The Case Against Conceptual Engineering

Abstract This chapter focuses on sceptical arguments aimed to show that conceptual engineering is not possible. It introduces the famous charges that conceptual engineering amounts to changing the subject, that conceptual engineering leads to an unacceptable form of proliferation of engineering projects, that conceptual engineering cannot be squared with semantic externalism 9Putnam 1875), that there cannot be success conditions for conceptual engineering projects, and that there is simply no good track record of successful conceptual engineering projects. In this way, this chapter develops a set of desiderata for a theory of conceptual engineering. Any adequate account of conceptual engineering had better provide viable solutions to these problems.