Philosophical methods and being public philosophers
by Charlotte Franziska Unruh, Susanne Hahn, and Eugen Pissarskoi
Artificial intelligence and related technologies bring to the fore philosophical questions around privacy, autonomy, and democracy: consider, for example, the discussion on whether the use of facial recognition technology should be permitted in public spaces. Topics surrounding the environment and climate change also raise philosophical questions around justice towards current and future generations, among others. And pandemics pose questions about the distribution of medical resources, and the justifiability of restrictive measures in the name of health. These are some examples of public debates that academic philosophers are weighing in on. But what can philosophers contribute to these public discussions?
We believe that the renewed attention to philosophical expertise raises questions about the role that philosophers can, and should, take in public discourse, questions which are themselves philosophical: what contribution can philosophers, as philosophers, make to public debates? What kind of contribution are they justified to make with their expertise, their skills, or the methods they are using?
Four Roles of Philosophers in Public Discourse
To think about these questions, we propose to distinguish four roles that philosophers can take in public discourse. These roles roughly correspond to philosophical methods, as we describe in the following.
A first role philosophers can be engaged in is that of interpreters. In public disagreements, it is often not immediately clear what exactly causes the controversy: are empirical facts contested? Or the quality of evidence? Do participants assume different meanings of expressions used? Or are we facing a genuine normative disagreement? Consider the example of facial recognition technology. A normative disagreement might be over whether privacy or crime prevention matter more, morally speaking. Disagreement might also arise from divergent uses of thick terms, such as privacy, security, or racial profiling. Philosophers have developed methods for reconstructing views, identifying points of disagreement, and interpreting divergent views in charitable ways. These methods can help move debates forward, as they can help disagreeing parties to take each other’s views seriously and to avoid talking past each other.
A second role for philosophers is that of ethics “experts”. Philosophers can provide moral principles and deduce implications for any given case, then advocate for those in public discourse. Such ‘top-down’ methods proceed by bringing a philosophical perspective to a discussion and deriving, from those foci, their guidance or recommendations for action. For example, from a utilitarian perspective, one might consider the impact of both privacy and security concerns on the welfare of people, whereas from a Kantian perspective, one might emphasize the autonomy and dignity of those placed under surveillance.
In contrast, bottom-up methods start from specific use cases and inductively derive moral judgments from case-specific considerations. This suggests a third role for philosophers: the role as ethics advisors. In our facial recognition example, ethics advisors might start by considering a given use case: the installing of cameras in a public park, to analyze the recordings with software and match faces with a database. An ethics advisor might consider the empirical evidence for the use of this specific software in the given context, alternative methods of ensuring security, and so on. Building on these specific considerations, ethics advisors might be able to identify ethically salient properties and principles, such as principles of non-discrimination. The ethically salient properties and the underlying principles can be used to guide discussion about a solution in the given use case.
Fourth and finally, philosophers can use the reflective equilibrium method. The method justifies rules used to guide action by adjusting them with a pre-systematic practice. One exploits an existing practice of action, which is prima facie considered to be tried and tested, in order to propose rules that cover the new practice and serve to guide action in further cases. If the rules identified contradict pre-systematic practice, then both the practice and the rules are candidates for adjustment. Philosophers then ask: should the existing practice be changed or the rule? For example, facial recognition via AI procedures evokes different judgements: on the one hand, its use is advocated in order to be able to better prosecute criminal offences in public spaces. On the other hand, the technology is rejected due to the possibility of false identifications. An analysis guided by the equilibrium consideration would extrapolate rules from both judgements and check whether they conflict with existing rules about data protection or security, for example, and whether any of these rules should be adapted in light of the others. We suggest that the role of philosophers applying the reflective equilibrium method in public discussions could be described as a moderator role, where moderators draw attention to apparent conflicts in thinking and overlooked aspects of debates.
What Can We Learn from Making Philosopher’s Self-Understanding Explicit?
We believe that distinguishing these approaches can be a useful first step in reflecting upon different ways in which philosophers can contribute to public debates of philosophical relevance as philosophers. Such reflection might help philosophers clarify how they understand their roles and contributions when engaging in public debates generally. This analysis might also help audiences see where philosophers are coming from, and evaluate their contributions (and adjust their expectations) accordingly.
For instance, following our discussion above, ethicists in the roles of experts or advisors tend to justify a specific ethical position or derive practical recommendations, whereas ethicists in the roles of interpreters or moderators refrain from taking an ethical position and, instead, aim at enabling the public to develop a well-considered judgment. These aims, however, might defy expectations: perhaps audiences sometimes expect ethicists to take the roles of experts or advisors instead of confining themselves to interpretation and facilitation of public debates.
We also think that reflecting upon the relationship between philosophical methods and the self-understanding of public philosophers can shed light on the aims and scope of the philosophical methods themselves. Consider, for instance, the relationship between the possible roles that philosophers can take in the public discourse and their metaethical positions. Does the role of ethical experts presuppose the conviction that there are moral truths and uniquely correct solutions to morally relevant problems?
We hope that these questions can serve as input for further debate on the role of public philosophers, both in philosophy and beyond.
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