Experimental Methodology In Political Philosophy: Overcoming the Is-Ought Dilemma?

The increasing use of experimental logic in political philosophy has brought a range of methodological challenges, particularly concerning the proper utilization of thought experiments and their epistemic advantages. The paper presented examines the dual significance of experiments in political philosophy: explorative and justificatory, and outlines the implications of both accounts for political philosophy. While explorative experiments serve primarily for knowledge acquisition and exploration of moral intuitions, justificatory experiments aim for normative reasoning and justifying ought propositions. As follows, each experimental account employs a different research logic. The explorative usage of experiments in political philosophy implies a similar logic to the usage of experiments in empirical science, relying on variable manipulation to explore how moral intuitions shift towards specific cases under given circumstances (e.g., examining the impact of "X" on moral intuitions towards case "Y"). As such, the explorative usage of experiments in political philosophy implies naturalization that might entail the elimination of normativity as it formulates primarily "is statements" about morality. The explorative account thus enables the provision of the novelty of knowledge obtained through the specific inferential procedure (the variable manipulation). The justificatory account, on the other hand, adopts a different research logic as it starts with a normative proposition ("ought statement") that is being justified through experimental cases. In this approach, the experimental logic is equivalent to reasoning by analogy (and does not necessarily employ variable manipulation). The overall validity of the justificatory experimental account is, however, questionable as the experiments are intentionally formulated to support a given proposition and, as such, are part of motivated reasoning. The paper subsequently explores the potential of unification of both accounts and their simultaneous or consecutive application. Nevertheless, this pursuit encounters challenges arising from the inherent difficulty of deriving normative principles solely from factual statements, as addressed in the Humean is-ought dilemma. This dilemma presumes independence between facticity and normativity, posing a significant obstacle to unification. Drawing from the ongoing debate on the is-ought dilemma, the paper outlines potential strategies to bridge the logical gap within the context of political philosophy, such as I) Presupposing that value-laden "is" statements inherently lead to "ought" statements. II) Reducing "ought" to psychological motivations (pragmatism). III. Accepting that "ought" statements cannot be derived from factual statements, but recognizing that factual statements are not devoid of normativity. IV. Defining a fundamental moral norm from which all other norms are derived.