What Experiments Can and Cannot Do for Political Philosophy (Departmental Seminar)

Abstract:

I examine how experiments can justify normative principles. Some contend that experiments justify indirectly: experiments provide evidence for non-normative claims which, in turn, ground normative principles. Although plausible, this isn’t a significant methodological innovation. Others contend that experiments justify in a freestanding way: all the assumptions needed for experimental justification can, at least ultimately, themselves be justified using experimentation. But this proposal is susceptible to a regress problem. I provide a new version of experimental justification—direct midlevel experimentalism—that is more ambitious than indirect experimentalism but avoids the regress problem. Using a case study about central banking, I argue that experiments offer a distinctive type of procedural justification for midlevel normative principles.

Delivered in English.
All are welcome.