Dialogues concerning Natural Politics: Book Eight
The logic of surrogate (and, thus, policymaker) decision-making
Book Eight Synopsis: The elucidation of the posited conception of policymakers continues in Book Eight. The characters consider the appropriate definitions of policy and policymaker, and of knowledge and ignorance. The discussion leads to the conclusion that policymakers are a kind of surrogate decision-maker. The distinguishing mark of surrogate decision-makers is that they are distinct from the persons on whose behalf and in whose ostensible interests they decide. This means that they are more likely, other things equal, to be ignorant of either these interests or how to promote them than a person who decides on their own behalf and who tends to have better, if not infallible, knowledge of their own interests and how to promote them. The distinguishing mark of policymakers, in other words, is their tendency to be ignorant of some of the knowledge required to realize the tasks they are charged with realizing, in particular, goals that promote the interests of their constituents. Several arguments are given to prefer this conception to the traditional conceptions of policymakers. Unlike policymakers’ motivations, the nature and extent of their knowledge can be investigated empirically. Furthermore, given the complementary relationship between the nature and extent of relevant policymaker ignorance regarding a particular goal and the need for the intervention of spontaneous forces, if the goal is to be realized despite this ignorance, these forces are likewise opened up to a degree of empirical inquiry. These arguments are then illustrated by way of plausible examples of policymaker ignorance.
Dramatis Personae
Emma – 30 years old; Fifth-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in political philosophy and epistemology; ABD (“all-but-dissertation”); dating Andre
Andre – 35 years old; Fourth-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in philosophy of science; Academic Advisor to undergraduate students in the Philosophy Department; dating Emma
Connor – 24 years old; Second-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in normative ethics; a devout political progressive
Jack – 25 years old; Second-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in logic and epistemology; a devout political libertarian
Book Eight
Emma [smiling]: OK…so who are policymakers? Who do we include in this class and who do we exclude?
Jack: What do you mean? We include people who make policies and exclude people who don’t.
Emma: Thanks, smart ass. No, actually, that’s good, now that I think about it.
Jack: I’m smarter than you give me credit fo—
Emma: No, you’re not. Anyway, we should clarify what we mean by policies before we define who makes them. Or, rather, we might learn who policymakers are simply by defining policies first. Policymakers would then be the people involved in making policies, whatever these are.
Connor: A policy seems to be a plan or a program, a set of rules or directives.
Emma: True, but I think the defining aspect of a policy, the feature that distinguishes policies from other sets of rules, is a particular expectation that attaches to policies, namely, the expectation that the rules or directives be followed, or adhered to, by some persons. The persons expected to follow policies, let’s call constituents, and the persons who make the policies that constituents are expected to follow are our policymakers. This doesn’t get us very far, obviously.
Connor: Doesn’t that imply that policymakers can also be constituents? If policymakers make policies that they are expected to follow themselves, doesn’t this place them in both categories?
Emma: Yeah, but that might be OK. It works the other way, too. In democratic and republican systems of government, constituents are, in some way, directly or indirectly, involved in the policymaking process and, so, fall into both categories. Indeed, in a direct democracy, every constituent with rights of political participation is also a policymaker. But, I see no reason to assume a priori that the relevant classes must be mutually disjoint in order to arrive at a conception of politicians appropriate for political inquiry. It is hard to think of a historical government that featured entirely disjoint classes of policymakers and constituents, that is, where all policymakers were exempt from their self-made policies and no constituents were involved in making policy. Indeed, the more significant fact about the two classes might not be that they’re typically not mutually disjoint, but that they’re never identical; that policymakers always make policies for a class of constituents which, whether or not it includes the policymakers themselves, necessarily includes non-policymakers, people who are merely constituents, people who are expected to follow policies, but who play no part in their making.
Jack: That seems right. The only exception I can think of occurs in instances of personal policies, when a person sets a rule for themselves and only for themselves. Actually, I guess the same thing happens when a group sets a policy meant to apply only to its own members, provided that every member of the group is involved in making the relevant policy. But, I suppose, for our purposes, we can ignore such policies.
