In light of the critical reception (here, here, and here) of my recent blogging on the demise of certain taboos in philosophy (here, here), it might be useful to put some of my cards on the table (all of these are in the spirit of Sandra Peart's and David Levy's analytic egalitarianism, but without their focus on the methodological assumption of the homogeneity of human nature): I advocate that when philosophy (sometimes disguised as economics, or law, or political theory, etc) shades (often deliberately) into public advocacy and public policy some kind of "symmetry principle" needs to be applied to it. (Think of Harsanyi's and Rawls' Veil of Ignorance as paradigmatic instances.) Here are some de-feasible maxims by which I (morally) evaluate policy philosophy:
- Philosophers (or experts) can't keep themselves (their incentives/their roles, etc) out of the model/proposal. (In practice this means that we can't simply assume that philosophers are disinterested truth-seekers in the context of policy.)
- Philosophers (or experts) shouldn't promote policies where the down-side risks of implementation are (primarily) shifted onto less fortunate others.
- Philosophers (or experts) should make an effort to educate policy and opinion-makers to counter-arguments to the policies they advocate.
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