Conceptual Engineering without Bedrock and without Fixed Points

Abstract

This chapter considers whether there are any limits to conceptual engineering, developing the idea that there are no safe spaces from conceptual change. First, it considers Chalmers’s argument for bedrock concepts. It argues that Chalmers’s claim that there is an asymmetric structure in the space of disputes is an (implausible) empirical claim. Second, it considers Eklund’s claim to the effect that our thinnest normative concepts are irreplaceable, and this is a limit to conceptual engineering, and shows that Eklund doesn’t establish this. It ends by revisiting some old worries, defending the choice of the term ‘conceptual engineering’, and responding to the claim that by making conceptual engineering inscrutable and out of control, it has been debunked rather than defended. However, conceptual engineering is very hard for us to do, but so is (almost) everything that is important to us.