Empirical Approaches to Normative Theory

Empirical methodologies and philosophy are rarely discussed together but this essay is about how simulations and experiments may be useful in the pursuit of philosophical knowledge. It focuses on how these methods can illuminate some fundamental problems in political philosophy viewed as a branch of ethical philosophy. It is widely accepted that the way a social decision is made can affect not only the substantive content of the decision but its ethical status. We argue that certain conditions, such as impartiality, may be necessary for the achievement of social optima and for imbuing some decisions with ethical validity. Experiments and simulations may help in the discovery of both the normative an substantive implications of various decision processes and hence the content of such properties in decision making. For ethical consequentialists this would be part of a feedback loop: the substantive implications of a process would help determine the ethical status of the decision and help identify appropriate properties for social decision making structures.