Normative Restrictions on Conceptual Engineering

Abstract This chapter focuses on the normative limits of conceptual engineering: when is it permissible to engage in engineering projects? It argues that the ameliorative project has, so far, been too modest; there is little value-theoretic reason to normatively restrict the project to remedying deficient representational devices, rather than go on a more ambitious quest: conceptual improvement. That being said, it also identifies a limitation to the optimistic claim, showing that ameliorative projects suffer from a ‘wrong-kind-of-reasons’ problem: not just any reason to engineer will deliver conceptual amelioration. Last but not least, the chapter sketches a proposal of normative constraining meant to address both the above results.