Philosophers and the public policy process: inside, outside, or nowhere at all?
Three standard tasks undertaken by applied ethicists engaged in the public policy process are identifying value issues, clarifying concepts and meanings, and analyzing arguments. I urge that these should be expanded to include making specific moral judgments and advocating positions and policies. Three objections to philosophers/ethicists' engagement in the formation of public policy are advanced and evaluated: philosophers necessarily do public policy badly, doing it at all compromises one's integrity as a seeker after truth, and frequently participation is in the service of a repressive status quo that is structured simultaneously to preclude radical change and to co-opt ethicists. Finally, however, I argue that those who would be 'applied ethicists' cannot avoid all participation in some form of a public policy process; that engagement holds the hope as well for improved ethical theory; that the preferred form of participation is frequently from outside of establishment bodies; and that wherever philosophers do involve themselves in policy formulation, this is best done in the expanded sense urged at the outset.
Momeyer
R W
RW
Department of Philosophy, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056.
D026683:Advisory Committees; D026688:Bioethical Issues; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D026689:Ethical Analysis; D026822:Ethicists; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006266:Health Education / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006291:Health Policy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D028681:Moral Obligations; D009014:Morals; D010344:Patient Advocacy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D012945:Social Values; D014481:United States; D028722:Virtues