Policy-oriented political philosophy

Here is a joke. A philosopher goes to a policy committee.

Got it? Okay, okay, it’s probably a bad joke.

It’s also outdated: these days, many philosophers do go to policy committees. The cliché is that a philosopher sits in the academic ivory tower, thinks long and hard about a problem, then writes a theory about it. Somehow, policymakers hear about it, and at some point, they invite the philosopher to a committee in which he or she expounds what the theory means for a concrete policy question, e.g. new legislation or regulation. If it goes well, some ideas from the theory influence actual policymaking, and thus so-called “real life.”

This cliché is too simplistic. But how does political philosophy relate to policy? And how should it do that, in today’s difficult political environment? These were some of the questions of a workshop that we held last week at the Blavatnik School in Oxford. It brought together a range of scholars whose work relates to the broad label we used, “policy-oriented political philosophy.” And if there is one conclusion that can be drawn, it is that “policy-oriented political philosophy” is alive and kicking, with an incredible range of projects that bring philosophy in dialogue with citizens and policymakers, thereby also changing the ways in which we theorize.

There are many ways in which to be a policy-oriented political philosopher

What struck us, the organizers, already at the stage of sifting through submitted abstracts is the breadth of topics that political philosophers work on these days, and on which they are sometimes also involved in policy making – from city-planning to restitution of museum objects, public health, or hate speech regulation. But what also became clear in the talks and discussions at the workshop is how many different roles philosophers can take on in being “oriented” to public policy. There is the classic role of contributing to public discourse, which requires quite different ways of speaking and writing about philosophy than what gets published in academic journals. There is the role as committee member, but which can, again, take on very different forms. Have you been invited to provide specific views on a topic? Or is it precisely the fact you’re a philosopher, but haven’t worked on a topic, that gives you legitimacy, as someone coming with a blank slate? The ways in which philosophers end up in committees can be quite contingent, and there is of course also a huge variety of committees. So, it’s crucial to understand what the task actually is, and what one’s role as philosopher is.

Committees tend to be composed of academics from several disciplines, along with practitioners, people from industry, and policy makers. The latter often come with the expectation that anyone on a committee can articulate a consensus or ‘the state of knowledge’ in their field. But philosophy breeds disagreement over consensus, which means a philosopher has to figure out a way of contributing that might not fit with initial expectations. While there are proposals for how precisely to conceptualize this role, there are, arguably, many different ways of understanding and living it. Even the clichéd model of “applying one’s philosophical theory to a policy problem” may sometimes have its place!

Context matters

In addition to the variety of committees, there is the variety of contexts. Understanding the political culture and institutions of a country is important. For example, in the UK many civil servants have studied some philosophy (but might not be up to date on the latest discussions). In many Eastern European countries, there is suspicion against philosophers who cooperate with state institutions, because of the history of resistance and counter-movements. In some countries, people have a lot of respect (maybe too much) for philosophy, in others, they question its very right to exist.

Context also matters in a temporal sense. There can be different political windows of opportunity, in which different proposals may be feasible, in the sense of having a good chance of being accepted by the public. The latter is important because policies only have a chance of working well if people actually follow the rules or regulations, rather than finding ways around them.

But often, one cannot be so sure what “the public” actually thinks, and how malleable these views are. An example that was brought up a few times was that in many countries, when gay marriage got introduced, public support very quickly shifted in its favor – without this being visible in survey data before the legal change happens. Understanding these political temporalities is important for thinking about policy, but it is, of course, not always possible to anticipate all future developments that can make a policy a success or failure.

Theory and judgment

One important point to note are the different starting points of abstract theorizing and policy-related work. Theories can start from idealizing assumptions, whereas policymaking always starts from the status quo and asks what kind of changes might improve things. This requires, again, understanding what might be feasible at a given moment in time, and a willingness to think about painful compromises between different values or principles that idealizing theories simply do not talk about.

As several philosophers with experience in committee work emphasized, it is therefore often not the content of philosophical theories, but the ability to think things through, which philosophers can bring to the table. The work is very much about seeing the relations between different values and principles and connecting them to with what different parties could live with, i.e. what might make for feasible policy. It is often also important to find the right expressions that articulate what people think, offering them conceptual tools that help them find their own position. This latter activity can, of course, also take place in many other settings, not only in policy committees – it might matter as much for teaching civil servants as for attending local school boards.

Theory as dialogue

As should have become clear by now, doing policy-oriented political philosophy is not about the lone thinker, but very much about dialogue: about being willing to listen to others and connecting one’s contribution to theirs. And this, of course, is not a one-way road, from philosophy to “real life.” Instead, there are many new forms of theorizing that start from the messy social reality, e.g. exploring how deliberation takes place in neighborhood associations in Delhi or how the concept of human rights actually gets used in political contexts. This can cause friction for the abstract theoretical concepts and arguments that are philosophers’ home turf. But this friction can be brought to constructive use, and also lead us to refining or broadening our concepts and arguments.

Often, this kind of work also requires collaboration with social scientists from other fields, which raises yet other methodological questions. For example, it is useful to draw on social scientific insights or historical cases when trying to understand what the implications of policies would be. Sometimes, you can rule out certain policy options because they have a high likelihood of being self-undermining in the sense that they would not reach the goals they were set out to reach – but then you might need to have very careful conversations about the comparability of the cases in question, and you need to understand what social scientists or historians have actually studied.

All these forms of theorizing or participating in policymaking require philosophers to be good partners in dialogue. This requires openness, empathy, and attention to context, and a whole other set of epistemic virtues – arguably, quite different ones that those that best enable someone to write grand abstract theories. And yet, it is a set of epistemic virtues that philosophers have, from the Socratic dialogues onwards, also cherished and tried to cultivate. It comes with the humbleness of acknowledging that there are many other forms of expertise, from local and practical knowledge to other scientific approaches or the experiential knowledge of practitioners. But it can make a specific contribution. And so, “A philosopher goes to a policy committee” is in the end not a joke. It’s just, in most cases, rather different from what the cliché holds.

PS: thanks to my co-organizers, Jo Wolff, Dan Halliday, and Jonathan Floyd for feedback on this text.