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Can conceptual engineering actually promote social justice?

This paper explores the question: What would conceptual engineering have to be in order to promote social justice? Specifically, it argues that to promote social justice, conceptual engineering must deliver the following: (i) it needs to be possible to deliberately implement a conceptual engineering...

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Published in:Synthese Vol. 200; no. 2; pp. 1 - 23
Main Author: Podosky, Paul-Mikhail Catapang
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Apr2022
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        10.1007/s11229-022-03469-5
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        atl: Can conceptual engineering actually promote social justice?
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        au: Podosky, Paul-Mikhail Catapang
        affil: Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
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      keyword:
        Conceptual engineering
        Conceptual ethics
        Implementation challenge of conceptual engineering
        Looping effects
        Social justice
      ab: This paper explores the question: What would conceptual engineering have to be in order to promote social justice? Specifically, it argues that to promote social justice, conceptual engineering must deliver the following: (i) it needs to be possible to deliberately implement a conceptual engineering proposal in large communities; (ii) it needs to be possible for a conceptual engineering proposal to bring about change to extant social categories; (iii) it needs to be possible to bring a population to adopt a conceptual engineering proposal for the right reasons; and (iv) it needs to be possible to do (i)–(iii) without producing harmful consequences. I show that, of the three dominant approaches to conceptual engineering in the literature, only one of them seems amenable to the idea that it is possible and legitimate to promote social justice in accordance with (i)–(iv).
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    language: English
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