Emma: Right. I think so, too. Every other instance of policymaking – or, more exactly, the only kind of policymaking we are really interested in – involves some persons, policymakers, making policies for another group of persons, constituents, that, whether it encompasses the policymakers, necessarily includes other persons, mere constituents, who are not policymakers. Even in a direct democracy, unless every person has a right of political participation, policymakers make policies for some persons who don’t have such rights, for example, infants and children, the mentally challenged, prisoners, non-citizen residents…
Connor: So, you’re suggesting that the defining feature of policymakers is that they set rules or directives that other persons are expected to follow. The policymakers might be expected to follow these rules themselves, but, whether or not the policymakers are expected to follow the rules, there are some among the constituents expected to follow the rules who are not also policymakers. That sounds right to me, but doesn’t that mean that a policymaker is just a kind of surrogatedecision-maker? How do we distinguish policymakers from other kinds of surrogates?
Emma: That’s a good question. I have to think about it.
Jack: I don’t see why we need to distinguish policymakers from other surrogates. I think it’s probably right to say that policymakers are surrogate decision-makers and that whatever is true about the mental characteristics of surrogates is equally true of the mental characteristics of policymakers qua policymakers. It actually might help to answer our main question to consider decision-making in surrogate contexts.
Emma: Very good, Jackie. I might also add – drawing the parallel with surrogate decision-making even closer – that most, perhaps all, policies are not only expected to be followed, but to be followed ostensibly in some persons’ interests. It is never the case that one is expected to follow or adhere to a policy just for the sake, or for the fun, of it. Policies always have ostensible, purported, alleged, claimed, beneficiaries. Of course, in modern governments – hell, maybe in all governments, ever – the constituents themselves are the supposed beneficiaries of policymaking. At least, policymakers claim to make policy exclusively in their constituents’ interests. More to the point, there is a universal expectation that policymakers ought to make policy in their constituents’ interests, just as surrogates are always expected to decide in the interests of the persons on whose behalf they make choices.
Connor: OK, so a policymaker is a kind of surrogate decision-maker, who sets rules and directives that some other persons, namely, constituents, are expected to follow, ostensibly in their own, that is, in the constituents’ own, interests, whether or not following these rules is in fact in their interests. Is that right?
Emma: Yeah, I think so.
Jack: What is the scope of policymaking, so defined?
Emma: What do you mean, Zip?
Jack: I mean, you’ve been talking about policymakers as people “involved in the policymaking process,” which means that constituents in democratic systems are also policymakers. But, what about all of the people involved in the policymaking process who are not mere voters, but are not elected officeholders either? What about the bureaucrats, the administrators, the public librarians, the DMV employees, the state functionaries charged with cleaning roadkill off the highways, the administrators and staffs of publicly-funded schools, what about police officers and police staff, what about legislative aides, what about judges, clerks, and bailiffs, are they all policymakers?
Emma: Yes, I think we should include them. We are looking for a conception of policymakers conducive to explaining both the causes and the effects of policy decisions, right?
Jack: Right.
Emma: Then we should include everyone in the policymaking process whose professional activities have any bearing on the causes and effects of policy decisions. I think we should include everyone involved not only in the design of policies, that is, in their making, narrowly construed, but also everyone involved in how policies are digested by constituents. A well-designed, but poorly implemented or poorly enforced, policy can fail to bear the effects expected of it. Failures of policy implementation or enforcement can lead to constituent disappointment no less than can failures of policy design, so I think we should include in the category of policymakers everyone involved in any stage of both the policymaking and, as it were, policy-digesting, processes, from design to implementation, enforcement, and administration. At least, we should see if we can use this wide-scope definition of policymaking to arrive at a conception of policymakers that meets our criteria and, if not, adjust what falls under the scope of policymaking accordingly. Sound good?
Connor: OK, I’m game.
Jack: Ditto. Sounds good to me.
Emma: Andre?
Andre: No one wants to hear from me. I’m just an observer here.
Emma: Oh, come on, sad sack. Play the game. It’s fun.
Andre: You really seem to have this well in hand, but I’ll play along.
Emma: OK, Andre’s in! So, how should we proceed? Should we maybe take up the Wonderdork’s suggestion to think a bit about the nature of surrogate decision-making?
Andre: Wouldn’t that mean giving Zippy credit for a good idea?
Jack: Aghast!
