Do you have a sense of where numerically the line for what counts as “High Stakes Instrumentalism” should be among political theorists who endorse hybrid theories? Ie, what line is reasonable for where consensus would be:
okay, for sure. This counts as bad enough that we should make an exception to democratic proceduralism for these benefits?
Presumably, most philosophers and political theorists (are political theorists philosophers?) would agree that averting genuine risks to human extinction and large losses of human life are sufficient reason to avoid proceduralist positions. I expect most philosophers (though maybe not most laymen) would also consider factory farming to potentially be in that category.
But where is the line (typically) drawn? Presumably hybrid theorists will not be satisfied with a position like:
The democratic votes entail budget allocation X. However, a poll of the leading experts believe that budget allocation Y has 0.1% greater allocative efficiency. As allocative efficiency is directly causally upsteam of saving lives, we must instead choose budget allocation Y.
I read your post and skimmed the accompanying paper, and I see positive examples but not negative examples of what’s sufficiently large to count as High Stakes Instrumentalism.
Now, I think it’s possible/likely that there’s no clear dividing line, such that we can say with certainty that the consensus position is to take the democratic view if it’s A% inefficient but not A+1% inefficient. However, right now my uncertainty for where the line might naturally be ranges over several orders of magnitude!
I apologize if this comment comes across as aggressive or silly. This is a field I’m genuinely very ignorant of, so it’s quite likely that the question is simple or perhaps conceptually confused.
Defining the line of what counts as severe injustice, a high stakes error or a violation of a basic right, is not done precisely in the literature and is in my view impossible to do in a theoretically satisfying way. I think this is true for all nonconsequentialist thresholds. The point of nonconsequentialism is to avoid having to say how good something is, which makes it difficult/impossible to know how to trade-off different nonconsequentialist elements against each other. What do I do if I have to choose between the right to free speech and the economic minimum? If I don’t know how good these things are, I don’t see how I can compare and weigh them. Equally, what do I do if I have a 10% chance of violating someone’s right to free association and a 20% chance of violating someone’s right to an economic minimum? If you don’t know how good these outcomes are, probability weighing them isn’t much use when you’re deciding how to act.
Ultimately, the boundary of what counts as a high stakes error is defined fuzzily and arbitrarily.
Do you have a sense of where numerically the line for what counts as “High Stakes Instrumentalism” should be among political theorists who endorse hybrid theories? Ie, what line is reasonable for where consensus would be:
Presumably, most philosophers and political theorists (are political theorists philosophers?) would agree that averting genuine risks to human extinction and large losses of human life are sufficient reason to avoid proceduralist positions. I expect most philosophers (though maybe not most laymen) would also consider factory farming to potentially be in that category.
But where is the line (typically) drawn? Presumably hybrid theorists will not be satisfied with a position like:
I read your post and skimmed the accompanying paper, and I see positive examples but not negative examples of what’s sufficiently large to count as High Stakes Instrumentalism.
Now, I think it’s possible/likely that there’s no clear dividing line, such that we can say with certainty that the consensus position is to take the democratic view if it’s A% inefficient but not A+1% inefficient. However, right now my uncertainty for where the line might naturally be ranges over several orders of magnitude!
I apologize if this comment comes across as aggressive or silly. This is a field I’m genuinely very ignorant of, so it’s quite likely that the question is simple or perhaps conceptually confused.
Defining the line of what counts as severe injustice, a high stakes error or a violation of a basic right, is not done precisely in the literature and is in my view impossible to do in a theoretically satisfying way. I think this is true for all nonconsequentialist thresholds. The point of nonconsequentialism is to avoid having to say how good something is, which makes it difficult/impossible to know how to trade-off different nonconsequentialist elements against each other. What do I do if I have to choose between the right to free speech and the economic minimum? If I don’t know how good these things are, I don’t see how I can compare and weigh them. Equally, what do I do if I have a 10% chance of violating someone’s right to free association and a 20% chance of violating someone’s right to an economic minimum? If you don’t know how good these outcomes are, probability weighing them isn’t much use when you’re deciding how to act.
Ultimately, the boundary of what counts as a high stakes error is defined fuzzily and arbitrarily.