I think youāve misunderstood me. My complaint is not that these philosophers openly argue, āEAs are insufficiently Left, so be suspicious of them.ā (Thatās not what they say.) Rather, they presuppose Leftismās obviousness in a different way. They seem unaware that market liberals sincerely disagree with them about whatās likely to have good results.
This leads them to engage in fallacious reasoning, like āEAs must be methodologically biased against systemic change, because why else would they not support anti-capitalist revolution?ā I have literally never seen any proponent of the institutional critique acknowledge that some of us genuinely believe, for reasons, that anti-capitalist revolution is a bad idea. There is zero grappling with the possibility of disagreement about which āsystemic changesā are good or bad. Itās really bizarre. And I should stress that Iām not criticizing their politics here. Iām criticizing their reasoning. Their āevidenceā of methodological bias is that we donāt embrace their politics. Thatās terrible reasoning!
I donāt think Iām methodologically biased against systemic change, and nothing Iāve read in these critiques gives me any reason to reconsider that judgment. Itās weird to present as an āobjectionā something that gives oneās target no reason to reconsider their view. Thatās not how philosophy normally works!
Now, you could develop some sort of argument about which claims are or are not āextraordinaryā, and whether the historical success of capitalism relative to anti-capitalism really makes no difference to what we should treat as āthe default starting point.ā Those could be interesting arguments (if you anticipated and addressed the obvious objections)! Iām skeptical that theyād succeed, but Iād appreciate the intellectual engagement, and the possibility of learning something from it. Existing proponents of the institutional critique have not done any of that work (from what Iāve read to date). And theyāre philosophersāitās their job to make reasoned arguments that engage with the perspectives of those they disagree with.
I think youāve misunderstood me. My complaint is not that these philosophers openly argue, āEAs are insufficiently Left, so be suspicious of them.ā (Thatās not what they say.) Rather, they presuppose Leftismās obviousness in a different way. They seem unaware that market liberals sincerely disagree with them about whatās likely to have good results.
This leads them to engage in fallacious reasoning, like āEAs must be methodologically biased against systemic change, because why else would they not support anti-capitalist revolution?ā I have literally never seen any proponent of the institutional critique acknowledge that some of us genuinely believe, for reasons, that anti-capitalist revolution is a bad idea. There is zero grappling with the possibility of disagreement about which āsystemic changesā are good or bad. Itās really bizarre. And I should stress that Iām not criticizing their politics here. Iām criticizing their reasoning. Their āevidenceā of methodological bias is that we donāt embrace their politics. Thatās terrible reasoning!
I donāt think Iām methodologically biased against systemic change, and nothing Iāve read in these critiques gives me any reason to reconsider that judgment. Itās weird to present as an āobjectionā something that gives oneās target no reason to reconsider their view. Thatās not how philosophy normally works!
Now, you could develop some sort of argument about which claims are or are not āextraordinaryā, and whether the historical success of capitalism relative to anti-capitalism really makes no difference to what we should treat as āthe default starting point.ā Those could be interesting arguments (if you anticipated and addressed the obvious objections)! Iām skeptical that theyād succeed, but Iād appreciate the intellectual engagement, and the possibility of learning something from it. Existing proponents of the institutional critique have not done any of that work (from what Iāve read to date). And theyāre philosophersāitās their job to make reasoned arguments that engage with the perspectives of those they disagree with.