Emma: Eh, I guess pigs can fly.
Andre: Which is the flying pig, Jack’s good idea or your giving him credit for it?
Emma: Zippy’s good idea is the flying pig. My crediting him for it is a pig flying around hell-frozen-over [smiles].
Connor [laughs]: So…uh, surrogates. What about them?
Emma: If we can determine what makes cases of surrogate decision-making unique, as compared to cases in which persons decides for themselves, we might learn something about the mental characteristics of policymakers that is relevant for their policy decisions and, more to the point we are most interested in, that is conducive to explaining the causes and effects of these decisions.
Jack: Haven’t we already basically said what makes surrogate decision-making unique, namely, the fact of a disconnect between the decision-maker and the person on whose behalf, and ostensibly in whose interests, a decision is being made?
Emma: Yes, but I don’t think we’ve clarified why this disconnect is important, not that it’s not rather obvious…
Jack: It’s important because, unlike when a person decides for themselves, in surrogate cases, there’s no guarantee that the decision-maker knows either what is in the surrogated person’s interests or, what is sometimes the same thing, what the surrogated person would decide.
Emma: Very good, Jack, but be careful. There’s no guarantee in cases of personal decision-making that the decision-maker has infallible access to their own mental states. We don’t want to be Cartesians about…well, we don’t want to be Cartesians about anything in epistemology [laughs]. It’s possible, when a person decides for themselves, that the person does not know their own interests or what decision will promote their own interests. However, I agree that such a disconnect is far more likely – if not a necessary consequence of the decision-maker being distinct from the person whose fate is decided – in cases of surrogate decision-making, and that such a disconnect is important precisely because of this greater likelihood in surrogate cases.
Connor: So, what does this mean for the question of how we should conceive of policymakers for the sake of political analysis?
Jack: Isn’t it obvious? Don’t you see what Emma’s done? She’s led us back to where we left off when we first had this discussion. She basically gave us the answer to the question how to conceive policymakers then, but we were too dense to see the point.
Connor: Wait, I’m still dense. What’s the point?
Jack: She was arguing then that both of the leading conceptions of policymakers, the Rousseauian notion that policymakers act in the general interest and the Humean conception of policymakers as self-interested, implicitly and illicitly attribute unique knowledge and abilities to policymakers that there is no reason to believe they possess. She argued against me on the grounds that the Humean conception illegitimately assumes that policymakers know both their own interests and how to achieve goals that promote their interests. She argued against your position on the grounds that there is no reason to assume a priori that policymakers know either of what the general will consists or how to promote it, and then she argued similarly against the notion that expert advice necessarily buttresses policymakers’ limited epistemic capacities. Well, she’s now shown that surrogates – and, therefore, policymakers – far from being epistemically special, are likely, if not destined, to lack knowledge that they need to make effective policies, because of the disconnect separating them from those on whose behalf they decide, their constituents. How should we conceive of policymakers, Emma?
Emma [smiling broadly]: As ignorant. As lacking knowledge and as limited in their epistemic capacities. Not only should we not attribute knowledge to them a priori that there is no reason to assume they possess, we should recognize the manifest fact of their ignorance and build our conception upon this fact. Human beings are necessarily cognitively limited. Policymakers are human beings—of a sort. Political office does not bestow special epistemic powers or provide privileged access to truth. Were you or I elected to political office, we would not suddenly become less ignorant of the causes and consequences of social phenomena. Indeed, if we accept that people tend to have better, albeit fallible, knowledge of their own mental states, then as persons come to acquire policymakers’-cum-surrogates’ remit of deciding on behalf of and ostensibly in the interests of constituents – in other words, as persons shift from primarily making personal policies meant only for themselves to also making political policies meant principally for others, they become less knowledgeable, more ignorant, in respects relevant to the success of the policies they make. It is epistemically easier for a person to make a successful personal policy than to make a successful political policy. The scope and scale of the knowledge required for policy success in the first instance is typically far more limited than in the second case. For the purposes of analyzing the causes and effects of political decision-making, we should conceive of the persons making political decisions as more ignorant, as less knowledgeable, than individuals as conceived for the purposes of analyzing personal decision-making. Surrogates and, therefore, policymakers, are uniquely ignorant among decision-makers.
