construct a justification for ECV that overcomes at least two problems that egalitarians commonly associate with ECV: the disrespect problem and the hierarchy problem.</p>\u0000<p>Such a justification, which provides an alternative to the standard instrumental one presented in the literature, appeals to non-instrumental reasons. More precisely, it appeals to the idea that, qua participants in a shared practice, voters stand to one another in a normative relation that obligates them to act in an epistemically responsible fashion and makes them reciprocally accountable for their conduct in this regard. Modest ECV are justifiable because they ensure that voting practices conform to this relation and to the requirement of epistemic responsibility that follows from it. Call this the <i>civic accountability justification for ECV</i>.</p>\u0000<p>The paper is structured in two parts. The first part clarifies the scope and assumptions of the paper (1) and sketches the broad outline of the civic accountability justification for ECV (2), with a particular focus on explicating its distinctive non-instrumental commitments. The second part discusses how the civic accountability justification for ECV can overcome two prominent issues of political equality: the disrespect problem (3) and the hierarchy problem (4).</p>\u0000<p>For what concerns the former, which rests on a commitment to pay proper respect for the political judgments of all citizens, I will argue that the civic accountability justification does not resort to the kind of considerations of competence—i.e., comparative assessments, competence rankings, educational qualifications, etc.—that can be plausibly regarded as disrespectful. As for what concerns the latter, which rests on a commitment to avoid hierarchical social relations, I will argue that the civic accountability justification for ECV is based precisely on the idea that participation in voting creates a new normative relation, one that commands an ","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139515291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In July 1852, on the occasion of the American Independence Day celebration, the former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a blistering attack on his contemporaries' continued toleration of slavery. In this celebrated speech, Douglass famously accused his contemporaries of failing to honor the ideals championed by the American “Founders”:
The signers of the Declaration of Independence […] were great men […] great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. […] They were statesmen, patriots and heroes […] With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty, and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them! [But] [m]y business, if I have any here today, is with the present […] I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! […] America is false to the past […]1
Central to Douglass's denunciation, here, is the contrast between Americans' “glorious” past and their “degenerate” present. What is striking about this contrast, moreover, is that it relies on a clearly distorted and idealized picture of the past. It is evidently false that the Founders were paragons of virtue, for whom “justice, liberty, and humanity were ‘final’; not slavery and oppression.” Indeed, the vast majority of them were—as Douglass well knew—slaveholders. Yet, Douglass's idealization serves a crucial rhetorical function. It helps construct a moral gulf between his contemporaries, on the one hand, and the Founders they revere, on the other. And, by doing so, it helps shame his contemporaries into taking action against slavery.2
Douglass's speech exemplifies an important rhetorical practice. Public speakers often use their speech to mobilize their audience—in other words, to motivate their audience to take action, collectively, in support of a political cause. Yet, in non-ideal circumstances, successfully mobilizing a group can be extremely difficult. This might be, for instance, because taking action is costly for potential participants (e.g., if protestors would face arrest or violent retaliation); because the odds of achieving political change are very low (e.g., if powerful decision-makers have insulated themselves from pressure); or simply because the mobilizer's audience is suffering from weakness of will. To overcome such obstacles to motivating people, mobilizers often resort to deploying falsehoods: that is, they put forward propositions that misrepresent re
{"title":"Mobilizing Falsehoods","authors":"Maxime Lepoutre","doi":"10.1111/papa.12254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12254","url":null,"abstract":"<h2>I. INTRODUCTION</h2>\u0000<div>In July 1852, on the occasion of the American Independence Day celebration, the former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a blistering attack on his contemporaries' continued toleration of slavery. In this celebrated speech, Douglass famously accused his contemporaries of failing to honor the ideals championed by the American “Founders”: <blockquote><p>The signers of the Declaration of Independence […] were great men […] great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. […] They were statesmen, patriots and heroes […] With them, nothing was “<i>settled</i>” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty, and humanity were “<i>final</i>;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them! [But] [m]y business, if I have any here today, is with the present […] I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! […] America is false to the past […]1</p>\u0000<div></div>\u0000</blockquote>Central to Douglass's denunciation, here, is the contrast between Americans' “glorious” past and their “degenerate” present. What is striking about this contrast, moreover, is that it relies on a clearly distorted and idealized picture of the past. It is evidently false that the Founders were paragons of virtue, for whom “justice, liberty, and humanity were ‘<i>final</i>’; not slavery and oppression.” Indeed, the vast majority of them were—as Douglass well knew—slaveholders. Yet, Douglass's idealization serves a crucial rhetorical function. It helps construct a moral gulf between his contemporaries, on the one hand, and the Founders they revere, on the other. And, by doing so, it helps shame his contemporaries into taking action against slavery.2</div>\u0000<p>Douglass's speech exemplifies an important rhetorical practice. Public speakers often use their speech to <i>mobilize</i> their audience—in other words, to motivate their audience to take action, collectively, in support of a political cause. Yet, in non-ideal circumstances, successfully