Conceptual Engineering and the Politics of Implementation

Abstract

: Conceptual engineering is thought to face an ‘ implementation challenge ’ :thechallengeofsecuringuptakeofengineeredconcepts.Butisthefactthat implementation is challenging really a defect to be overcome? What kind of pic- ture of political life would be implied by making engineering easy to implement? We contend that the ambition to obviate the implementation challenge goes against the very idea of liberal democratic politics. On the picture we draw, the implementation challenge can be overcome by institutionalizing control over conceptual uptake, and there are contexts – such as professions that depend on coordinated conceptual innovation – in which there are good reasons to institutionalize control in this fashion. But the liberal fear of this power to control conceptual uptake ending up in the wrong hands, combined with the democratic demandfor freedomofthought as a precondition ofgenuine consent,yieldsa liberal democratic rationale for keeping implementation challenging.