Jack: You see?
Connor: I get it. Did you plan this?
Emma: Connie, how could I have planned it? How could I have known that you would ever bring the topic up again?!
Andre: You brought it up yourself, Connie!
Emma: Not everything is the result of planning, Connor. Some things are just fortuitous. Or, if you prefer…spontaneous! [smiling]
Connor [laughing]: Jeez. OK, yeah, I suppose.
Emma: The only question left, I think, is whether this conception meets the criteria we set out earlier. Can we agree that conceiving of policymakers as ignorant is simple, plausible, and relevant to explaining the causes and effects of their policy decisions? Zippy?
Jack: I’m on board.
Emma: Andre?
Andre: Yeah, I think you’re onto something.
Emma: Connor?
Connor: Eh, I still have some questions. I mean, what do you mean by ignorance? Or, more exactly, what do you mean by knowledge? What would it mean for policymakers to not be ignorant in some case?
Emma: Good question. I’m clearly using the words “knowledge” and “ignorance” in broad senses here. I mean “knowledge” to encompass both propositional and non-propositional knowledge, knowledge of facts and theories, but also abilities, capacities, talents, and powers.
Connor: So, knowledge includes both know-that and know-how? And ignorance encompasses does-not-know-that and does-not-know-how?
Emma: Correct. For every potential policy goal – indeed, for every potential goal, full stop – there is some combination of know-that, of theoretical and factual knowledge, of theory and data, and of know-how, of abilities and capacities, that is necessary to realize the goal. If a person possesses all of this knowledge or, more pertinent to the political context, if a group of persons, like a group of policymakers, collectively possess all of this knowledge, then they can, at least in principle, design, implement, and administer a plan for the deliberate realization of the goal.
Jack: So, if the actors possess the required knowledge, they can realize the goal without assistance from spontaneous forces?
Emma: Exactly. The nature and extent of the spontaneous forces required to realize a goal bear a kind of complementary relationship with the nature and extent of the actors’ ignorance regarding the goal. If the goal is to be realized despite actors’ ignorance, the former forces must compensate for the latter ignorance. Oh, I should also add that knowledge need not be explicit. Knowledge can be merely tacit.
Connor: In other words, if you know something, you know it, even if you don’t know that you know it? Is that tacit knowledge?
Emma: Yeah, right. For some philosophers, tacit knowledge is identical with know-how, but others argue that tacit knowledge is just knowledge that can’t be enunciated or otherwise expressed, and, if this is all it means, I don’t see why one couldn’t have tacit know-that. If it’s possible to possess knowledge of facts, knowledge that you don’t know that you possess or, at least, can’t explicate, then tacit know-that is possible.
Connor: That is a very broad conception of knowledge you’re positing…
Emma: I know. But notice how much it accomplishes that can’t be accomplished on the basis of the other conceptions we’ve considered. Unlike the question of the extent to which policymakers are constituent-minded rather than self-interested, policymaker ignorance, as I’ve defined it, can be investigated empirically. Perhaps more importantly, given the inverse relationship between the nature and extent of policymaker ignorance, and the nature and extent of the spontaneous forces that must intervene in order for a goal to be realized despite policymaker ignorance, these spontaneous forces are also opened up to empirical inquiry, at least to a degree.
Jack: So, if we can figure out the knowledge necessary to realize some policy goal and if we can figure out the relevant knowledge that policymakers actually possess, we will automatically learn about both the knowledge that they still need to acquire, if the goal is to be realized deliberately, and something about the kind and extent of spontaneous forces that must intervene, if the goal is to be realized despite their ignorance. And, what? We can then use this knowledge to look for, analyze the prospects for the emergence of, spontaneous forces of the required kind and degree? Is that what you’re saying?
Emma: Yes, basically. I don’t want to overstate the case. It’s not as if we learn everything that we might need to predict in detail the consequences of some policy decision, but we learn more from such an approach than we could ever learn by building an analysis on assumptions about the motivations of policymakers. It puts us in a better position to predict whether or not some policy will achieve its stated goal, to know that policymakers’ knowledge is or is not adequate for its deliberate realization, and, if not adequate, to acquire some grasp, albeit probably a far-from-perfect grasp, of the kind and extent of the spontaneous forces that must facilitate realization in the presence of policymaker ignorance, than it does to start from an uneducated guess about policymakers’ motivations.
