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Conference Announcement Theme: Normative Interventions Type: International Conference Institution: School of Public Policy, University College London Location: London (United Kingdom) Date: 18.–19.2.2016 __________________________________________________ The relationship between political philosophy and political practice is among the oldest preoccupations of our discipline. The execution of Socrates is a metaphor for the dangers of taking philosophical arguments about civic life into the political arena. While the costs of “going public” are certainly no longer lethal, professional pitfalls remain for those who seek to influence policymakers and voters through their work. How can political philosophers do the kind of fine-grained, esoteric work prized by top journals, while also achieving the real-world impact that is increasingly demanded by university leadership? What sort of impact are political philosophers even positioned to make, and how can they best make it? These strategic questions are matched in importance by a series of philosophical questions about the ethics of public engagement. What moral principles ought to govern scholarly intervention in public debates about policy? What is the appropriate role for a political philosopher in a democratic society, in which the idea of normative expertise strikes many as morally obnoxious? What kind of epistemic authority do political philosophers even have? What are the important moral differences between normative and empirical expertise? How do political philosophers fit into the division of political labour between citizens, legislators, journalists, political party members, think-tank writers, and civil servants? What can we learn from historical efforts by political philosophers to influence the public? Are political philosophers morally required to help make their society more just? If so, what implications does this imperative have for the topics that they ought to pursue? Are there “democratic constraints” on the practice of political philosophy—for example, requiring that they simply articulate widely held beliefs or outline the best arguments on each side of policy debates? What are the pitfalls—of distortion and oversimplification—that theorists face when trying to make their arguments publicly accessible? Should political philosophers sometimes lie or deliberately mislead the public? Is political philosophy too complicated for ordinary citizens to understand—and if so, is that a problem for the discipline? Should political philosophers simply stay out of politics? This conference seeks to address these and related questions. It will feature talks from leading political philosophers with experience engaging the public and reflecting on the relation between political theory and practice, including Professor Thom Brooks, Professor Cécile Laborde, Baroness Onora O’Neill, Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Professor Marc Stears, Professor David Miller, Professor Albert Weale, and Professor Jonathan Wolff. Contact: Dr Jeffrey Howard School of Public Policy University College London The Rubin Building 29/31 Tavistock Square London, WC1H 9QU United Kingdom Email: jeffrey.how...@ucl.ac.uk __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
