Understanding the disagreement in these terms has, I want to argue, an important upshot for social and political philosophy. Most treatments on the nature of freedom, human rights, solidarity, and so on, do not spend much time delineating what particular contexts they are proposing their concepts for. The most one gets in discussions of freedom, for example, is that one aims to provide an analysis of political freedom (as opposed to an account of free will). But there is rarely discussion of what is meant by “politics.” What specific political circumstances does one need a concept of freedom for? For what uses? Is this a concept of freedom for the carceral system? For establishing a constitutional list of rights? For evaluating which regimes secure greater political freedom overall than other regimes (and what is the point of such an evaluation in the first place)? This background is taken for granted. Yet, if we take the idea of metalinguistic negotiation seriously, specifying the context is essential. This is because it will determine the criteria to adjudicate which concept is most useful, or appropriate, for that context. To draw the analogy, it matters for determining what concept of cold we should use whether we are talking about Antarctica or Los Angeles, and it matters, too, what we are meant to be doing (are we leaving for an expedition to rescue someone? Are we planning a party?).
This contextualization implies that, on the metalinguistic model, social and political philosophy should be embedded and self-reflexive... Theorizing must begin with current practices, and must make sense in terms of those practices. We need to know what contexts our substantive conceptions of justice, democracy, and so on, are meant to guide before we know which one we should choose. Just as it would be absurd to claim that there is a single, all-purpose concept of cold that we ought to use in the Antarctic and in LA, it would be just as absurd to claim that there is a single, all-purpose concept of justice, democracy, and so on, to use in every context in which it makes sense to apply the corresponding term. Different proposals regarding the nature of justice, democracy, equality, and so on, are intended, on this picture, as contributions to what we believe justice, democracy, solidarity, and so on, ought to be for us now and around here.
Critical Theory, Ideal Theory, and Conceptual Engineering, Sangiovanni, 2023
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