Connor: Can you say how such an analysis would run in terms of a specific example?
Emma: I think so, yeah. Let’s go back to the example we discussed at Andre’s party. Imagine that policymakers want to address some public-health issue or, more exactly, that they want to mitigate as far as possible the deleterious health effects associated with some disease. What do they need to know in order to deliberately do so effectively, without the assistance of spontaneous forces? Obviously, the details will be different from one case to the next, depending on the disease or health issue at hand, but I think we can speak in a general way about the epistemic requirements of such an example. Let’s imagine that policymakers want to minimize the incidence and severity of adult-onset diabetes, to stay close to our prior discussion. What do they need to know in order to deliberately minimize the incidence and severity of adult-onset diabetes?
Jack: Well, they need to know the causes of the disease and, more specifically, the causes of the particular effects of the disease – say, premature death – that they wish to mitigate and how to manipulate these causal factors such that the relevant effects are mitigated in virtue of their manipulations. For this, they need an adequate theory, a causal or etiological theory, of diabetes that implies various possible interventions that, with varying probabilities, will mitigate, to some degree or other, the particular effects they wish to mitigate.
Emma: You’re getting good at this, Jack. What other knowledge, as we’ve defined it, do they need? You’re almost changing my opinion of you [smiles].
Jack: They need to know when and where to intervene in the ways, and to the extent, that, according to the theory, are necessary to mitigate the relevant effects to the desired degree. In other words, they need data concerning the incidence and severity of adult-onset diabetes. They need to know who has it and how bad, and, I would imagine, who is likely to get it in the future.
Emma: I think that’s right. What else?
Jack: They need the ability to perform the required interventions. They need to be able to manipulate the relevant causal factors, to intervene on people affected by the disease, in the way implied by the theory.
Emma: Excellent. OK, so, this is the first part of our analysis. We’ve just determined what knowledge is required to realize the relevant policy goal. What comes next?
Jack: I would think that the next step must involve comparing the epistemic requirements of the goal with the knowledge actually possessed by policymakers.
Emma: Right, but in order to do that, you have to first get some grasp on the knowledge possessed by policymakers or, at least, on the knowledge accessible to them; you have to figure out as far as possible what they know and what they are in a position to learn about the relevant causal mechanisms, data, et cetera; you also have to determine as far as you can what relevant capacities they possess and any further capacities they are in a position to acquire.
Connor: How do you do that? How do you figure out what knowledge a person possesses – or what knowledge a group of persons, such as policymakers, possess – and what their capacities are? That seems no easier than determining whether a person is motivated more by altruistic than by selfish considerations. How is that an improvement on existing conceptions of policymakers?
Emma: Admittedly, this second stage is likely to be sketchier and vaguer than the first. There are likely to be multiple theories in endocrinology and in each of the other fields of medical science relevant to Type-2 diabetes. And some of these theories are likely to be in some degree of tension with each other. It may be no more obvious to the policy analyst than it is to the policymaker that there is an adequate etiological theory of the disease. Similarly, there may be different, mutually inconsistent, sets of data concerning the incidence and severity of the disease, or it may be otherwise unclear whether the available data are adequate to the deliberate realization of the policy, given the adequacy of policymakers’ other relevant knowledge. Finally, it might not be apparent to the analyst whether policymakers have the know-how, whether they have the ability or capacity, required to perform the necessary interventions. But, I’m not claiming that political analysts will ever, much less always, be able to acquire comprehensive, unambiguous, and infallible knowledge of the knowledge possessed by policymakers. I’m merely arguing that political knowledge and, more importantly, political ignorance, can be investigated empirically, to some degree, and that any degree of empirical inquiry into political ignorance is probably better than other analytical methods that ignore the problem entirely.
Jack: Every difficulty you just raised for the analyst is no less a problem for the policymaker, right? If the analyst cannot determine whether policymakers possess the required know-that and know-how, isn’t this sufficient reason to doubt the adequacy of policymakers’ knowledge?
Emma: What do you mean, Zip?