mobilizing a group can be extremely difficult. This might be, for instance, because taking action is costly for potential participants (e.g., if protestors would face arrest or violent retaliation); because the odds of achieving political change are very low (e.g., if powerful decision-makers have insulated themselves from pressure); or simply because the mobilizer's audience is suffering from weakness of will. To overcome such obstacles to motivating people, mobilizers often resort to deploying <i>falsehoods</i>: that is, they put forward propositions that misrepresent re","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139515279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sometimes, what you ought to do depends on what other people will do: whether or not Dad ought to pick the kids up from school depends on whether Mom is going to do it. This seems obvious enough. Yet, it leads to a problem. Suppose that several agents each have two options: A or B. It would be best if they all did A, significantly worse if they all did B, and worst of all if some did A while others did B. As it happens, each is going to do B, regardless of what the others do. Given how everyone is else going to act, it seems as though each of these agents ought to choose B: since if they were to pick A, they would bring about the worst possible result. Nevertheless, there seems to be something wrong here: after all, they could all pick A and bring about the best result. But how could it be wrong for everyone to do what they ought to do?1 Cases like this pose an obvious problem for act-consequentialists. Act-consequentialism says that you are morally obligated to do whatever will have the best outcome. But in cases like the above, the theory implies that everyone ought to act in ways which will collectively bring about a suboptimal outcome. While it isn't strictly inconsistent, many consequentialists find this conclusion hard to swallow.2 Slice and Patch Go Golfing: Mr. Patient needs a life-saving operation from two surgeons, Ms. Slice and Mr. Patch. If left unattended, Patient will die, though not painfully. If Slice cuts and Patch stitches, then he will survive. But cutting without stitching would cause his death to be agonizing, as would stitching without cutting. As it happens, Slice and Patch will each go golfing, regardless of what the other does. This paper defends the following solution. I will argue that, as well as individual “oughts” which apply to individual agents, there are also joint “oughts” which apply irreducibly to pluralities of agents. Moreover, in cases like Slice and Patch, individual and joint “oughts” can pull in different directions: while Slice ought not to cut and Patch ought not to stitch, they jointly ought to operate on Patient. This joint requirement corresponds to Patient's moral claim to be saved, and the surgeons' failure to satisfy it (in part) accounts for the wrong he stands to suffer. A version of this view is presented in some old papers by Frank Jackson4 and Derek Parfit,5 and has recently been revived by Alexander Dietz.6 According to these authors, “we” together can be morally required to do something, even if none of “us” is required to do our parts. I develop this view in two ways. First, I argue that we should think of joint “oughts” not as “oughts” which are held by group agents, but rather as “oughts” which are held jointly by several agents.7 This may or may not be the view which Dietz, Jackson, and Parfit meant to defend. But, for reasons I will explain, I think it should be. Second, I address the question of who wrongs whom when a joint “ought” goes unmet. I propose that if Patient is wronged by S
{"title":"Joint Ought","authors":"Rowan Mellor","doi":"10.1111/papa.12252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12252","url":null,"abstract":"Sometimes, what you ought to do depends on what other people will do: whether or not Dad ought to pick the kids up from school depends on whether Mom is going to do it. This seems obvious enough. Yet, it leads to a problem. Suppose that several agents each have two options: A or B. It would be best if they all did A, significantly worse if they all did B, and worst of all if some did A while others did B. As it happens, each is going to do B, regardless of what the others do. Given how everyone is else going to act, it seems as though each of these agents ought to choose B: since if they were to pick A, they would bring about the worst possible result. Nevertheless, there seems to be something wrong here: after all, they could all pick A and bring about the best result. But how could it be wrong for everyone to do what they ought to do?1 Cases like this pose an obvious problem for act-consequentialists. Act-consequentialism says that you are morally obligated to do whatever will have the best outcome. But in cases like the above, the theory implies that everyone ought to act in ways which will collectively bring about a suboptimal outcome. While it isn't strictly inconsistent, many consequentialists find this conclusion hard to swallow.2 Slice and Patch Go Golfing: Mr. Patient needs a life-saving operation from two surgeons, Ms. Slice and Mr. Patch. If left unattended, Patient will die, though not painfully. If Slice cuts and Patch stitches, then he will survive. But cutting without stitching would cause his death to be agonizing, as would stitching without cutting. As it happens, Slice and Patch will each go golfing, regardless of what the other does. This paper defends the following solution. I will argue that, as well as individual “oughts” which apply to individual agents, there are also joint “oughts” which apply irreducibly to pluralities of agents. Moreover, in cases like Slice and Patch, individual and joint “oughts” can pull in different directions: while Slice ought not to cut and Patch ought not to stitch, they jointly ought to operate on Patient. This joint requirement corresponds to Patient's moral claim to be saved, and the surgeons' failure to satisfy it (in part) accounts for the wrong he stands to suffer. A version of this view is presented in some old papers by Frank Jackson4 and Derek Parfit,5 and has recently been revived by Alexander Dietz.6 According to these authors, “we” together can be morally required to do something, even if none of “us” is required to do our parts. I develop this view in two ways. First, I argue that we should think of joint “oughts” not as “oughts” which are held by group agents, but rather as “oughts” which are held jointly by several agents.7 This may or may not be the view which Dietz, Jackson, and Parfit meant to defend. But, for reasons I will explain, I think it should be. Second, I address