PANEL 23 / THE ETHICS OF PREFERENCE FORMATION
CONVENORS: CHRISTIAN NAKAZAWA, MEGAN WU, PATRICK PAN
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to
[email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
Preferences are typically treated as authoritative in liberal theory and theories of welfare. In normative philosophy, preferences are widely seen as reason-giving and the satisfaction of preferences may be thought to play a role in the human good. Preferences may also be used to settle questions of interpersonal distribution. Finally, preferences are used outside of philosophy as inputs to models in economics, social choice, and technological development.
Yet preferences are shaped by injustice, social hierarchy, and now predictive technologies. When preferences are formed under conditions of injustice, or are contributors to injustice, what normative authority ought they have?
This panel considers three cases of normatively suspect preferences:
(1) adaptive preferences (preferences formed in response to injustice),
(2) sexual preferences influenced by and constitutive of social hierarchy,
(3) preferences disturbed by predictive AI models.
While these cases differ, they raise shared questions about the normative status of preferences. This panel asks three interrelated questions:
(1) Under what conditions are preferences to be normatively legitimate and reason-giving?
(2) To what extent are we responsible for preferences shaped by injustice, social hierarchy, or technology?
(3) What significance might illegitimate preferences nevertheless have for the valued goods of our lives?
This panel challenges the assumption that preferences are automatically authoritative and provides normative insight on the question of how we should respond to preferences shaped by injustice, hierarchy, or technology.
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to
[email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
Preferences are typically treated as authoritative in liberal theory and theories of welfare. In normative philosophy, preferences are widely seen as reason-giving and the satisfaction of preferences may be thought to play a role in the human good. Preferences may also be used to settle questions of interpersonal distribution. Finally, preferences are used outside of philosophy as inputs to models in economics, social choice, and technological development.
Yet preferences are shaped by injustice, social hierarchy, and now predictive technologies. When preferences are formed under conditions of injustice, or are contributors to injustice, what normative authority ought they have?
This panel considers three cases of normatively suspect preferences:
(1) adaptive preferences (preferences formed in response to injustice),
(2) sexual preferences influenced by and constitutive of social hierarchy,
(3) preferences disturbed by predictive AI models.
While these cases differ, they raise shared questions about the normative status of preferences. This panel asks three interrelated questions:
(1) Under what conditions are preferences to be normatively legitimate and reason-giving?
(2) To what extent are we responsible for preferences shaped by injustice, social hierarchy, or technology?
(3) What significance might illegitimate preferences nevertheless have for the valued goods of our lives?
This panel challenges the assumption that preferences are automatically authoritative and provides normative insight on the question of how we should respond to preferences shaped by injustice, hierarchy, or technology.
