{"id":37012,"date":"2024-09-10T07:00:37","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/?p=37012"},"modified":"2024-09-11T07:46:16","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T06:46:16","slug":"engineering-concepts-why-language-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/engineering-concepts-why-language-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering concepts \u2013 Why language matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Current political discourse teems with discussions about language. People get hot-headed about gender-neutral language, street names, what one is \u201cstill allowed to say,\u201d and the limits of political correctness. Recently, the German state of Bavaria\u2019s conservative government even went so far as to ban<\/em> outright gender-neutral spellings in all legal and administrative state regulation, the justification being that such spellings would make official regulations harder to understand.<\/p>\n

I will not wade into the gendering debate here. Instead, I wish to make a general point about this type <\/em>of debate which we recently covered in the MPE<\/a>, namely: It would be a mistake to take the words we find ourselves with for granted. Instead, we should <\/em>evaluate our vocabulary, consider whether and how it can be enhanced<\/em>, and reform <\/em>it if doing so will lead to an improvement. Which words we ought to use poses genuine and sometimes serious normative questions, and we should treat them as such.<\/p>\n

Why what a word means is important<\/h2>\n

Let me start by illustrating why a word’s meaning can be quite important. Consider the following case: In 2006 the International Astronomical Union changed the meaning of \u201cplanet,\u201d such that Pluto no longer qualifies as a planet. Why did they do so? Because this change in meaning made \u201cplanet\u201d scientifically more useful: it allowed more precise descriptions of the world, offered more fruitful explanations, and made our astronomical theories better.<\/p>\n

Now consider another, slightly more vexed case, where changing the meaning of language could also lead to important improvements. Take \u201cmarriage.\u201d \u201cMarriage\u201d is a word with substantial practical significance. In many cultures, marital unions have a privileged status compared to other types of relationships, a status that tends to come with many perks (and not just financial benefits like tax breaks; rather, marriage also tends to reduce administrative burdens, e.g., when immigrating as a couple, or recognising parenthood). Traditionally, though, the meaning of \u201cmarriage\u201d has covered only unions between men <\/em>and women<\/em>, which contributes to discrimination against same-sex couples. Since discrimination is bad, this speaks for reforming the meaning of \u201cmarriage\u201d so as to render it more inclusive. Hence, as this example shows, there can also be moral <\/em>reasons to change the meaning of our words.<\/em><\/p>\n

Accordingly, we should not just ask what words actually <\/em>mean, but what they should <\/em>mean, given our specific interests, values and objectives. If our terms currently mean something that has problematic implications and there is a better alternative available, we should reform <\/em>them. Philosophers have come up with a term for this: \u2018conceptual engineering\u2019.<\/p>\n

What ought a word to mean?<\/h2>\n

How do you find out what a term ought <\/em>to mean? Here is a plausible picture: First, determine what the term in question allows us to do, such that we have good reasons to use it. Let us call this the term\u2019s \u2018function\u2019. For \u201cplanet\u201d, this function might be to describe the world. For \u201cmarriage\u201d, it might be to organise our social practices in certain ways. Next, consider whether there are specific ways for the term to fulfil its function that are problematic. For example, if \u201cmarriage\u201d is used in a way that contributes to discrimination, that would be a problematic way for it to organise social practices. Finally, you have discovered what a term ought<\/em> to mean if you have identified how it best fulfils its function while avoiding problematic uses.<\/p>\n

Of course, how to assess uses and weigh conflicting reasons depends on the details of each individual case. Maybe the reasons for Bavaria\u2019s Government banning gender-inclusive spellings outweigh the moral considerations that speak for introducing such spellings. Importantly, though, cases such as these must be evaluated on the basis of good<\/em> reasons<\/em>, where these can be related to getting a better grasp of the world as well as moral <\/em>considerations. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Hence, questions about which words we ought to use are important normative questions, and we should treat them as such. We must seek them out by actively reflecting on our current vocabulary, face them heads-on, and investigate them carefully and systematically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current political discourse teems with discussions about language. People get hot-headed about gender-neutral language, street names, what one is \u201cstill allowed to say,\u201d and the limits of political correctness. Recently, the German state of Bavaria\u2019s conservative government even went so far as to ban outright gender-neutral spellings in all legal and administrative state regulation, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":961,"featured_media":37081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,2036,1283],"tags":[2520,182,1211],"class_list":["post-37012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bachelor","category-bachelor-of-science-mpe","category-economics","tag-conceptual-engineering","tag-language","tag-mpe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37012"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37221,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37012\/revisions\/37221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}