the question of who wrongs whom when a joint “ought” goes unmet. I propose that if Patient is wronged by S","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135432381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Can social science provide policy-guidance without undermining some basic democratic values? It would clearly be devastating if the answer was “no”: Most people are deeply committed both to democracy, as well as to the idea that policy decisions should be informed by the best available science, including the best available social science. Accordingly, the many philosophers who have worried about potential tensions between science and democracy have come out arguing that, if done right, good science and democracy mutually support rather than undermine each other, John Dewey and Philip Kitcher being paradigmatic examples.1 This article argues that there is an under-appreciated democratic challenge for policy-relevant science, which I will articulate specifically in the context of value-laden social scientific indicators. Value-ladenness has long been acknowledged to pose an obstacle for reconciling science and democracy: It creates the potential for the value judgments made by a small subset of the population to have a significant impact on policy decisions, in a way that bypasses normal processes of democratic legitimization. Consequently, solutions to this challenge have either defended the value-free ideal,2 or stressed the need to, in one way or another, democratically align the values entering science, in a way that is parallel to how democratic legitimacy is given to public decision-making more generally. The nature of many social scientific indicators makes the value-free ideal wholly unworkable, lest we give up the entire project of aiming to measure poverty, inequality, or wellbeing. And so only the second common type of response seems to be available in their case. But, I will argue, this response misses a significant part of the challenge value-ladenness poses to democracy. The solution, I will argue, is greater value pluralism rather than democratic alignment. As I write, the United Kingdom, like many countries around the world, is facing a devastating cost of living crisis. The incomes of large numbers of households cannot keep up with the rising prices of the goods and services they consume, pushing increasing numbers into poverty. To tackle this crisis, it is important that policy-makers have a clear picture of inflation—of how much the cost of living has increased, how it is projected to further increase, and how different policy options will affect the rate of change. In the United Kingdom, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) supplies a number of measures of inflation that are treated as key indicators by policy-makers, by the public and media holding them to account, and by social scientists studying the causal relationships between inflation and other social scientific variables or policy interventions. The most widely used and reported indicator is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). But what is the cost of living? The first thing to note is that it is clearly a value-laden concept and treated as such by those using it. Saying t
{"title":"Social Science, Policy and Democracy","authors":"Johanna Thoma","doi":"10.1111/papa.12250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12250","url":null,"abstract":"Can social science provide policy-guidance without undermining some basic democratic values? It would clearly be devastating if the answer was “no”: Most people are deeply committed both to democracy, as well as to the idea that policy decisions should be informed by the best available science, including the best available social science. Accordingly, the many philosophers who have worried about potential tensions between science and democracy have come out arguing that, if done right, good science and democracy mutually support rather than undermine each other, John Dewey and Philip Kitcher being paradigmatic examples.1 This article argues that there is an under-appreciated democratic challenge for policy-relevant science, which I will articulate specifically in the context of value-laden social scientific indicators. Value-ladenness has long been acknowledged to pose an obstacle for reconciling science and democracy: It creates the potential for the value judgments made by a small subset of the population to have a significant impact on policy decisions, in a way that bypasses normal processes of democratic legitimization. Consequently, solutions to this challenge have either defended the value-free ideal,2 or stressed the need to, in one way or another, democratically align the values entering science, in a way that is parallel to how democratic legitimacy is given to public decision-making more generally. The nature of many social scientific indicators makes the value-free ideal wholly unworkable, lest we give up the entire project of aiming to measure poverty, inequality, or wellbeing. And so only the second common type of response seems to be available in their case. But, I will argue, this response misses a significant part of the challenge value-ladenness poses to democracy. The solution, I will argue, is greater value pluralism rather than democratic alignment. As I write, the United Kingdom, like many countries around the world, is facing a devastating cost of living crisis. The incomes of large numbers of households cannot keep up with the rising prices of the goods and services they consume, pushing increasing numbers into poverty. To tackle this crisis, it is important that policy-makers have a clear picture of inflation—of how much the cost of living has increased, how it is projected to further increase, and how different policy options will affect the rate of change. In the United Kingdom, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) supplies a number of measures of inflation that are treated as key indicators by policy-makers, by the public and media holding them to account, and by social scientists studying the causal relationships between inflation and other social scientific variables or policy interventions. The most widely used and reported indicator is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). But what is the cost of living? The first thing to note is that it is clearly a value-laden concept and treated as such by those using it. Saying t","PeriodicalId":47999,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Public Affairs","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135995210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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