Jack: I mean, we’re assuming – right? – that the policymaker and the analyst are similarly epistemically capable. The whole argument so far has been built on denying unique knowledge or special epistemic capacities to policymakers. Policymakers do not possess special knowledge mysterious to non-policymakers or unique powers not available to other mortals. So, if the analyst can’t determine whether any of the available etiological theories of the disease is adequate for the purposes of mitigating its deleterious effects, or if the analyst can’t determine the adequacy of either the data or the policymaker’s capacity to intervene in the necessary way, isn’t the policymaker likely to be similarly ignorant?
Emma: Ah, yes! Very good, Jack. What you’re asking, I think, is whether political analysts can infer from their own ignorance of some of the knowledge required to deliberately realize some policy goal – or, more carefully, whether analysts can infer from the judgment that were they in the position of the relevant policymakers, they would be ignorant of some of the requisite knowledge – that policymakers who are in fact so positioned are similarly ignorant. Yes, I think so. Given that no epistemic privileges attach to being a policymaker, I think this conclusion follows. It is not that the analyst needs to look into the minds of policymakers to determine what bits of knowledge they possess. The analyst just needs to determine whether the required knowledge is publicly available. If the required knowledge is not available to everyone who might look for it, then it’s not available to policymakers. Or, more to your point, if the policy adequacy of the publicly-available knowledge is obscure to the analyst, then – since policymakers cannot know the adequacy of this knowledge any better than the analyst can – the policy adequacy of the available knowledge is similarly obscure to policymakers.
Connor: And this is sufficient reason for the analyst to be skeptical that the relevant policy goal can be deliberately realized without the aid of spontaneity?
Emma: I should think so, surely, compared to a case where the adequacy of the available knowledge is apparent to all.
Andre: It doesn’t seem that difficult, Connor, to get some grasp on the knowledge accessible to policymakers. Sticking with the public-health example, the analyst has to determine which fields of medical science are relevant and the prevailing condition of available theories in these fields. Is there consensus concerning the adequacy of competing theories in the relevant fields? Why or why not? If there is a consensus, is it one that has emerged endogenously from the interactions of scientists or is it one that has been exogenously imposed on the field by some government or corporate entity? If there is no full-fledged consensus regarding a particular theory, what are the various theoretical options available to policymakers as potential tools for deliberately mitigating the negative health effects of the disease? More generally, what is the state of the various theories in the relevant fields relative to the available evidence? Are there theories in the relevant fields that are reasonably construed as potential tools for the deliberate realization of the goal? If not, then this is automatically a reason to be skeptical of policymakers’ ability to realize the goal without the help of spontaneous forces. If such theories are available, then the analyst moves on to make similar inquiries regarding the data to be inserted into these theories: What data are available? Are they compatible with the relevant theories? Are there potentially causally significant phenomena that are not reflected in the data? If so, what is the significance of any such lacunae for the prospects of deliberately realizing the goal via policymaking? If the available theoretical knowledge and data are adequate, the analyst moves on to consider policymakers’ ability to intervene in the causal nexus in the required way.
Jack: Analyzing policymakers’ capacity to intervene in the required way, I think, is a matter of examining the efficacy of the government’s implementation, enforcement, and administration apparatuses with respect to the relevant goal. How efficient is the prevailing governmental bureaucracy? What goals has it been put to work to realize? Has it been put to effective use in realizing objectives like the current one? Has it figured in the failure of any similar policy objectives? If so, which failures? What part did it play in these failures? In short, what is to be learned from the past successes and failures of the state bureaucracy that might be relevant to the question whether policymakers possess the capacity to deliberately realize the relevant goal in the present case?
Andre: I think that’s right. If I understand Emma’s argument correctly, the only situation in which it makes sense to think that policymakers can deliberately realize some goal is when the analyst is satisfied that policymakers’ epistemic capacities are sufficient in all of these respects. If the analyst is not satisfied that policymakers possess or can acquire all of the required knowledge, then skepticism of the possibility of deliberate realization of the goal is the appropriate reaction and the matter then becomes whether there are any spontaneous forces operating in the relevant context that might compensate for the ignorance of policymakers.
