“Complexity” is something of a buzzword today—and probably for good reason.
If we think about the organization of our societies, we are presented with an array of overlapping systems that would baffle Byzantium. Legal, political, and economic institutions are interconnected in myriad ways and at local, national, and international scales. This makes predicting the effects of a policy an arcane art of discerning uncertainties and unknowns. Such social complexity often prevents the moral philosopher from making a clear practical recommendation about what course of action is best. Many times, the ethicist is constrained simply to observe the immorality of social patterns without being able to prescribe plausible remedies for them.
Complexity also presents a challenge to our tools of ethical analysis. Increasing specialization within academic disciplines can erode confidence in a field’s basic concepts. In academic philosophy, for example, central moral concepts like freedom rest on hotly-contested assumptions, and disagreements in ethical theory affect which aspects of our common social life appear as morally relevant. Thus, moral philosophy is embattled on two fronts: on its applied side, it confronts in contemporary society an increasingly complex object of moral analysis; while, on its theoretical side, it finds itself embroiled in increasingly complex disputes about the meaning and coherence of the concepts that we hope to apply.
As the new series editor for the “Ethical Dilemmas in Public Philosophy” series, I hope to feature work that reflects critically not just on how philosophy can elucidate the complexity of our world today, but also on how the practice of philosophy is changing—or should change—to better fit the times we live in. There are many questions relevant to this theme. Here are just a handful that contributors might explore.
How can decision- and policy-making be moral in situations of uncertainty? (For example, should the United States government institute universal healthcare without complete knowledge of the policy’s economic and political impacts?) When and how should moral theories defer to situated agents and their knowledge claims? (For instance, are current conceptions of moral identity and recognition adequate to transpeople’s experiences of misrecognition?) How should philosophers collaborate with other specialists to ensure that their diagnoses and recommendations are sufficiently informed? Given the many structural injustices of our society, and given our inability to address them all at once and equally well, how can we responsibly triage which problems to address first? How do new social movements, new identities, and new technologies affect moral intuitions and consensus outside and inside of the academy? (For example, humanities institutes across the US organized workshops and talks around the idea of “truth” in response to the fake news and conspiracy-peddling of the Trump era of American politics. How should we understand feedback loops like these?)
The series will remain open to diverse voices, philosophical persuasions, and professional backgrounds. I will also continue my predecessor’s practice of editing for clarity and accessibility. Ultimately, the series’ goal is to reflect on what philosophy can do to help us understand the moral complexities of our present. Any proposal that advances this goal will have my full support.
If you have any questions or would like to pitch an idea, please contact me at bmr21@psu.edu.