Emma [smiling]: You understand my argument, indeed, love. My approach makes the nature and extent of policymaker ignorance with respect to particular goals a matter for empirical investigation. More to the point, it makes the success or failure of particular policy pursuits predictable and explainable, at least to a degree. Now, I have admitted and I fully accept that political analysis based on a conception of policymakers as ignorant is unlikely to yield complete, clear, and exceptionless knowledge of policymaker knowledge and ignorance, and, thus, that it is unlikely to yield perfect predictions of the success or failure of policy pursuits, but the fact that it yields some such knowledge – knowledge that conceptions of policymakers based on motivational assumptions are incapable of yielding – is compelling and, I would think, sufficient to recommend my conception over either the Rousseauian or Humean conceptions.
Jack: I’m convinced! I hereby renounce the Humean conception of policymakers! Knaves or not, politicians are definitely ignoramuses! Wait, ignorami? Did we ever settle that?
Emma [broad smile]: You are no longer Zippy the Wonderdork, my friend. I hereby anoint you [touching Jack on each shoulder] Zippy the Wondergenius.
Jack [laughs]: Gee, thanks. Not Jack the Wondergenius?
Emma: Nope. Zippy you are and Zippy you shall remain [smiles].
Book Eight: For Further Reading
On the Logic and Ethics of Surrogate Decision-Making
A. E. Buchanan and D. W. Brock – 1989. Deciding for Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision Making (1989), Cambridge University Press
B. Kibbe and P. J. Ford – “What’s Knowledge Got to Do with It? Ethics, Epistemology, and Intractable Conflicts in the Medical Setting” (2016), The Journal of clinical ethics 27 (4): 352–358
D. Brudney – “The Different Moral Bases of Patient and Surrogate Decision-Making” (2018), Hastings Center Report 48 (1): 37–41.
Parker Crutchfield and Scott Scheall – “Epistemic Burdens and the Incentives of Surrogate Decision-makers” (2019), Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 22: 613–621
On Cartesian Epistemology
Rene Descartes – Discourse on Method ([1637] 1999), Hackett
Antonio Damasio – Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (2005), Penguin
On Tacit Knowledge
Gilbert Ryle – “Knowing How and Knowing That” (1946), Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 46: 1–16
F. A. Hayek – The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology ([1952 2017), in The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 14, Viktor Vanberg (ed.), University of Chicago Press
Michael Polanyi – The Tacit Dimension (1966), Doubleday & Company
Book Eight: Discussion Questions
1. We might define the class of policymakers more or less broadly. We might, for example, include only elected officials in the class and exclude anyone who does not hold elected office. Alternatively, we might include everyone involved in deciding policy and exclude everyone involved in implementing and administering policy. Consider and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different definitions of policymakers, given the goal of discovering a conception of policymakers that facilitates the analysis of their policy decisions and the consequences of these decisions.
2. What features distinguish policies from other sets of rules?
3. Different persons will qualify as either policymakers or constituents (or both) depending on the particular system of government, i.e., democracy (direct or representative), oligarchy, tyranny. Consider these different systems of government in turn and discuss the roles that different persons play in each, i.e., who counts as a policymaker and who qualifies as a constituent in each system of government?
4. Why are the classes of policymakers and constituents never identical?
5. Discuss the similarities and differences between policymakers and other kinds of surrogate decision-makers, e.g., medical surrogates, legal surrogates (i.e., persons with power of attorney), members of corporate boards of directors, parents of minor children.
6. How are cases of personal decision-making, in which persons decides for themselves, epistemically distinct from cases of surrogate decision-making, where persons decide on behalf and ostensibly in the interests of some other person(s)? That is, how does the decision-relevant knowledge of a person deciding for themselves differ from the relevant knowledge of a person deciding for others?
7. What is the significance of the relatively deficient epistemic circumstances of surrogate decision-makers for a conception of policymakers adequate to explaining the causes and effects of their policy decisions?
8. What knowledge is required to realize a goal deliberately (i.e., without assistance from luck, fortune, or any other spontaneous forces)? What does it mean to say that there is a complementary relationship between the need for spontaneous forces to assist in the realization of a goal and the actor’s relevant ignorance of knowledge required to deliberately realize the same goal?
9. Why does analyzing policymaker knowledge and ignorance not require “looking into the heads” of individual policymakers to determine what they (do not) know?